Contact-angle measurements as a means of probing the surface alignment characteristics of liquid crystal materials on photoalignment layers

K. L. Marshall; O. Didovets; D. Saulnier

doi:10.1117/12.2062074

7 October 2014 Contact-angle measurements as a means of probing the surface alignment characteristics of liquid crystal materials on photoalignment layers

K. L. Marshall, O. Didovets, D. Saulnier

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9182, Liquid Crystals XVIII; 91820J (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062074
Event: SPIE Organic Photonics + Electronics, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The exceptionally high 1054-nm laser-damage resistance of photoalignment materials (approaching that of fused silica) has made it possible to fabricate a wide variety of photoaligned liquid crystal (LC) devices for high-peak-power laser applications. Despite these advances, materials selection and photoalignment exposure conditions are still determined using costly and time-consuming “trial-and-error” methods. The contact angle of a fluid droplet on an alignment layer yields important information about LC-surface physicochemical interactions, and as such, it has potential as a rapid and convenient metric for optimizing photoaligned device quality. To this end, we report on efforts to correlate fluid contact angle with surface energy and azimuthal-anchoring energy to aid in the assessment of alignment quality in photoalignment materials systems.

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K. L. Marshall, O. Didovets, and D. Saulnier "Contact-angle measurements as a means of probing the surface alignment characteristics of liquid crystal materials on photoalignment layers", Proc. SPIE 9182, Liquid Crystals XVIII, 91820J (7 October 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062074

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