STTR Phase II: Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal (FLC) Gels for Facile Processing and High Yield Manufacture of Hardened FLC Displays

“该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111 - 5）资助的。“这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第二阶段项目将使铁电液晶（FLC）电光器件的广泛使用成为可能，从而导致新一代显示器具有更高的速度，更高的分辨率和更低的功耗，比今天的液晶显示器（LCD），使用LCD。在第一阶段中展示的一系列专有添加剂“聚合物掺杂剂”克服了FLC器件大规模应用的主要技术障碍：制造和稳定适当对齐的电池。拟议的工作将开发FLC聚合物材料，加快加工速度，提高对齐良好的FLC电池的产量。在第一阶段，研究小组：1）确定了溶解在FLC中的侧基液晶聚合物。2）显示了FLC-聚合物混合物保持快速电光（EO）响应3）证明了FLC-聚合物混合物稳健且快速地采用适当的对准，给出了在单独的FLC中难以实现的电光开关。在第二阶段，该团队将建立聚合物掺杂剂的结构-活性关系。它将优化FLC-聚合物混合物，以建立可靠的工艺，从而以高产量和高生产率生产良好对齐的FLC电池。每年大约有2x109个小型平板显示器用于手机、PDA、iPod等。目前，LCD在LCD市场上占据绝对主导地位，每年200亿美元的LCD市场，使用每年3.5亿美元的LC材料制造。该项目中开发的添加剂将使FLC能够加工成该尺寸范围内的显示器，从而在LCD中提供分辨率和速度的阶跃变化。这将为FLCs进入LCD电视奠定基础（2008年市场规模为863亿美元/年，增长迅速）。实现10 cm及以上FLC显示器的商业化生产可能会彻底改变显示器技术，并可能推动美国显示器制造商的发展。科学家们认为，FLC中聚合物的解决方案代表了一种新生的材料，几乎没有被探索过。这个项目是在液晶实验研究的前沿，提供了第一次瞥见的后果取向耦合手性近晶液晶。

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will enable the widespread use of ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) electro-optic devices, leading to a new generation of displays that have greater speed, higher resolution and lower power consumption than today's liquid crystals displays (LCDs), which use nematic LCs. A proprietary family of additives, "polymer dopants" demonstrated in Phase I, overcomes the main technical obstacles to large-scale application of FLC devices: manufacturing and stabilizing properly aligned cells. The proposed work will develop FLC-polymer materials that expedite processing and increase the yield of well-aligned FLC cells. In Phase I the team: 1) Identified side-group liquid crystal polymers that dissolve in FLC. , 2) Showed that the FLC-polymer mixtures retain fast electro-optic (EO) responses3) Demonstrated that the FLC-polymer mixtures robustly and rapidly adopt the proper alignment, giving bistable switching that is elusive in the FLC alone. In Phase II the team will establish the structure-activity relationships for polymer dopants. It will optimize the FLC-polymer mixtures to establish reliable processes to produce well aligned FLC cells in high yield at high production rates. Approximately 2x109 small flat panel displays are used annually in cell phones, PDAs, iPods, etc. Currently, nematic LCDs overwhelmingly dominate this market $20 billion/year in LCDs, manufactured using $350 million/year of LC materials. The additives developed in this project will allow FLCs to be processed into displays in this size range, providing a step-change in resolution and speed in LCDs. This will lay the foundation for moving FLCs into LCD TVs ($86.3 billion/year market in 2008, growing rapidly). Enabling commercial production of FLC displays 10 cm and up could revolutionize display technology and potentially fuel the growth of display manufacturers in the U.S. Scientifically, solutions of polymers in FLCs represent a nascent class of materials that has hardly been explored. This project is at the cutting edge of experimental research in LCs, providing the first glimpse into the consequences of orientational coupling in chiral smectic LCs.