LIQUID CRYSTAL

Solid
Liquid crystal
“fourth state of matter”

Liquid
Gas Images: MacDonald, R. “Liquid Crystals -
Fascinating State of Matter or "Soft is
beautiful". Accessed 7-2006
 What is a Liquid
Crystal?
Liquid Crystal – a stable
phase of matter
characterized by anisotropic
properties without the
existence of a 3-dimensional
crystal lattice – generally
lying between the solid and
 INTRODUCTION
• Liquid crystals are substances that
exhibit a phase of matter that has
properties between those of a
conventional liquid, and those of a solid
crystal.

• liquid crystal (LC) may flow like a liquid,

but have the molecules in the liquid
arranged and/or oriented in a crystal-like
 INTRODUCTION
• Liquid crystals can be considered to be
crystals which have lost some or all of
their positional order, while maintaining
full orientational order.

• Liquid crystals retain many of the optical

qualities -- such as the ability to bend light
and change its color
 Unique Properties of
Liquid Crystals

The orientation of Liquid Crystals can

be affected by…

• Pressure
• Temperature
• Electrical Field

S. Palmer, LCTec Displays, Inc. 2005

• A liquid crystal (LC) is thermotropic if the
order of its components is determined or
changed by temperature.
• If temperature is too high, the rise in
energy and therefore in motion of the
components will induce a phase change:
the LC will become an isotropic liquid.
• on the contrary, temperature is too low to
support a thermotropic phase, the LC will
become a crystal.
 Liquid Crystal
Phases
There are 2 basic phases
Nematic & Smectic

Anisotrpic substances
may go through one or
several
Images from Sheffield Hallum University, United
 Liquid crystal phases

When viewed under a microscope using a

polarized light source, different liquid
crystal phases will appear to have a
distinct texture

The various LC phases (called mesophases)

can be characterized by the type of
ordering that is present
 Nematic Liquid Crystals
One of the most common LC phases is
the nematic, where the molecules
have no positional order, but they do
have long-range orientational order.

Nematics are polarizable rod-like

organic molecules on the order of 20
Angstroms in length.
 Smectic Liquid Crystals
• Smectic Liquid crystals are different
from nematics in that they have one
more degree of orientational order
than do the nematics.

• Smectics generally form layers within

which there is a loss of positional
order, while orientational order is still
preserved.
 Smectic Liquid Crystals
• There are several different categories to
describe smectics.

• Smectic A, in which the molecules align

perpendicular to the layer planes.

• Smectic C, where the alignment of the

molecules is at some arbitrary angle to the
normal.
 Historical overview
• Liquid crystal materials were first
discovered in 1888 by an Austrian
botanist, F. Renitzer.

• The first room-temperature nematic liquid

crystal was observed in the late 1960s.
Unfortunately this crystal had quite a short
temperature range as it was affected by
impurities.

• The major breakthrough came when

 Historical overview
• The ferroelectric chital smecic (FLC) phase
was discovered in 1975 and proved to
have a unique form of ferroelectricity.

• During the 1970s and 1980s several liquid

crystal compounds and phases were
discovered, primarily by the industry, but
also in several research programs on liquid
crystal materials in colleges and
universities around the world.
 Applications of liquid
crystals
• Liquid crystals find wide use in
liquid crystal displays, which rely on the
optical properties of certain liquid
crystalline molecules in the presence or
absence of an electric field.

• A liquid crystal display is a thin, flat

display device made up of any number of
color or monochrome pixels arrayed in
front of a light source or reflector.
 Liquid Crystal Display
• Liquid crystal sandwiched between two
transparent layers form images.

Polarizer
Color filter
Color filter
Liquid glass
Crystal

Glass
polarizer

Backlight

© 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc. 16

 APPLICATION OF LIQUID

• LCDs are found in wrist-watches,

calculators,
portable computes and various other
devices where a low-power display is
needed.
Liquid Crystal
Display
 Applications of liquid
crystals
• Liquid crystal in fluid form is used to
detect electrically generated hot
spots for failure analysis in the
semiconductor industry.

• Liquid crystal memory units with

extensive capacity were used in
Space Shuttle navigation equipment.
 APPLICATION OF LIQUID
CRYSTAL
• Thermotropic chiral LCs whose pitch
varies strongly with temperature can
be used as crude thermometers.

• liquid crystal displays with wider

viewing angles, and displays that can
remain in use for years without the
need of power.
 Suppliers and Markets
• Most of this research is situated in Japan
due to strong manufacturing capability
and high research funds. The most
frequently used liquid crystalline phase
used today in display devices is the
nematic phase.

• About 50 % of all nematic materials

supplied by Merck-Japan, which is the
biggest producer of such materials, goes
to these applications.
 Suppliers and Markets
• The Merck group, which consists of E.
Merck Darmstadt, Merck-Japan, Ltd., and
Merck Ltd., Poole, holds early patents and
is a major supplier (50% worldwide) of
nematic liquid crystal materials.

• Their sales breakdown is as follows: 70%

to Japan, 25-30% to Southeast Asia, and 1-
2% each to Europe and the United States.
 Suppliers and Markets
• The joint venture RODIC claims 30%
of the liquid crystal material market
in Japan. Hoffman-LaRoche in Basel,
Switzerland, supplies Southeast Asia,
the United States, and Europe
 "When it's on, it has focusing power
and can be used like reading glasses,
and when it's off, it's just like clear
glass."
• Because lenses made with nematic liquid
crystals can easily change their focusing
power, optics researchers have eagerly
eyed them as potential replacements for
multifocal lenses. But these efforts have
been hamstrung by slow response times
associated with the relatively thick layers of
liquid crystal required.

• The lens design features a liquid-crystal

layer sandwiched between two thin sheets
of glass. Tiny electrodes
photolithographically patterned onto the
• You probably use items containing an LCD
(liquid crystal display) every day.
- They are all around us -- in laptop computers,
digital clocks and watches, microwave ovens,
CD players and many other electronic devices.
- LCDs are common because they offer some
real advantages over other display
technologies. They are thinner and lighter and
draw much less power.
"When it's on, it has focusing power
and can be used like reading glasses,
and when it's off, it's just like clear
glass."
Isotropic
Liquids and gases
(uniform properties
in all directions).

vs.
Anisotropic
Liquid Crystals
have orientational
order
 LCD Alignment
Natural
state

Sharp Technologies,

When coming into contact with a finely

grooved surface (alignment layer), LC
molecules line up parallel along groove
due to their rod-like shape.
Coating ITO glass with a layer of PVA and
rubbing repeatedly creates these
grooves.
• recent applications involve switchable windows that can be changed from clear and opaque with the flip of a switch,
liquid crystal displays with wider viewing angles, and displays that can remain in use for years without the need of
power.

•
DEFINITION
Normally, we consider matter to have three distinct states: solid, liquid, and gas. However, there are states of matter
which do not meet the necessary requirements of any of these three categories. For example, a substances such as
mayonnaise is somewhere between a liquid and a solid.
• Liquid crystals are also not quite liquid and not quite solid. Physically, they are observed to flow like liquids, but they
have some properties of crystalline solids. Liquid crystals can be considered to be crystals which have lost some or all of
their positional order, while maintaining full orientational order. For example, imagine a large number of toothpicks put
into a rectangular box and shaken. When you open the box, the toothpicks will be facing in about the same direction, but
will have no definite spatial organization. They are free to move, but like to line up in about the same direction. This is a
primitive model for nematic liquid crystals.
Nematic Liquid Crystals
• Nematics are polarizable rod-like organic molecules on the order of 20 Angstroms in length. Because of their tendency to
organize themselves in a parallel fashion, they demonstrate interesting and useful optical properties; the digital watch
you used to wear back in the 80's functioned using nematic liquid crystals. Today, many more useful and interesting
properties of nematics are known and exploited.

Smectic Liquid Crystals

• Smectic Liquid crystals are different from nematics in that they have one more degree of orientational order than do the
nematics. Smectics generally form layers within which there is a loss of positional order, while orientational order is still
preserved. There are several different categories to describe smectics. The two best known of these are Smectic A, in
• ANALOGY
f molecules can be compared to
soldiers, then the solid state would be
the soldiers standing at attention
(facing the same direction and frozen in
position), the liquid crystal state would
be the soldiers marching in formation
(all in the same direction, but free to
move), and the liquid state would be
the soldiers wandering around at a
carnival (free to move around at
New type of thermometer r
made which change clr by
A liquid crystal (LC) is thermotropic
if the order of its components is
determined or changed by
temperature.
If temperature is too high, the rise in
energy and therefore in motion of the
components will induce a
phase change: the LC will become an
isotropic liquid. If, on the contrary,
temperature is too low to support a
thermotropic phase, the LC will
become a crystal.
There is therefore a range of
temperatures at which we observe
thermotropic LCs; and most of these
have several "subphases" (nematic,
• Liquid crystals retain many of the optical qualities --
such as the ability to bend light and change its color --
as their more stationary solid crystal counterparts, but
they also have the added advantage of a liquid's
mobility, so they are easily moved around in an
electric field. The combination of these qualities can
make liquid crystals change colors when heated,
important for such devices as thermometers, or can
allow light through the liquid crystal when electricity is
applied, creating things like liquid crystal displays, or
LCDs. In a standard application, such as a computer
screen, the surface is coated with a long-chain
molecule, and then rubbed with cloth so that the
crystals will face a preferred direction. Rubbing
introduces all kinds of imperfections, such as
scratches, dust, and static, but it has been very
successful at allowing alignment of liquid crystals over
• envisions someday having a blood
test based on liquid crystals: for
example, a glass plate coated with
antibodies to viral proteins. A blood
sample could be spread on it, then a
layer of liquid crystals; if the blood
had proteins in it, it would transmit
light differently than if there were not
proteins, and this could be
immediately apparent to the naked
eye.
 liquid crystals is in electro-
optic devices. These are

• Many liquid crystals are simple

polymeric organic compounds. We tend
to think of polymers as flexible
(polythenes etc.) so for liquid crystals
the polymers have to incorporate a
rigid section, either in the long polymer
section (main chain liquid crystals) or
attached to the polymer as a 'side
chain'. But the basic elements involved
are simply C, H, N, O (for example) - so
that's what they're made of!
 liquid crystals is in electro-optic devices.
These are electrically controlled devices that
modulate light in a desired way
• In a solid the dipoles are too tightly bound
to be easily reoriented by an electric field.
In a normal liquid the thermal motion of the
molecules normally overcomes the
tendency for the dipoles to orient. In a polar
liquid crystal, on the other hand, we find
just the right combination of order and
flexibility to make the dipoles follow the sign
of the field. Because the dipoles have a
fixed sterical relation to the director, the
field will turn the optic axis. This can be
used to control the way the optic axis
points, or to unwind the helical structure of
a chiral tilted smectic phase. Polar liquid