Liquid crystal orientation on solution processed zinc oxide inorganic films according to molecular concentration

Abstract In this paper we present the characteristics of molar concentration-dependent zinc oxide (ZnO) inorganic films deposited by the solution process for application in liquid crystal displays. ZnO surfaces supported homogeneously aligned liquid crystal (LC) molecules based on an ion-beam (IB) irradiation system. Uniform LC alignment was obtained at ZnO molar concentrations greater than 0.25 mol l −1 . X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) analysis revealed that changes in the orientation of LC molecules occurred on the ZnO layer. The electro-optic characteristics of the aligned homogenous LCs and twisted nematic (TN) mode based on the ZnO layer were comparable to those based on polyimide, which showed good potential as ZnO surfaces as an alignment layer.