Liquid Crystal Polymer Composite Materials for LCDs

Digital displays nowadays play an essential and ubiquitous role in everyday life, and, in several applications, flexibility (i.e., the possibility to bend the device) or, at least, bending capability (i.e., the possibility to manufacture devices on a curved surface) is desirable or required. Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) and other liquid crystal/polymer compounds are an interesting class of composite materials for the realization of flexible displays, since they couple the electrooptical properties of liquid crystals to the mechanical properties of polymers and can take full advantage from electronic properties of conducting copolymers. In this chapter, we will briefly discuss preparation techniques and then illustrate the working principle corresponding to different liquid crystal configurations (nematic, chiral, smectic, ferroelectric, holographic) with some examples.