The Influence of the Driving Voltage and Ion Concentration on the Lateral Ion Transport in Nematic Liquid Crystal Displays

Nematic liquid crystal displays (LCDs) contain ions that influence the electrooptical characteristics of the display. A typical super-twisted nematic (STN) display for mobile phone applications becomes darker at a standard driving frequency if it contains many impurity ions. We have discovered that ions can travel in the plane of the glass plates in the absence of a lateral electric field, leading to lateral nonhomogeneity in transmission (dark and bright stripes). In this paper, we present our research on the lateral ion transport dependence on the driving square wave (SQW) amplitude and dc component at a wide range of ion concentrations. The existence of a dc component, a high ion concentration and high SQW amplitudes increase the lateral ion speed.