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

“这项奖励是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。”这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）二期项目将使铁电液晶（FLC）电光器件得到广泛应用，从而产生比目前使用向列液晶显示器（lcd）具有更快速度、更高分辨率和更低功耗的新一代显示器。在第一阶段展示的专有添加剂系列“聚合物掺杂剂”克服了FLC设备大规模应用的主要技术障碍：制造和稳定适当排列的电池。提出的工作将开发FLC聚合物材料，加快加工速度，提高排列良好的FLC细胞的产量。在第一阶段，团队：1)确定了溶解在FLC中的侧基液晶聚合物。(2)证明了FLC-聚合物混合物保持了快速的电光响应；(3)证明了FLC-聚合物混合物稳定而快速地采用适当的对准，实现了FLC单独难以实现的双稳态开关。在第二阶段，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，建立可靠的工艺，以高产量、高生产率生产排列良好的FLC细胞。每年大约有2x109个小型平板显示器用于手机、pda、ipod等。目前，向列式lcd压倒性地主导着这个市场，每年的lcd市场价值200亿美元，每年使用3.5亿美元的LC材料制造。在这个项目中开发的添加剂将允许flc被加工成这个尺寸范围的显示器，为lcd的分辨率和速度提供一个阶梯变化。这将为FLCs进入LCD电视（2008年市场规模为863亿美元，增长迅速）奠定基础。实现10厘米及以上的FLC显示屏的商业化生产可能会彻底改变显示技术，并有可能推动美国显示器制造商的发展。科学地说，FLC聚合物的解决方案代表了一种新兴的材料类别，几乎没有被探索过。该项目处于LCs实验研究的前沿，首次揭示了手性微晶LCs中取向耦合的结果。

"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.