Chemical Structural Effects of Polyimides on the Alignment and Electro-optical Properties of Liquid Crystal Cells

The nature of the nematic liquid crystal (LC) alignment induced by the rubbed polyimide (PI) alignment layers (ALs) and the electro-optical (EO) properties of the LC cells are expected to depend on the chemical and physical features of the PI. By employing five pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA)-type PIs having different functionalities, we have studied the effects of the PI's structure and chemistry on the alignment characteristics and the cell's EO properties. Increasing the flexibility of the PI increases the pretilt angle and tends to improve the alignment stability. On the other hand, the rigid, fluorinated PI displays poor stability for LCs and induces a less stable/uniform LC alignment and, subsequently, a small pre tilt angle. It also transpired that fluorination of the PI deteriorated the voltage-transmittance characteristics and the voltage holding ratio; increasing the flexibility of the PI structure improves these EO properties. The finding that the qualitative trends for the PI's functionalities are similar for both the alignment and EO properties suggests that the EO properties are closely related to the alignment characteristics, which are determined by short-range interactions between LC and PI molecules.