UNIVERSITY NAME

LOGO
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
(Session: 2012-13)
LIQUID CRYSTAL
In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
Of
P.HD
In
PHYSICS

GUIDED BY:

SUBMITTED BY:

UNIVERSITY NAME
LOGO
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
(Session: 2012-13)
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that NAMEstudent of P.HD in the academic year 2012-2013 of
this institute have completed their Dissertation Part-1 LIQUID CRYSTALand
submit a satisfactory report as a part of requirement for the award of degree of
Master of engineering from COLLEGE NAME

Guide

Head of Department

Director

DECLARATION
We hereby declare that the work which is being presented in the
dissertation part-I report entitled
LIQUID CRYSTAL
In partial fulfillment of PHD in PHYSICS an authentic record of our own work
carried out under the guidance of Asst. Prof. .The work has been carried out at
University name.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 1 ITNRODUCTION
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7

Liquid Crystal
Liquid Crystal Types
Reorientation of the molecules in electric fields
Optical birefringence
Switchable birefringence
Choosing the preferential direction of the molecules
Calculation of the director pattern in a liquid crystal medium

CHAPTER 2: LITRATURE REVIEW

2.1 CONTINUUM THEORIES
2.2 Frank Elasticity
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Tools for collecting Secondary Data
3.3 Research Objective
3.4 Nematic Phase Liquid Crystals
3.5 Twisted nematic (TN), supertwisted nematic (STN) and active matrix
(AMLCD) displays
3.6 LCD Protocol interface
CHAPTER 4: ORGANIC LIGHT EMITTING DIODES
4.1 OLED Principle
4.2 Efficiency
4.3 Electrophoretic Displays
4.4 Principle of an electrophoretic display
4.5 Electrophoretic Displays Advantages
4.6 Electro chromic displays
4.7 Principle of oxidation and reduction

4.8 Molecular dyes

CHAPTER 5: COMPUTER SIMULATION OF CONFINED AND FLEX ELECTRIC
LIQID CRYSTALLINE SYSTEMS
5.1 Density functional theory
5.2 Maier Saupe theory
5.3 Technology
5.4 Electroluminescent Displays
5.5 Light-Emitting Diode (LED) Arrays
CHAPTER 6: POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS CONSTITUENTS
6.1 Toxicity of FPD Constituents
6.2 Inorganic Constituents
6.3 Organic Constituents
CHAPTER 7: RECYCLING TECHNOLOGIES UNDER DEVELOPMENT
7.1 Recycling of Liquid Crystals and Liquid Crystal Mixtures
7.2 Recycling of LCD Panels
CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES

ABSTRACT
Liquid

crystal

materials

generally

have

several

common

characteristics. Among these are rod-like molecular structures,

rigidness of the long axis, and strong dipoles and/or easily
polarizable substituents.
The distinguishing characteristic of the liquid crystalline state is
the tendency of the molecules (mitogens) to point along a
common axis, called the director. This is in contrast to molecules

in the liquid phase, which have no intrinsic order. In the solid

state, molecules are highly ordered and have little translational
freedom. The characteristic orientation order of the liquid crystal
state is between the traditional solid and liquid phases and this is
the origin of the term mesogenic state, used synonymously with
liquid crystal state. Note the average alignment of the molecules
for each phase in the following diagram.
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a thin, flat electronic visual
display that

uses

the

light

modulating

properties

of liquid

crystals (LCs). LCs does not emit light directly. They are used in a
wide

range

of

monitors, television,

applications
instrument

including: computer

panels, aircraft

cockpit

displays, signage, etc. They are common in consumer devices

such

as

video

watches, calculators,

players,

gaming

and telephones.

devices, clocks,
LCDs

have

displaced cathode ray tube (CRT) displays in most applications.

They are usually more compact, lightweight, portable, less
expensive, more reliable, and easier on the eyes. They are
available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma

displays, and since they do not use phosphors, they cannot suffer
image burn-in.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Liquid Crystal

Materials in nature can be divided into different phases, also

called states of matter, depending on the mobility of the
individual atoms or molecules. The obvious states of matter are
the solid, the fluid and the gaseous state. In the solid state,
intermolecular forces keep the molecules close together at a fixed
position and orientation, so the material remains in a definite
shape. In the fluid state, the molecules are still packed closely
together, but they are able to move around. Hence a fluid does
not have a rigid shape, but adapts to the contours of the
container that holds it. Like a liquid a gas has no fixed shape, but
it has little resistance to compression because there is enough
empty space for the molecules to move closer. Whereas a liquid
placed in a container will form a puddle at the bottom of the
container, a gas will expand to fill the container.
Although the three categories seem very well defined, the borders
between the different states are not always clear. Apart from the
three familiar states, there exist a large number of other
intermediate phases. A simple example is a gel. A gel is not quite
solid, neither is it a liquid. Liquid crystals are another important
intermediate phase which exhibits features from both the solid

and the fluid state. Liquid crystals have the ordering properties of
solids but they flow like liquids. Liquid crystalline materials have
been observed for over a century but were not recognized as such
until 1880s. In 1888, Friedrich Reinitzer (picture) is credited for
the first systematic description of the liquid crystal phase and
reported his observations when he prepared cholesteryl benzoate,
the first liquid crystal.
Ordinary fluids are isotropic in nature: they appear optically,
magnetically, electrically, etc. to be the same from any direction
in space. Although the molecules which comprise the fluid are
generally anisometric in shape, this anisometry generally plays
little role in macroscopic behavior. Nevertheless, there is a large
class of highly anisometric molecules which gives rise to unusual,
fascinating, and potentially technologically relevant behavior.
There are many candidates for study including polymers, micelles,
micro-emulsions and materials of biological significance, such as
DNA and membranes. Although all of them are very interesting
this introduction will focus only on liquid crystals.

Liquid crystals are composed of moderate size organic molecules

which tend to be elongated, like a cigar. At high temperatures, the
molecules will be oriented arbitrarily, as shown in the figure
below, forming an isotropic liquid. Because of their elongated
shape, under appropriate conditions, the molecules exhibit
orientational order such that all the axes line up and form a socalled nematic liquid crystal. The molecules are still able to move
around in the fluid, but their orientation remains the same. Not
only orientational order can appear, but also a positional order is
possible. Liquid crystals exhibiting some positional order are
called smectic liquid crystals. In smectics, the molecular centers
of mass are arranged in layers and the movement is mainly
limited inside the layers.

Liquid crystals constitute a fascinating class of soft condensed

matter characterized by the counterintuitive combination of
fluidity and long-range order. Today they are best known for their
exceptionally successful application in flat panel displays, but
they actually exhibit a plethora of unique and attractive
properties that offer tremendous potential for fundamental
science as well as innovative applications well beyond the realm
of displays. Today this full breadth of the liquid crystalline state of
matter is becoming increasingly recognized and numerous new
and exciting lines of research are being opened up. We review this
exciting development, focusing primarily on the physics aspects

of the new research thrusts, in which liquid crystals thermotropic

as well as lyotropic often meet other types of soft matter, such
as polymers and colloidal nano- or microparticle dispersions.
Because the field is of large interest also for researchers without a
liquid crystal background we begin with a concise introduction to
the liquid crystalline state of matter and the key concepts of the
research field. We then discuss a selection of promising new
directions, starting with liquid crystals for organic electronics,
followed by nanotemplating and nanoparticle organization using
liquid crystals, liquid crystal colloids (where the liquid crystal can
constitute either the continuous phase or the disperse phase, as
droplets or shells) and their potential in e.g. photonics and
metamaterials, liquid crystal-functionalized polymer fibers, liquid
crystal elastomer actuators, ending with a brief overview of
activities focusing on liquid crystals in biology, food science and
pharmacology.

1.2 Liquid Crystal Types

ISOTROPIC

NEMATIC

SMETCIC

The nematic liquid crystal phase is by far the most important

phase for applications. In the nematic phase all molecules are
aligned approximately parallel to each other. In each point a unit
vector can be defined, parallel to the average direction of the long
axis of the molecules in the immediate neighborhood. This vector,

known as the director, is not constant throughout the whole

medium, but is a function of space.
The figure below shows the molecular structure of a typical rodlike liquid crystal molecule. It consists of two or more ring systems
connected by a central linkage group.

Typical shape of a liquid crystal molecule

The presence of the rings provides the short range molecular

forces needed to form the nematic phase, but also affects the
electrical and elastic properties. The chemical stability of liquid
crystals, their resistance to e.g. moisture or ultraviolet radiation,
depends strongly on the central linkage group. Compounds with a
single bond in the center are among the most stable ones. At one
side of the rings there is a long side chain which strongly
influences the elastic constants and the transition temperature of
the liquid crystal phases. At the other end, a terminal group is
connected, which determines the dielectric constant and its

anisotropy. A few examples of molecules that exhibit a liquid

crystal phase are shown below.

MBBA

MHPOBC

Beside these simple examples, more complicated ways of

stacking are possible, giving rise to many other types of liquid
crystals. Chiral molecules, molecules without mirror symmetry,
can give rise to helices comprising cholesteric liquid crystal
phases. In ferroelectric or antiferroelectric liquid crystals the
smectic layers possess a permanent polarization which is
constant or alternating between successive layers respectively.
Apart from the rod-like molecules, more advanced-shaped liquid
crystals are possible such as disk-like or banana-shaped liquid
crystals which can give rise to other types of ordering. Discotic

liquid crystals can be stacked a columnar phase, the bottom

picture illustrates a possibility for stacking banana shaped liquid
crystals.

Discotic shaped liquid crystals

Banana shaped liquid crystals

Examples of molecules which give rise to discotic and banana

shaped liquid crystal phases are shown below.

Discotic shaped liquid crystal molecule

Banana shaped liquid crystal molecule

One type of liquid crystal molecule can exhibit many different

liquid crystal phases. The phase in which a pure liquid crystal
(with only one type of molecule) exists depends on the
temperature. Pure liquid crystals, or mixtures of them, in which
the phase is controlled by temperature are called thermotropic
liquid crystals. The Brownian motion of the molecules increases
with the temperature, reducing the order in the material. At high

temperature, orientational order is lost and the material changes

to the isotropic phase. When decreasing the temperature, the
material changes to the nematic phase. The temperature at which
the phase transition occurs, is specific for each material and is
called the nematic-isotropic transition temperature or clearing
point. By further lowering the temperature, the phase can change
to the smectic A phase, the smectic C and finally to the solid
state. Each of the phase transitions occurs at a specific
temperature, but depending on the material additional phases
can appear or some can be missing.
Beside the thermotropic liquid crystals, a different class of liquid
crystals is called lyotropic. These are mixtures of rod-like
molecules in an isotropic solvent and the concentration of the
solution is primarily responsible for the occurring phase. Lyotropic
liquid crystals are mainly of interest in biological applications and
exhibit a considerable number of different phases. In our
research, only thermotropic liquid crystal are examined.
The ordering of the liquid crystal molecules may seem strange,
but in our daily environment similar arrangements are common as

the pictures in this link illustrate. In the rest of the tutorial pages
some interesting physical and optical properties of liquid crystals
are explained, limited to the nematic liquid crystal phase. Finally
the principle of a liquid crystal display will be explained.
Nematic liquid crystal media have uniaxial symmetry, which
means that in a homogeneous liquid crystal medium a rotation
around the director does not make a difference. The bulk ordering
has a profound influence on the way light and electric fields
behave in the material. Uniaxial anisotropy results in different
electrical and optical parameters if considered along the director
or in a plane perpendicular to it. This gives rise to interesting
technological possibilities. Two unusual phenomena are the
following: the reorientation of the molecules in an electric field
and optical birefringence of the molecules.

1.3 Reorientation of the molecules in electric fields

As a result of the uniaxial anisotropy, an electric field experiences

a different dielectric constant when oscillating in a direction
parallel or perpendicular to the director. The difference is called
the dielectric anisotropy. If the dielectric constant along the
director is larger than in the direction perpendicular to it, one
speaks of positive anisotropy.
Due to the anisotropy, the dielectric displacement and the
induced dipole moment are not parallel to the electric field,
except when the director is parallel or perpendicular to the
electric field. As a result, a torque is exerted on the director. For
materials with positive anisotropy, the director prefers to align
parallel to the electric field. Liquid crystals with a negative
anisotropy tend to orient themselves perpendicularly to the
electric field.
The effect of an electric field on a liquid crystal medium with
positive anisotropy is illustrated in the pictures below. Originally
the orientation is almost horizontal. When an electric field with
direction along the blue arrow is applied, a torque (represented in
green) rising from the dielectric anisotropy, acts on the molecule.

The torque tends to align the molecule parallel to the field. When
the field strength is increased, the molecule will reorient parallel
to the field.

Original orientation

Situation in electric field

Result electric field

Result strong electric field

The technological importance of the reorientation is obvious: it

gives a switchable medium by simply varying the applied electric
field in the liquid crystal medium. In most applications a liquid
crystal is used in a thin layer between two glass surfaces. To

generate the electric field, thin electrodes layers are deposited on

the bottom and/or

top

glass surface. For optical devices

transparent electrodes are used, made from Indium Tin Oxide

(ITO). If the generated field is strong enough, the molecules will
reorient to follow its direction.

1.4 Optical birefringence

Applications of liquid crystals almost always involve optics.
Optical waves also involve electric fields, but the associated
frequencies are much higher than those of the fields generated by
the applied voltages. Therefore the dielectric constants, which
arise from the electronic response of the molecules to the
externally applied fields, are different. To make the distinction, the
refractive index is usually given for optical waves instead of the
dielectric constant.
Optical waves can also reorient the liquid crystal director in an
analogue manner as the electrically applied fields. In a display
this can be neglected, since both the optical dielectric anisotropy
and the intensity of the optical fields are typically much lower

than those used in the static case. Therefore the optical

transmission is mostly independent of the director calculations.
To understand the influence of birefringence on the propagation of
light through a liquid crystal, the light must be represented by an
electric field. This electric field is described by a wave vector in
each point. At a certain time and location, the direction and the
length of the vector correspond with the direction and magnitude
of the electric field. For a plane wave propagating in a specific
direction, the electric field vector in an isotropic medium
describes an ellipse in the plane perpendicular to the propagation
direction. This ellipse represents the polarization of the light.
Some special cases are the linear polarization and the circular
polarization where this ellipse is distorted to a straight line or a
perfect circle. Generally each ellipsoidal polarization can be
decomposed as a superposition of linear polarizations along two
perpendicular

axes.

In

an

isotropic

medium,

both

linear

polarizations move with the same speed. The speed of the wave
is determined by the refractive index of the medium.

Light propagation in an isotropic medium

For the uniaxial liquid crystal medium, an electric field feels a

different

refractive

index

when

it

oscillates

in

the

plane

perpendicular to the director or along the director. This uniaxial

anisotropy

of

the

refractive

index

is

called

birefringence.

Birefringence allows to manipulate the polarization of the light

propagating through the medium.
The elliptical polarization of light entering a liquid crystal medium
must be decomposed into two linear polarizations called the
ordinary and the extra-ordinary mode. Along these two directions,
the two linearly polarized modes feel a different refractive index.
Therefore, they propagate through the liquid crystal with a
different speed as illustrated in the picture below.

Light propagation in a birefringent medium

In the isotropic medium, the two parts propagated with the same
speed. Combining them back together will result in the same
polarization ellipse as the original. In birefringent media, the
different speed of the ordinary and extra-ordinary waves results in
a phase difference between the two modes (= retardation). At the
end of the medium this phase difference between the two
oscillations will result in a different polarization ellipse.

1.5 Switchable birefringence

To observe the influence of birefringence, polarized light must be
used. Most light sources such as a light bulb or a fluorescent lamp
produce unpolarized light. Optical applications often required

polarized light with a known oscillation direction of the light. To

obtain polarized light, ordinary light sources can be used in
combination with polarizers.
A polarizer is a special type of birefringent layer. The ordinary
wave propagates unmodified through the medium, whereas the
extra-ordinary wave is absorbed in the medium. An arbitrarily
polarized wave entering such a medium will result in a linearly
polarized wave at the back of the medium. In the picture above
the effect of a polarizer is illustrated for two different orientations
of the absorbing direction.

Polarizer with vertical transmission axis

Polarizer with horizontal transmission axis

If two polarizers with orthogonal absorption direction are used, all

light emitted by the light source is absorbed. This is typically
referred to as a set of crossed polarizers.

Crossed polarizers

Birefringence is important for modifying and controlling the

polarization of light propagating through the medium. A liquid
crystal layer inserted between crossed polarizers can change the
polarization of the light propagating through, which results in light
transmission after the crossed polarizers.

A liquid crystal layer between crossed polarizers

Because the director can be controlled using an electric field, a

liquid crystal is a controllable birefringent medium. Therefore, the
polarization state of the light after the liquid crystal layer can be

changed and hence the intensity of the transmission through the

crossed polarizers is adapted.

1.6 Choosing the preferential direction of the molecules

In a glass vessel a liquid crystal appears as an opaque milky fluid.
The random variation of the director in the material on a
micrometer scale is the main cause of the light scattering.
For applications, it is important to obtain a region free of defects
with a known director distribution. Therefore, liquid crystals are
usually handled in thin layers between two substrates. Control of
the

director

at

the

surfaces

allows

reproducible

director

orientations as illustrated below. The fixed orientation of the

surface director forces the director in the bulk to follow this
direction. Two commonly used types of alignment are planar and
homeotropic alignment. In planar alignment the surface director is
oriented parallel to the surface, for homeotropic alignment it is
oriented perpendicular to the surface.

Planar alignment

Homeotropic alignment

Alignment by rubbing

Another simple and widely used process to achieve planar

alignment is rubbing. A polymer layer (e.g. polyimide, nylon or
polyvinylalcohol) is deposited on the surface and rubbed with a
soft tissue. A liquid crystal deposited on the rubbed polymer
surface will exhibit a surface director parallel to the direction of
rubbing. One could say that microscopic grooves are created in
the surface which align the director. The direction of rubbing and
the resulting surface director are shown below.

Alignment along the rubbing direction

The alignment with the surface is not perfect, there is a small

angle of 1 or 2 degrees between the surface and the molecule

director which is called the pretilt. The pretilt depends on the

strength of the rubbing.

Pretilt originating from the rubbing process

Liquid crystals are generally used in thin layers between two glass
parallel substrates. The distance, between the top and bottom
substrate in a liquid crystal cell ranges typically from 1 to 100 m,
depending on the used liquid crystal and the intended application.
The two surfaces are kept parallel at a constant distance by
spacers: microscopic spheres or rods made of polymer or glass.
The spacers are mixed in the glue that holds the two substrates
together and if necessary also spread on the whole substrate
surface by spinning.
The figure below shows three examples of liquid crystal layers
sandwiched between two substrates. On the surfaces in contact
with the liquid crystal, rubbed alignment layers are deposited. In

the left picture, the alignment layers of both surfaces were

rubbed in the same direction. This is called a -cell or splay cell.
The obtained director distribution is inhomogeneous and shows a
splay distortion.

Splay-cell

Anti-parallel rubbed

Twisted nematic

A homogeneous director distribution is obtained when the top and

bottom substrate are rubbed in opposite direction as illustrated in
the middle picture. An angle of 90 between the rubbing at the
top and bottom substrate results in a linear variation of the twist
angle along the surface normal. This is referred to as a twisted
nematic cell.

1.6 Calculation of the director pattern in a liquid crystal

medium
A liquid crystal medium prefers a uniform director distribution. A
variation of the director in space induces an increase of the free
energy. According to the elastic theory for liquid crystals, the
elastic energy related to the variation of the director 'n' in space
can be written as

with the three elastic constants k 11, k22 and k33. This equation is
known as the Oseen-Frank distortion energy. The three terms in
the equation are related to distortion due to splay, twist and bend
respectively

as

illustrated

in

the

figure

below.

General

deformations are a mixture of these three types.

Calculations of the equilibrium director distribution involve

minimizing the total free energy of the volume. The total energy
of a liquid crystal is made up of three components: the elastic
energy density (as described above), the interface energy

Related to the alignment of the director at the surfaces of the

considered volume and the electric energy density

related to the interaction of the applied electric field and the

director of the liquid crystal molecule.
There are 3 states of matter: solid, liquid, gas. Solids states can
be

further

categorised

into:

crystalline

which

has

regular

arrangement of molecules; and amorphous where there is no

regular structure. It is well known that Crystalline solids heat
Isotropic liquid. In 1888, an intermediate phase is discovered
and is known as the crystalline liquid or liquid crystal. This phase
is called the nematic phase. An example is 4-n-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (PCB). Since than, over 20,000 known compounds have
been found to have the nematic phase. The main interest in these
types of compound is that the nematic phase compounds with
rod-like molecules can be aligned by varying an external electric
field. Most of the liquid crystal displays (LCDs) produced today
use either the twisted nematic (TN) or supertwisted nematic (STN)
electro-optical effects.

All the interesting characteristics explained in the previous

sections make liquid crystals attractive for science to seek for

useful applications. A well-known application of liquid crystals is

the ubiquitous liquid crystal display, now comprising a world-wide
billion dollar industry. All ingredients necessary for building Liquid
Crystal Display (LCD) were treated and this section will briefly
explain how LCD's work.

CHAPTER 2
LITRATURE REVIEW

On the picture below, a schematical drawing of an LCD is shown.

The display consists of a thin liquid crystal layer (thickness 5

m) sandwiched between two glass substrates.For control of the

reorientation of the director, transparent electrodes are deposited
on the glass substrates (white and red). In the picture, a so-called
passive matrix is used. On the top and bottom glass substrates,
row and column electrodes are respectively deposited. These are
long parallel lines of electrodes, with a perpendicular direction on
the top and bottom glass surface. The overlap between a row and
a column electrode forms a single pixel (= picture element) of the
display. In this simple example, 1 row electrode is used in
combination with 2 column electrodes. This gives us a two-pixel
display.
The left column electrode is at the same potential level as the row
electrode. To the right column electrode (red), a different voltage
is applied. In this way, an electric field is generated in the right
pixel oriented perpendicular to the glass surfaces.
On the picture one can see that the rubbing direction of the
alignment layers (green) on top and bottom substrate are chosen
perpendicular to each other. Due to this choice, the director in the
left pixel makes a homogeneous turn of 90 from bottom to top.

Therefore, this type of LCD is called a

'Twisted Nematic LCD' (TN-LCD). If a
voltage is applied to the electrode,
the

director

reorients

to

become

perpendicular to the surfaces (right

pixel).
In order to control the intensity of the
transmitted light, the whole stack is
sandwiched
polarizers

between
(yellow).

If

crossed
unpolarized

light enters the structure from below,

the light becomes linearly polarized at the bottom polarizer. The
light enters the liquid crystal layer with a polarization parallel to
the bottom director. One can prove that if the thickness of the
layer and the liquid crystal parameters are chosen appropriate,
the linear polarization of the entering light will roughly follow the
rotation of the director (= Mauguin regime). As a result the light is
transmitted through the top polarizer and the pixel is in its bright
state.

If we apply a voltage between the two electrode layers, the liquid

crystal director is reoriented and the polarization of the light will
no longer rotate through the liquid crystal layer. As a result, the
light is absorbed at the top polarizer (= the analyzer) and the
pixel becomes dark.
Adding the appropriate color filters makes a complete full color
display as used in many liquid crystal displays nowadays. Each
pixel is on its turn subdivided into three pixels for controlling
respectively the red, green and blue components of the light.
Of course this is only one of the possibilities to build LCD's. Many
other configurations exist using other types of liquid crystals,
other molecule orientations or other manners to switch the
molecules. The most common ones are the 'Super Twisted
Nematic LCD' (with a director rotation in the layer > 90) and the
'In-Plane Switching LCD' (molecules rotate parallel to the glass
surface due to a horizontal electrical field).
Originally, LCD's were used in calculators or digital watches and
had only a few black-and-white pixels. Nowadays, LCD's are
widespread in all kinds of applications such as flat panel displays

for desktop applications or notebooks, mobile phones, projectors,

A few examples of devices using LCD-technology are illustrated in
the pictures below.

Not only display applications are possible with liquid crystals.

Researchers investigate more exotic and new applications of
liquid crystals. Use of the non-linear properties of liquid crystal
mediums

(the

material parameters

are

not

only direction

depended, but also depend on the intensity of the entering light

and the wavelength) one tries to find new applications. E.g.:

Solitary wave propagation in liquid crystals

A high intensity laser beam injected in a liquid crystal can
produce a local reorientation of the director molecules. In this
way the light produces it's own waveguide and the laser light will
not diffract but stays confined in a narrow beam. The soliton
application can lead to an addressable liquid crystal waveguide
to switch light between several optical fibers.

Hollow liquid crystal fibers

Hollow optical fibers have already proved their use. If we fill them
with liquid crystals gives they can give interesting controllable
behavior to the optical fibers.

Optically addressed liquid crystal displays

In optically addressed liquid crystal displays, the strong electric

field of a non-visible wavelength with high intensity is used to
switch the molecules in stead of an externally applied voltage.

Liquid crystal solar cell

A new and promising application using liquid crystals is the liquid
crystal semiconductor. Liquid crystals are organic molecules
similar to polymers. In polymers containing conjugated systems
(alternating single and double bond) the creation of a higher and
lower pi-bond leads to the creation of a band gap simular to
semiconductors. The use of such a liquid crystal in a device
simular to the Grtzel cell can lead to new types of solar cells.
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are the dominant flat panel
technology. In 2003, they accounted for approximately 85 percent
of the demand for FPD devices in the United States. Plasma
displays are expected to increase market share to 13 percent,
primarily for high definition television (HDTV) and other large
screen applications. Microdisplays, light emitting diode arrays,

vacuum fluorescent displays, organic light-emitting diodes, and

electroluminescent displays are projected to remain a small
portion of the total flat panel market. While relatively few FPD
devices have entered the waste stream at this time, they
represent a potentially large volume of material that will be
reused, recycled, or discarded in the future. Potentially hazardous
components and materials are contained both in the display unit
itself and in the electronic device containing the display unit (e.g.,
computer monitor, television); these include substances common
to electronic waste in general, for example lead, cadmium,
chromium, antimony, beryllium, and brominated flame retardants.
Several substances are unique to flat panels or are present in
greater quantities in devices that contain flat panels; these
include

mercury

and

liquid

crystals.

Mercury

is

used

to

manufacture the cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) that are

used to backlight LCD panels. While the evidence regarding
human toxicity of mercury and other heavy metals contained in
FPD devices is fairly clear, the toxicity of flame retardants and
liquid crystals continues to be researched. Liquid crystals are
organic compounds with optical and structural properties of

crystals but with the mechanical features of fluids. There are

hundreds of liquid crystal compounds used in LCDs, and a typical
LCD contains as many as 25 different liquid crystal substances.
Liquid crystal manufacturers have conducted fairly extensive
testing for acute toxicity, mutagenic properties, skin/eye irritation,
aquatic toxicity, and bioaccumulation potential. Industrys overall
conclusions are that liquid crystals are not acutely toxic or
mutagenic and in general they do not appear to pose a significant
human health or environmental hazard based on these tests.
Additionally, EPAs Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics has
determined that liquid crystals reviewed as New Chemicals for the
Toxic Substances Control Act do not pose an unreasonable risk to
human health or the environment. While available data suggest a
low potential for harmful effects, testing regimens are based on
the premise that long-term exposures to large quantities of liquid
crystals is not likely. As a result, no chronic animal studies have
been conducted. Data on the potential for liquid crystal release
and exposure during endof-life management of LCDs are also
absent, precluding definitive conclusions about liquid crystal
hazard potential. Several researchers (University of Florida,

California Department of Toxic Substances Control) have tested

FPD devices using the Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure
(TCLP) to determine whether they would be designated as
hazardous waste under the federal Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) or equivalent state laws. While the results
were mixed and appear to depend on the specific sample
preparation methodology used, the data indicate that at least
some flat panel devices (including LCDs, laptop computers, and
plasma displays) would be designated as hazardous waste under
RCRA because they exceed the toxic threshold concentration for
the heavy metal lead.1 Potential health effects associated with
recycling include generation and dispersal of dust from the
shredding process, discharges of water used during material
processing, and leaching of hazardous substances from electronic
components stored outdoors. The most significant health hazards
related to the recycling of FPD devices are associated with
occupational exposure to recycling workers.
Currently, relatively few FPD devices are being recycled, primarily
because they have not yet entered the waste stream in significant
quantities. Those FPDs, primarily LCDs, that do enter the waste

stream are generally processed in a similar fashion to other

electronic devices (e.g., disassembly, shredding or crushing,
sorting, and sale of scrap materials). None of the recyclers
interviewed for this research separate liquid crystals from the
glass panels before they are processed. The research does
indicate that technologies are being developed to recycle LCD
panels, primarily in Europe. Some data gaps remain, including
information about potentially hazardous components contained in
the current generation of LCDs and plasma displays, the chronic
toxicity of liquid crystals, toxicity of other components that are
common to many electronic products (e.g., brominated flame
retardants), and potential health effects to recycling workers.
This version of the document is identical to the original release
(dated August 20, 2007); however, an appendix was included to
address stakeholder requests for more information regarding the
operating life of flat panel products (see Appendix C). A flat panel
display (FPD) is a thin, lightweight video display used in a variety
of

applications,

televisions,

including

microdisplays,

laptop
medical

and

desktop

devices,

and

computers,
industrial

instruments. FPDs feature a flat surface and a thickness generally

less than 4 inches. Early FPDs were low-resolution displays (also

called low-information content displays); these are limited to a
few alphanumeric characters, several lines of text, or simple
graphics. They typically use preformed characters built into the
screen, segmented elements, or a matrix (such as a 57 array of
light-emitting diodes) to form characters. The 1990s saw a huge
increase in demand for portable products, thus increasing the
demand

for

FPDs

(MCC

1995).

The

development

of

portable/notebook personal computers (PCs), which require high

resolution as well as limited thickness, provided a major incentive
for the development of high-resolution FPDs (Freedonia Group
2004). High-resolution (or high-information content, HIC) screens
can display many lines of text and highly detailed graphics. These
screens have a large number (several hundred thousand) of nearmicroscopic individually electronically addressable cells called
picture elements (or pixels). They are capable of forming highly
detailed images; the images can be erased and reformed, or
refreshed, many times per second to give the illusion of motion.

FPDs are grouped into emissive and non-emissive types. Like

cathode ray tubes (CRTs), emissive displays emit light, while nonemissive displays must have an external light source to make the
images on the screen visible. The major emissive FPDs include:
plasma

displays,

electroluminescent

displays,

and

vacuum

fluorescent displays (all high resolution), and lightemitting diode

displays (low resolution). Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are nonemissive and require an external source of light. The two major
types of LCDs are passive matrix (twisted nematic and supertwisted nematic, which show only a limited range of colors) and
active matrix (which are capable of showing a full range of
colors). In 1998, the U.S. demand for FPDs accounted for just over
20 percent of the total U.S. demand for electronic displays. By
2008, FPDs are projected to account for nearly 85 percent of the
total U.S. demand for these products (Freedonia Group 2004); by
2013, this percentage is predicted to be over 94 percent This
represents an increase of 19 percent per year through 2008. FPDs
are expected to replace CRTs in almost every application,
particularly in desktop computer monitors and television sets
(which make up the majority of the demand for display products).

Most FPDs are manufactured in Asia: China, Japan, South Korea

and Taiwan (Freedonia 2004). U.S. companies have concentrated
on niche markets such as microdisplays, medical device displays,
industrial instrument displays, and military/avionics displays.
LCDs are the dominant FPD technology. In 2003, they accounted
for approximately 85 percent of the total FPD demand in the U.S.,
followed distantly by plasma displays, microdisplays, lightemitting diode (LED) arrays, vacuum fluorescent displays (VFDs),
organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, electroluminescent
(EL) displays, and other types. Active matrix LCDs using thin-film
transistors (TFT-LCDs) are predicted to continue this dominance of
the FPD market. Plasma displays are expected to increase market
share for high definition television (HDTV) and other large screen
applications. Figure summarizes the projected market for FPDs by
display type.
Liquid crystals (LC) are omnipresent in research and daily life.
Many people are aware that liquid crystals are present in displays,
phones, laptops, etc. But they rarely know that liquid crystals also
exist in natural systems such as biological membranes, cell
membranes, DNA, silk and even in some skeletons of bugs (Brown

et al., 1983; Vilfan et al., 2002; Wright 1973). Technologically they

are used in the systems where fast response is needed. Since the
topic is very interesting and it connects chemistry, physics and in
some aspects also biology, it seems a suitable content for
interdisciplinary integration of the natural science subjects. It
enables study and discussions from different points of view, which
leads to knowledge with understanding. This is especially
important because of the enormous fragmentation of school
knowledge, where students have many difficulties in connecting
the content into a meaningful whole (Bulte et al., 2004, Flowers et
al., 1999). However, despite the fact that liquid crystals are quite
common, informal discussions with students show that they have
very limited knowledge about them. Indeed, it is known that
young people in Europe are becoming increasingly uninterested in
science at school and are not interested in studying science at the
university level (Dolinek et al., 2006). The main problem is that
the school chemistry and physics usually have little in common
with students experiences from everyday life. But students
interest in and attitudes towards science are crucial aspects of
science education. They help motivate students and make the

educational process more relevant (Colletta & Chiapetta, 1994).

Teachers are an integral part in the process of making students
motivated. When teachers consider students interests (intrinsic
motivation) they will not only motivate students, but will also lead
them on the way to scientific literacy. However, teachers at the inservice teachers training courses agreed that liquid crystals are a
during the physics or chemistry lessons is a difficult task for most
of the teachers as they most of them describe their knowledge
about liquid crystals as negligible. Researches (Anderman &
Young, 1994) show that gender differences in motivation for
learning science in the primary school are linked to the
performance

on

tests

of

knowledge

in

science

(extrinsic

motivation). It was also found that female pupils show less

interest

in

science.

Female

students

find

science

boring,

especially because they often have to learn many things by heart.

Simpson and Oliver (1990) report that female secondary school
students have low self-esteem and lower levels of confidence for
proving themselves in science. On the other hand, Meece and
Jones (1996) did not confirm these results, they found no
difference between female and male secondary school students in

connection with interest in learning science, and stressed that the

influence of motivation on the gender is much more complex than
some researchers are trying to show. If we go up the education
vertical, we find that, although the number of women enrolled in
science has been constantly increasing in the past few decades,
there are still significant differences detected between genders as
regards the interest in physics, which is evidenced by a higher
number of male than female students in the study programs of
Physics (Zhu, 2007). A possible way to motivate students for
learning and studying science is to include contexts in which
chemical and physical concepts are connected to the daily life of
students. These context-based approaches aim to bring the
students learning closer to their own experiences and thus make
the learning of science more meaningful (Bulte et al., 2004). One
possibility to apply context based science learning is by including
contents which are related to real life problems and are also the
subject

of

scientific

research

(Gerli,

1984).

Students

are

interested in new technology but they do not have enough

knowledge to understand it. If teachers want to introduce such
contents into the science classes they have to be familiar with the

content and know how this content is related to the competences

in the curriculum (Lipovnik, 2008). To stimulate the interest in
studying physics, an approach to teaching physics was suggested
(Hussler & Hoffmann, 2002) that: (1) provides opportunities to
marvel, (2) links content to prior experiences for both boys and
girls,

(3)

provides

first-hand

experiences,

(4)

encourages

discussions and reflections on the social importance of physics,

(5) connects physics with applications, (6) shows physics in
relation to the human body, and (7) demonstrates the benefit and
use of treating physics quantitatively. At the same time, the
authors conclude that male students are more interested in the
technical use of physical concepts, while the knowledge in
conjunction with the human body shows no difference in interest
between genders (Hussler & Hoffmann, 2002). Liquid crystals
enable the introduction of all seven of the above mentioned
approaches

to

teaching

physics

and

in

addition

enable

interdisciplinary connection among the natural sciences and also

mathematics. Liquid crystals are organic substances, in which the
liquid crystalline phase occurs between the solid (crystal) and
liquid (isotropic) phase. Liquid crystals flow like liquids, however

their optical and mechanical properties resemble the properties of

the solid crystalline structures. There are two types of liquid
crystals. Thermotropic liquid crystals are pure substances in which
order appears due to temperature and sometimes due to
pressure. In lyotropic liquid crystals, the appearance of the liquid
crystalline phase depends on the concentration of liquid crystal in
a solution. We shall focus on the thermotropic liquid crystals only.
An example of thermotropic liquid crystals is MBBA. MBBA is very
interesting for teaching purposes, because it has a liquid
crystalline phase at room temperature. Because of that it enables
easy experimenting in the classroom. In addition it can also be
synthesised in the school chemistry lab.
Researchers in science education describe the prevalence of the
liquid crystals and the need for including them into the lectures
and laboratories on the faculty. However, we would like to present
them also to secondary school students.
When designing a teaching module one has to take into account
the pre-knowledge of students. Informally obtained knowledge

about liquid crystals helps to design the teaching module about

liquid crystals.
Teachers need to be aware of world they live in and develop the
knowledge about liquid crystals. Contribution of this paper to the
literature
The study shows that, despite the fact that liquid crystals are
common in everyday life, students have a very limited knowledge
about them.
This study explicates the influence of gender, selfassessment,
motivation and field of study on preservice teacher conceptions
about liquid crystals.
The paper raises several issues for educators in designing liquid
crystal teaching modules with the purpose of awareness and
understanding of liquid crystals.
Thermotropic liquid crystals are usually made of elongated
molecules (Fig. 1) which contain a rigid core of a few benzene
rings. At high enough temperatures liquid crystals are in the
isotropic phase, where the arrangement of molecules regarding

the molecular mass centres and the orientation of the long

molecular axes is completely random. At lower temperatures, the
molecules are oriented in a certain direction, however there is no
order in the position of the molecular mass centres (Brown, 1983).
This liquid crystalline phase is called nematic and it is most
commonly used in application. At sufficiently low temperatures
molecules are ordered in a crystal lattice , so in this case there
exists a positional order of molecular mass centres as well.
Intermolecular forces give rise to the orientational order of long
molecular axes. If the liquid crystal in the solid crystalline phase is
heated it melts. The positional order of the molecular mass
centres is destroyed, but the orientational order of the long
molecular axes still persists. Due to the melting of the positional
order the new phase is liquid-like, however the liquid is
anisotropic because the order of the long molecular axes is still
present. This phase, the nematic liquid crystalline phase, looks
like an opaque liquid. If the temperature further increases, the
phase transition from the anisotropic liquid crystal phase to the
clear isotropic liquid phase appears. During this phase transition

the orientational order of the long molecular axes is destroyed as

well (Vilfan & Muevi, 2002).
Liquid crystals are a good example of connecting the teaching of
physics and chemistry and the new research topic. Linkinvcg
material properties to its structure is a useful approach when
selecting appropriate topics which enable the learning of new
concepts (Cussler et al., 2001). At the same time, knowing and
understanding of different types of materials and their structures
enables a design of new materials with the desired properties.
The search for new smart materials, i.e. materials whose
mechanical, optical and electromagnetic properties can easily be
changed by external fields, is very important for the progress of
science and technology. Liquid crystals are an example of such
smart materials. Their crucial advantage is also in the fact that
their mass production is very cheap. Upon their discovery they
were characterized as not particularly useful new materials.
However, nowadays liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are so common
that most people are able to identify their existence (Waclawik,
2004; Vaupoti, 1996; de Gennes & Prost, 1993).

Liquid crystallinity refers to an intermediate state of matter where

the molecules exhibit a degree of order that is between that of
ordinary liquids and solids.
Typically, these molecules have an elongated shape and an
intrinsic tendency toward alignment. Yet, the inter-molecular
forces are not so strong as to bind them into a regular lattice as in
crystalline solids. Thus, the orientational order among the
molecules makes the material anisotropic and crystalline, while
the lack of strong positional order allows the material to flow like
ordinary fluids. This liquidsolid duality gives rise to much of the
anomalous behavior of liquid crystal-line materials. When
understood,

however,

their

unique

harnessedtoproducehigh-performance

dynamics

materials

with

can

be

unique

properties.
In this entry, we review the state of the art in theoretical modeling
and computation of the flow and rheology of low-molecular-weight
liquid crystals (LCs) and liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs). The
latter can be viewed as macromolecular liquid crystals, and the
significance of the molecular weight will be made clear shortly. We

restrict our scope to nematics, one of the several types of LCs

with no positional order altogether;[1]they seem to have the most
important applications and have been the focus of theoretical
efforts. Owing to the long-standing academic and industrial
interest in these materials, their dynamics have been summarized
in several reviews. While overlapping those in certain aspects, we
emphasize constitutive modeling and numerical simulation of
defects and texture. The latter nicely demonstrates the interplay
between macroscopic flow and mesoscopic orientation, a hallmark
of liquid crystalline dynamics. Due to space limitation, we will
attempt to construct a coherent framework instead of an
exhaustive literature review. Based on their conceptual origins,
we discuss continuum theories and molecular theories separately.
In addition, a theory for liquid crystalline materials has been
proposed based on no equilibrium thermodynamics.
As the theoretical framework and mathematical representation
are quite independent of the other theories, we will not discuss
this theory but refer the reader to Beris and Edwardsmonograph.

Because of similar molecular attributes, LCs and LCPs share

enough common features to be discussed in this single entry. A
significant difference is that the large LCP molecules have a much
longer relaxation time. Thus, the molecular conformation of LCPs
is easily disturbed by flow and deformation. Rheologically,
therefore, the material exhibits molecular viscoelasticity as
macromolecular fluids normally do.
Small-molecule

LCs

relax

so

fast

that

their

molecular

configuration remains almost always at equilibrium; there is no

viscoelasticity. Both LCs and LCPs resist spatial distortion to their
orientation pattern. This tendency is known as distortional
elasticity.
The continuum theories were originally developed for smallmolecule LCs, capturing distortional elasticity but not molecular
viscoelasticity. Molecular theories, on the other hand, have
evolved to contain both ingredients. Not surprisingly, a properly
constructed molecular theory should reduce to a continuum
theory in the limit of vanishing molecular relaxation time.

2.1 Continuum Theories

The tendency of LC stores is and recover from distortion to their
orientation field bears clear analogy to the tendency of elastic
solids to resist and recover from distortion of their shape (strain).
Based on this idea, Oseen, Zocher, and Frank established a linear
theory for the distortional elasticity of LCs. Ericksen incorporated
this into hydrostatic and hydrodynamic theories for nematics,
which were further augmented by Leslie with constitutive
equations. The Leslie Ericksen theory has been the most widely
used LC flow theory to date.

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLGY

3.1 Research Design

For our research we will take up descriptive Research design as it answers the
question what is going on? A good description is a fundamental to the research
enterprise and it adds immeasurable of the shape and nature of the society.
Data Collection will be done in two phases:Preliminary Phase - In the initial phase we will try to understand what child labor
law is? Below is the process we would be following:The methodology which will be used for carrying out the report is as follows:Type of Data Sources: For present research work, secondary data will be used.

3.2 Tools for collecting Secondary Data: - Various statistical tools will also be
used to analyzing the secondary data.
1. Document Review: - Obtaining the actual forms and operating documents
currently being used. Reviews blank copies of forms and samples of actual
completed forms.
2. Observation: - analyzing annual reports and press releases, verifying the
statements made during the interviews.
3. Web Search: - The information related to outside region (other part of India
and Globe) will be studied from internet to other published papers.
4. Various policies will be dealt in details by referring various government
publications and reference book, journals, published data from time to time.

3.3 Research Objective

Important factors to consider when evaluating an LCD monitor:
Resolution: The horizontal and vertical size expressed in pixels (e.g.,
1024x768). Unlike monochrome CRT monitors, LCD monitors have a
native-supported resolution for best display effect.
Dot pitch: The distance between the centers of two adjacent pixels. The
smaller the dot pitch size, the less granularity is present, resulting in a
sharper image. Dot pitch may be the same both vertically and horizontally,
or different (less common).
Viewable size: The size of an LCD panel measured on the diagonal (more
specifically known as active display area).

 Response time: The minimum time necessary to change a pixel's color or

brightness. Response time is also divided into rise and fall time. For LCD
Monitors, this is measured in btb (black to black) or gtg (gray to gray).
These different types of measurements make comparison difficult.
Refresh rate: The number of times per second in which the monitor draws
the data it is being given. A refresh rate that is too low can cause flickering
and will be more noticeable on larger monitors. Many high-end LCD
televisions now have a 120 Hz refresh rate (current and former NTSC
countries only). This allows for less distortion when movies filmed at 24
frames per second (fps) are viewed due to the elimination of telecine (3:2
pulldown). The rate of 120 was chosen as the least common multiple of 24
fps (cinema) and 30 fps (TV).
Matrix type: Active TFT or Passive.
Viewing angle: (coll., more specifically known as viewing direction).
Color support: How many types of colors are supported (coll., more
specifically known as color gamut).

 Brightness: The amount of light emitted from the display (coll., more
specifically known as luminance).

Only display applications are possible with liquid crystals.

Researchers investigate more exotic and new applications of
liquid crystals. Use of the non-linear properties of liquid crystal
mediums

(the

material parameters

are

not

only direction

depended, but also depend on the intensity of the entering light

and the wavelength) one tries to find new applications. E.g.:
Solitary wave propagation in liquid crystals
A high intensity laser beam injected in a liquid crystal can
produce a local reorientation of the director molecules. In this way
the light produces it's own waveguide and the laser light will not
diffract but stays confined in a narrow beam. The soliton
application can lead to an addressable liquid crystal waveguide to
switch light between several optical fibers.

 Hollow liquid crystal fibers

Hollow optical fibers have already proved their use. If we fill them
with liquid crystals gives they can give interesting controllable
behavior to the optical fibers.
Optically addressed liquid crystal displays
In optically addressed liquid crystal displays, the strong electric
field of a non-visible wavelength with high intensity is used to
switch the molecules in stead of an externally applied voltage.
Liquid crystal solar cell
A new and promising application using liquid crystals is the liquid
crystal semiconductor. Liquid crystals are organic molecules
similar to polymers. In polymers containing conjugated systems
(alternating single and double bond) the creation of a higher and

lower pi-bond leads to the creation of a band gap simular to

semiconductors. The use of such a liquid crystal in a device
simular to the Grtzel cell can lead to new types of solar cells.
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 than cathode ray
tubes (CRTs), for example.
But just what are these things called liquid crystals? The name
"liquid crystal" sounds like a contradiction. We think of a crystal
as a solid material like quartz, usually as hard as rock, and a liquid
is obviously different. How could any material combine the two?
We learned in school that there are three common states of
matter: solid, liquid or gaseous. Solids act the way they do
because their molecules always maintain their orientation and
stay in the same position with respect to one another. The
molecules in liquids are just the opposite: They can change their

orientation and move anywhere in the liquid. But there are some
substances that can exist in an odd state that is sort of like a
liquid and sort of like a solid. When they are in this state, their
molecules tend to maintain their orientation, like the molecules in
a solid, but also move around to different positions, like the
molecules in a liquid. This means that liquid crystals are neither a
solid nor a liquid. That's how they ended up with their seemingly
contradictory name.

3.4 Nematic Phase Liquid Crystals

Just as there are many varieties of solids and liquids, there is also
a

variety of liquid crystal substances.

Depending on the

temperature and particular nature of a substance, liquid crystals

can be in one of several distinct phases (see below). In this

article, we will discuss liquid crystals in the nematic phase, the

liquid crystals that make LCDs possible.
One feature of liquid crystals is that they're affected by electric
current. A particular sort of nematic liquid crystal, called twisted
nematics (TN), is naturally twisted. Applying an electric current
to these liquid crystals will untwist them to varying degrees,
depending on the current's voltage. LCDs use these liquid crystals
because they react predictably to electric current in such a way as
to control lightpassage.
Most liquid crystal molecules are rod-shaped and are broadly
categorized as either thermotropic or lyotropic.
Thermotropic liquid crystals will react to changes in temperature
or, in some cases, pressure. The reaction of lyotropic liquid
crystals, which are used in the manufacture of soaps and
detergents, depends on the type of solvent they are mixed with.
Thermotropic liquid crystals are either isotropic or nematic. The
key difference is that the molecules in isotropic liquid crystal
substances are random in their arrangement, while nematics have
a definite order or pattern.

The orientation of the molecules in the nematic phase is based on

thedirector. The director can be anything from a magnetic field
to a surface that has microscopic grooves in it. In the nematic
phase, liquid crystals can be further classified by the way
molecules orient themselves in respect to one another. Smectic,
the most common arrangement, creates layers of molecules.
There are many variations of the smectic phase, such as smectic
C, in which the molecules in each layer tilt at an angle from the
previous layer. Another common phase is cholesteric, also
known aschiral nematic. In this phase, the molecules twist
slightly from one layer to the next, resulting in a spiral formation.
Ferroelectric

liquid

crystals (FLCs)

use

liquid

crystal

substances that have chiral molecules in a smectic C type of

arrangement because the spiral nature of these molecules allows
the microsecond switching response time that make FLCs
particularly suited to advanced displays. Surface-stabilized
ferroelectric liquid crystals (SSFLCs) apply controlled pressure
through the use of a glass plate, suppressing the spiral of the
molecules to make the switching even more rapid.

3.5 How LCD Work?

There's more to building an LCD than simply creating a sheet of
liquid crystals. The combination of four facts makes LCDs
possible:
Light can be polarized. (See How Sunglasses Work for some
fascinating information on polarization!)
Liquid crystals can transmit and change polarized light.
The structure of liquid crystals can be changed by electric
current.
There

are

transparent

substances

that

can

conductelectricity.
An LCD is a device that uses these four facts in a surprising way.
To create an LCD, you take two pieces of polarized glass. A
special polymer that creates microscopic grooves in the surface is
rubbed on the side of the glass that does not have the polarizing
film on it. The grooves must be in the same direction as the

polarizing film. You then add a coating of nematic liquid

crystals to one of the filters. The grooves will cause the first layer
of molecules to align with the filter's orientation. Then add the
second piece of glass with the polarizing film at a right
angle to the first piece. Each successive layer of TN molecules
will gradually twist until the uppermost layer is at a 90-degree
angle to the bottom, matching the polarized glass filters.

As light strikes the first filter, it is polarized. The molecules in each

layer then guide the light they receive to the next layer. As the
light passes through the liquid crystal layers, the molecules also
change the light's plane of vibration to match their own angle.

When the light reaches the far side of the liquid crystal substance,
it vibrates at the same angle as the final layer of molecules. If the
final layer is matched up with the second polarized glass filter,
then the light will pass through.
If we apply an electric charge to liquid crystal molecules, they
untwist. When they straighten out, they change the angle of the
light passing through them so that it no longer matches the angle
of the top polarizing filter. Consequently, no light can pass
through that area of the LCD, which makes that area darker than
the surrounding areas.

Building a simple LCD is easier than you think. Your start with the
sandwich of glass and liquid crystals described above and add

two transparent electrodes to it. For example, imagine that you

want to create the simplest possible LCD with just a single
rectangular electrode on it. The layers would look like this:

The LCD needed to do this job is very basic. It has a mirror (A) in
back, which makes it reflective. Then, we add a piece of glass (B)
with a polarizing film on the bottom side, and a common
electrode plane (C) made of indium-tin oxide on top. A common
electrode plane covers the entire area of the LCD. Above that is
the layer of liquid crystal substance (D). Next comes another
piece of glass (E) with an electrode in the shape of the rectangle
on the bottom and, on top, another polarizing film (F), at a right
angle to the first one.
The electrode is hooked up to a power source like a battery. When
there is no current, light entering through the front of the LCD will
simply hit the mirror and bounce right back out. But when the
battery supplies current to the electrodes, the liquid crystals
between the common-plane electrode and the electrode shaped
like a rectangle untwist and block the light in that region from

passing through. That makes the LCD show the rectangle as a

black area.
Today, LCDs are everywhere we look, but they didn't sprout up
overnight. It took a long time to get from the discovery of liquid
crystals to the multitude of LCD applications we now enjoy. Liquid
crystals

were

first

discovered

in

1888,

by

Austrian

botanistFriedrich Reinitzer. Reinitzer observed that when he

melted

curious cholesterol-like

substance

(cholesteryl

benzoate), it first became a cloudy liquid and then cleared up as

its temperature rose. Upon cooling, the liquid turned blue before
finally crystallizing. Eighty years passed before RCA made the
first experimental LCD in 1968. Since then, LCD manufacturers
have steadily developed ingenious variations and improvements
on the technology, taking the LCD to amazing levels of technical
complexity. And there is every indication that we will continue to
enjoy new LCD developments in the future!
Most

computer

displays

are

lit

with

built-in fluorescent

tubes above, beside and sometimes behind the LCD. A white

diffusion panel behind the LCD redirects and scatters the light

evenly to ensure a uniform display. On its way through filters,

liquid crystal layers and electrode layers, a lot of this light is lost -often more than half .In our example, we had a common electrode
plane and a single electrode bar that controlled which liquid
crystals responded to an electric charge. If you take the layer that
contains the single electrode and add a few more, you can begin
to build more sophisticated displays.
Common-plane-based LCDs are good for simple displays that
need to show the same information over and over again. Watches
and microwave timers fall into this category. Although the
hexagonal bar shape illustrated previously is the most common
form of electrode arrangement in such devices, almost any shape
is possible.

3.5 Passive and Active Matrix

Passive-matrix LCDs use a simple grid to supply the charge to a
particular pixel on the display. Creating the grid is quite a process!
It starts with two glass layers called substrates. One substrate is
given columns and the other is given rows made from a
transparent conductive material. This is usually indium-tin oxide.
The rows or columns are connected to integrated circuits that
control when a charge is sent down a particular column or row.
The liquid crystal material is sandwiched between the two glass

substrates, and a polarizing film is added to the outer side of each

substrate. To turn on a pixel, the integrated circuit sends a charge
down the correct column of one substrate and a ground activated
on the correct row of the other. The row and column intersect at
the designated pixel, and that delivers the voltage to untwist the
liquid crystals at that pixel.
The simplicity of the passive-matrix system is beautiful, but it has
significant

drawbacks,

notably slow

response

time and imprecise voltage control. Response time refers to

the LCD's ability to refresh the image displayed. The easiest way
to observe slow response time in a passive-matrix LCD is to move
the mouse pointer quickly from one side of the screen to the
other. You will notice a series of "ghosts" following the pointer.
Imprecise voltage control hinders the passive matrix's ability to
influence only one pixel at a time. When voltage is applied to
untwist one pixel, the pixels around it also partially untwist, which
makes images appear fuzzy and lacking in contrast.

Active-matrix LCDs depend on thin film transistors (TFT).

Basically, TFTs are tiny switching transistors and capacitors. They
are arranged in a matrix on a glass substrate. To address a
particular pixel, the proper row is switched on, and then a charge
is sent down the correct column. Since all of the other rows that
the column intersects are turned off, only the capacitor at the
designated pixel receives a charge. The capacitor is able to hold
the charge until the next refresh cycle. And if we carefully control
the amount of voltage supplied to a crystal, we can make it
untwist only enough to allow some light through.

By doing this in very exact, very small increments, LCDs can

create a gray scale. Most displays today offer 256 levels of
brightness per pixel.

3.6 Color LCD

An LCD that can show colors must have three subpixels with
red, green and blue color filters to create each color pixel.
Through the careful control and variation of the voltage applied,
the intensity of each subpixel can range over 256 shades.
Combining the subpixels produces a possible palette of 16.8
million colors (256 shades of red x 256 shades of green x 256
shades of blue), as shown below. These color displays take an
enormous number of transistors.

For example, a typical laptop computer supports resolutions up to

1,024x768. If we multiply 1,024 columns by 768 rows by 3
subpixels, we get 2,359,296 transistors etched onto the glass! If
there is a problem with any of these transistors, it creates a "bad

pixel" on the display. Most active matrix displays have a few bad
pixels scattered across the screen.

LCD technology is constantly evolving. LCDs today employ

several variations of liquid crystal technology, including super
twisted nematics (STN), dual scan twisted nematics (DSTN),
ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) and surface stabilized ferroelectric
liquid crystal (SSFLC).
Display size is limited by the quality-control problems faced by
manufacturers.

Simply

put,

to

increase

display

size,

manufacturers must add more pixels and transistors. As they

increase the number of pixels and transistors, they also increase
the

chance

of

including

bad

transistor

in

display.

Manufacturers of existing large LCDs often reject about 40

percent of the panels that come off the assembly line. The level of

rejection directly affects LCD price since the sales of the good
LCDs must cover the cost of manufacturing both the good and
bad ones. Only advances in manufacturing can lead to affordable
displays in bigger sizes.

3.5 Twisted nematic (TN), supertwisted nematic (STN) and

active matrix (AMLCD) displays
Twisted nematic (TN), supertwisted nematic (STN) and active
matrix (AMLCD) displays use the nematic phase for their
operation. This phase is selected for its physical properties and
the widest temperature range. It should be noted that the fluids
used for display purposes are mixtures of several different liquid
crystals. By mixing several liquid crystals together, a eutectic
mixture will result with the melting point depressed well below
room temperature.

Liquid crystals are uniaxial. For example, if one measures the

physical parameters of a water molecule, it can be shown that the
data for that parameter would be the same no matter what
direction the measurements were taken. Liquid crystals differ in
that the value of the physical parameter is dependent on the
direction it was measured relative to the molecule. We can
measure the index of refraction of the molecule perpendicular to
the long axis, and then parallel to the long axis, and the two
values would be different, see fig 2. This is the index of refraction

anisotropy of the liquid crystal or the birefringence. This would

also

hold

true

for

the

magnetic

susceptibility,

electrical

conductivity, thermal conductivity, dielectric permitivity, and

elastic constant.

Because liquid crystal molecules want to lie parallel to one

another (orientational order) and they are uniaxial (anisotropic),
we can exploit these properties to make useful devices.

As a practical matter, a given liquid crystal fluid is chosen using

only a few critical parameters. The two most important are:

1) Working temperature range. - Most LCD fluids have a

working temperature range of about -40c to +85c in a direct drive
mode. As +85c is about +185 Fahrenheit, this temperature range
covers

the

majority

of

both

commercial

and

industrial

applications. In applications where the display will be outdoor or

in direct sunlight, a higher temperature range is recommended.
Our #16 and #18 fluids are speciall formulated for extremely high
temperature applications, and can withstand temperatures over
+120c. On the low end, our #1 fluid can operate at temperatures
as low as -55c.
2) Voltage Threshold - The supply voltage of your circuit
determines the amount of drive voltage available to the display. In
general, all of our fluids will work fine in 5V circuits in a direct
drive mode. The problem comes in when you do not have 5V
available, or the circuit is multiplexed.
For 3V applications, we have developed our #4 or our newer #19
fluids. These fluids have a somewhat lower threshold and will
work fine at 3V either direct drive, 2:1, or 3:1 mux.

For highly multiplexed designs, the fluid selection becomes

critical. The subject is somewhat complicated, but in general the
higher the multiplex rate, the higher the voltage will need to be to
drive a given fluid into saturation. The reason is that when you
multiplex a display, each individual segment is time-division
multiplexed, that is, you are only driving a segment for a portion
of the total cycle. In a 3:1 mux, each pixel is only driven for one
third of the time. The pixels are never really turned on all the way,
and then they are left to turn off while other pixels are being
driven. This results in greatly reduced contrast and viewing angle.
Call our Engineering Department at 1-800-786-8710 for additional
information.

3.6 LCD Protocol interface

LCD controllers use familiar interfaces. Some controller ICs have
more than one interface option that is user selectable. In many
cases, the module LXD supplies to you will already be internally
configured to your interface requirements. As an LCD module

manufacturer, LXD welcomes discussions about various module

design parameters, including different interface options.
All interface protocols must initialize the LCD module when it is
first energized prior to use.
The most common LCD Module Interface Protocols are:
1. Parallel Interface
2. Serial Interface
3. Serial or Parallel Configuration to Microprocessor
4. TFT Interface Examples

1. Parallel Interface
The parallel interface typically controls the LCD via 8 data pins
and 3 control lines. The control lines used are Enable (E), Register
Select (RS), and Read/Write (R/W).

RS tells the LCD module if the information being sent is an

Instruction or Data. The
Enable tells the LCD module that the data or instruction in the
register is ready to be interpreted by the LCD Module. Some
controllers may have more than one Enable Control Line. The
Read/Write tells the module whether to write data or read data
from the register.
In addition to the common interface connections presented as
examples here, some modules may include additional control
lines. Some examples are:
V0 - Contrast Adjustment, which adjusts the voltage applied to the
LCD
CS - Chip Select
BUSY - Typically a low state indicates busy state
Parallel Interface Types
16 Bit Data - Not Common - used on some graphic
controllers

 8 Bit Data - Most Common - used on graphic and character

controllers
4 Bit Data - Used on some monochrome QVGA modules. An
option on character controllers
8080 type - Parallel Data with Write Line, Read Line
6800 type - Parallel Data, with Read/Write Line, Enable Line
Some parallel interface connection examples are:
8-Bit Parallel
Designation

Description

Function

RS

Register

Control line

Select

L: Instruction H: Data
write

R/W

Read/Write

Control line
L: Data Write, H: Data
Read

Enable

Control line - Allows

information

to

be

Designation

Description

Function
interpreted

D0

Data Line

Bit

D1

Data Line

Lines

D2

Data Line

D3

Data Line

D4

Data Line

D5

Data Line

D6

Data Line

D7

Data Line

Parallel

Data

4-Bit Parallel (Common for QVGA monochrome display modules)

Designation

Description

FLM

First

DISP OFF

Function

Line Control

line

Marker

Signal

Display Off

Control line
L:

Display

Frame

Off,

H:

Display On
M

Control line - AC signal

Designation

Description

Function
for Display Driver

CL1, LP

Latch Pulse

Data Latch Clock Signal

CL2, CP

Shift Pulse

Data Shift Clock Signal

D0

Data Line

4 Bit Parallel Data Lines

D1

Data Line

D2

Data Line

D3

Data Line

2. Serial Interface
Serial Interface Types
o Serial - Serial Data In, Register Select, Reset, and Serial Clock
Custom - Various configurations - Add Latch, Chip Select
o SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface)
SPI (3 wire) uses Serial Data Out, Serial Data In, and Serial
Clock
SPI (4 wire) adds Chip Select

 Custom - Various configurations - Serial Data, Serial Clock,

Latch, Chip Select
Timing and operation may differ from usual SPI
o I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) - Uses Serial Data Line and Serial
Clock
Some interface connection examples are:
Serial
Serial LCD controllers typically have one Serial Data Line that
writes

data

and

cannot

read.

Normally,

aRegister

Select

Line (Sometimes designated A0) is used to tell the controller

whether the incoming data is display information or a controller
command
Serial interface example
Designation

Descripti Function
on

SCL, SCLK, SCK, Serial

Control

line

or CLK

(output

from

Clock

Designation

Descripti Function
on
master)

CS, CSn
(n

Chip
chip

Select

Control line
L:Chip

selected, "1, 2,

Selected,

etc")

H:Unselected

SDI, DI, SI, SDA

Serial

Data Line

Data In
A0

RES

Register H:

Data,

Select

Instruction

Reset

L:

Enable,

L:

H:

Disable
When RES is enabled, the register settings are initialized or
cleared.
SPI Interface
SPI, or Serial Peripheral Interface bus, is a synchronous (data is
synchronized to the clock) serial data link standard that operates
in full duplex mode, which means that devices that can

communicate with one another simultaneously. To do this, two

data lines are required. With this standard, devices communicate
in a master/slave mode, where the master device (host processor)
initiates the data and the clock. The LCD module is the (or one of
the) peripheral slave device(s) attached to the data bus. Multiple
peripherals (display modules and other devices) are addressed on
the same serial data bus. However, the LCD module will only
listen to the data it sees when the Chip Select line is active
(usually low). If the Chip Select line is inactive (usually High), the
LCD module listens to the data on the bus, but ignores it. The SDO
line is not active when this state occurs.
The SPI bus is comprised of four logic signals, two control lines
and two data lines and is commonly referred to as SPI (4 wire).
Serial SPI interface example
Designation

Descripti Function
on

SCL, SCLK, SCK, Serial

Control

line

or CLK

(output

from

Clock

Designation

Descripti Function
on
master)

CS, CSn
(n

chip

Chip

Control

line

Select

(not present for

SPI 3-wire)

selected, "1, 2,
etc")
SDI, DI, SI

Serial

Data Line

Data In
SDo, DO, SO

Serial

Data Line

Data Out
Occasionally, SDI (serial data in) may be called out as MOSI
(Master Out Slave In) from Motorola's original name for these lines
and MISO (Master In Slave Out) for SDO. The chip select line may
be alternatively labeled SS (Slave-Select), or STE (Slave Transmit
Enable). SPI is sometimes referred to as National Semiconductor's
trademark Microwire, which is essentially a predecessor of SPI,
which only supports half duplex.

With CS (Chip-Select) the corresponding peripheral device is

selected by the LCD Controller. This pin is mostly active-low. In the
unselected state the SDO lines are hi-impedance and therefore
inactive. The clock line SCL is brought to the device whether it is
selected or not. The clock serves as synchronization of the data
communication.
The chip select signal CS is optional for a single device system,
because you could tie the CS input at the LCD Module low, if the
other lines are dedicated to SPI use. This is sometimes called a 3
Wire SPI Interface.

SPI Data transmissions usually involve two shift registers. Most

display module applications normally use 8-bit words. However,
different size words, such as 12 bit, are also used. By convention,
the most significant bit is shifted out of one shift register while the
least significant bit is shifted in. The word is then written into
memory if the CS (chip-select) is low (active). If not, the data is
ignored.
Since the SPI interface protocol is a de facto standard, many
variations of the standard protocol are used. For instance, chip
manufacturers may use some of the parallel data lines when
configuring the IC driver chip for serial communication.
IC (Inter-Integrated Circuit)
IC uses only two bi-directional lines, Serial Data Line (SDA) and
Serial Clock (SCL), which are both typically pulled up with
resistors. Typical voltages used are +5 V or +3.3 V. One of the
strengths of the IC interface is that a micro can control multiple
devices with just the two I/O pins and software.

Because of the IC design, it is only half-duplex. The interface

generally transmits 8-bit words, sending the most significant bit
first.
RS232 Interface
The RS232 serial interface uses 3 lines to control the LCD module.
These are transmit, receive, and ground. This interface does not
require the Enable and Register Select lines.
3. Serial or Parallel Configuration to Microprocessor
Some modules may include additional control lines. Some
examples are:
C86 - Defines specific MPU interface. For instance, H: 6800, L:
8080
CS - Chip Select. For instance, H: Chip Unselected, L: Chip
Selected
Designation

Description

Function

RST, RES

Reset

Control line
L: Settings initialized

Designation

Description

Function

E1

Enable 1

Control line - Allows

Read/Write information
to be interpreted

E2

Enable 2

Control line - Allows

Read/Write information
to be interpreted

R/W

Read/Write

Control line
L: Data Write, H: Data
Read

A0/DI

Register
Select / Data
In

D0

Data Line

Bit

D1

Data Line

Lines

D2

Data Line

D3

Data Line

D4

Data Line

D5

Data Line

Parallel

Data

Designation

Description

D6/SCL **

Parallel mode
Data

Function

Line/

Serial Clock
D7/SDI **

Parallel mode
Data

Line/

Serial Data In
**Chip manufacturers will assign different functions to a specific
bus connection, depending on whether the chip is configured for
Parallel or Serial.
4. TFT Interface Examples
TFT Parallel Interface
Designation

Description Function

DCLK, CK

Data
Sampling
Clock

Control line
Data
Sampling
Clock Signal

Designation

Description Function

HSync

Horiz Sync Control line signal

Horizontal
Sync

Signal

(negative
going)
VSync

Vertical

Control line -

Sync

Vertical

Signal

Signal

Sync

(negative
going)
R0

Red

Data Data Lines

Signal
R1

Red

Data

Signal
R2

Red

Data

Signal
R3

Red
Signal

Data

Designation

Description Function

R4

Red

Data

Signal
R5

Red

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

Ground
are

lines
placed

between
various signal
lines

for

isolation. Only
3

shown

examples
G0

Green
Data
Signal

G1

Green
Data
Signal

Data Lines

as

Designation

Description Function

G2

Green
Data
Signal

G3

Green
Data
Signal

G4

Green
Data
Signal

G5

Green
Data
Signal

GND

Ground

B0

Blue

Data Data Lines

Signal
B1

Blue

Data

Signal
B2

Blue

Data

Designation

Description Function
Signal

B3

Blue

Data

Signal
B4

Blue

Data

Signal
B5

Blue

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

ENAB

Enable

Control line Horizontal

Display
Position

Set

Signal
H:
LCD

Enables

Designation

Description Function

R/L

Right

Option may not

or Chip Specific -

Left Scan

tied to VCCor
GND

be present
U/D
Option may not

Up

or ChipSpecific -

Down Scan tied to VCCor

GND

be present
V/Q
Option may not

VGA

or Chip Specific -

QVGA

tied to VCCor
GND

be present

Digital 18-Bit RGB-TFT Interface with Gamma Correction

Designation

Description

DCLK

Clock
Input

Function

Signal Control line

H: User can input
different
CLK

by

Setting

polarity
EDGSL

Designation

Description

Function
L: User can select
CLK

Rising

or

Duel

Edge

to

Latch by EDGSL
EDGSL

Define

Input Control Line

Clock Polarity

L: Latch Data by
Rising

Edge

of

CLK (Default)
H: CLK Polarity is
Inverted,
Data

by

Latch
Falling

Edge of CLK
VCC

Digital Power 3.3V Typical

Supply

AVDD

Analog Power
Supply

RESETB

Hardware

L:

Active,

H:

Designation

VGL

Description

Function

Global Reset

Default Pull High

Gate Off

Control
Gate

Off

line

Power

Supply Voltage
VGH

Gate On

Control
Gate

On

line

Power

Supply Voltage
VCOM

Common

Common

Voltage

Electrode Voltage
Input

V1

Gamma
Voltage level
1

V2

Gamma
Voltage level
2

V3

Gamma
Voltage level

Designation

Description
3

V4

Gamma
Voltage level
4

V5

Gamma
Voltage level
5

V6

Gamma
Voltage level
6

V7

Gamma
Voltage level
7

V8

Gamma
Voltage level
8

V9

Gamma
Voltage level

Function

Designation

Description

Function

9
V10

Gamma
Voltage level
10

DE

Input

Data When

in

DE

Enable

mode, Active high

Control

to

enable

data

input, Default Pull

Low.
R0 (LSB)

Red

Data Data Lines

Signal
R1

Red

Data

Signal
R2

Red

Data

Signal
R3

Red

Data

Signal
R4

Red

Data

Designation

Description

Function

Signal
R5 (MSB)

Red

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

Ground lines are

placed

between

various

signal

lines for isolation.

Only 3 shown as
examples
G0 (LSB)

Green

Data Data Lines

Signal
G1

Green

Data

Signal
G2

Green

Data

Signal
G3

Green

Data

Signal
G4

Green

Data

Designation

Description

Function

Signal
G5 (MSB)

Green

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

B0 (LSB)

Blue

Data Data Lines

Signal
B1

Blue

Data

Signal
B2

Blue

Data

Signal
B3

Blue

Data

Signal
B4

Blue

Data

Signal
B5 (MSB)

Blue
Signal

GND
TTL-TFT Interface

Ground

Data

Designation

Description Function

DCLK, CK

Data

Control line -

Sampling

Latch Data At

Clock

Negative
Edge Signal

R0 (LSB)

Red

Data Data Lines

Signal
R1

Red

Data

Signal
R2

Red

Data

Signal
R3

Red

Data

Signal
R4

Red

Data

Signal
R5 (MSB)

Red

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

Ground
are

lines
placed

Designation

Description Function
between
various signal
lines

for

isolation. Only
3

shown

examples
G0 (LSB)

Green
Data
Signal

G1

Green
Data
Signal

G2

Green
Data
Signal

G3

Green
Data
Signal

Data Lines

as

Designation

Description Function

G4

Green
Data
Signal

G5 (MSB)

Green
Data
Signal

GND

Ground

B0 (LSB)

Blue

Data Data Lines

Signal
B1

Blue

Data

Signal
B2

Blue

Data

Signal
B3

Blue

Data

Signal
B4

Blue

Data

Signal
B5 (MSB)

Blue

Data

Designation

Description Function
Signal

GND

Ground

DE

Data

Control line -

Enable

Horizontal
Display
Position

Set

Signal
H:

Enables

LCD
SPI-TFT Interface
Designation

Description Function

SCL

Serial
Clock

Control line
SPI

Serial

Interface
Clock
HSync

Horiz Sync Control line signal

Horizontal

Designation

Description Function
Sync

Signal

(negative
going)
VSync

Vertical

Control line -

Sync

Vertical

Signal

Signal

Sync

(negative
going)
RES

Reset

Reset Enable

CS

Chip Select SPI

Chip

Select
SDO

Serial Data SPI

Out

SDI

ENAB

Serial

Data Output

Serial Data SPI

Serial

In

Data Input

Enable

Control line Horizontal

Display

Designation

Description Function
Position

Set

Signal
H:

Enables

LCD
DCLK, CK

Data

Control line

Sampling
Clock

Data
Sampling
Clock Signal

R0

Red

Data Data Lines

Signal
R1

Red

Data

Signal
R2

Red

Data

Signal
R3

Red

Data

Signal
R4

Red

Data

Designation

Description Function
Signal

R5

Red

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

Ground
are

lines
placed

between
various signal
lines

for

isolation. Only
3

shown

examples
G0

Green
Data
Signal

G1

Green
Data
Signal

G2

Green

Data Lines

as

Designation

Description Function
Data
Signal

G3

Green
Data
Signal

G4

Green
Data
Signal

G5

Green
Data
Signal

GND

Ground

B0

Blue

Data Data Lines

Signal
B1

Blue

Data

Signal
B2

Blue
Signal

Data

Designation

Description Function

B3

Blue

Data

Signal
B4

Blue

Data

Signal
B5

Blue

Data

Signal
GND

Ground

LVDS (Low-Voltage Differential Signaling)

LVDS is a differential signal system that is typically used for high
speed data rate transfer. LVDS is not an interface protocol, but
rather the hardware mechanism that is used to transmit the data

across wires. This system can be used with either serial or parallel
or a hybrid interface protocol.
The operation basically has the LCD controller transmitting two
logic voltage levels that are compared in the LCD module. LVDS
uses the difference in voltage between the two lines to encode
information. These two lines are typically twisted pairs. The
transmitter sends a small current into one line or the other,
depending on the logic level to be sent. The current passes
through a resistor which is matched to the impedance of the line
at the LCD module, then returns in the opposite direction along
the other wire. The LCD module senses the polarity of the voltage
across the resistor to determine the logic level.
This

type

of

signal

minimizes

the

amount

of

radiated

electromagnetic noise and power lost to conductor resistance.

LVDS is less susceptible to noise than single wire data systems
because it uses two wires with opposite current/voltage swings
instead of the one wire used in single-ended methods to convey
data information. The advantage of the differential approach is
that if noise is coupled onto the two wires, the noise appears on

both lines equally, and is mostly self-cancelling. The op amp at

the receiver/LCD module end basically only looks at the difference
between the two signals. Using this differential convention, the
signals also tend to radiate less noise than single wire data
signals due to the canceling of the induced magnetic fields.
Constant current drivers are also not prone to ringing or switching
spikes, which further reduces noise.

The schematic diagram shows a simple LVDS driver and receiver.

It consists of a current source that drives the differential pair lines
and an op amp receiver with high input impedance. This causes
most of the driver current to flow through the termination resistor,

which generates a voltage across the receiver inputs. When the

driver switches, it changes the direction of current flow across the
resistor, which changes the voltage sense from positive to
negative, which creates a logical "one" or "zero".
TMDS (Transition Minimized Differential Signaling)
TMDS is a technology for transmitting high-speed serial data and
is used by the DVI and HDVI video interfaces.
TMDS is similar to low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) in that
it

uses

differential

signaling

to

reduce

electromagnetic

interference (EMI), which allows faster signal transfers with

increased accuracy. Like LVDS, the data is transmitted serially
over the data link.
Type of Display (Module or Glass Only)
The most fundamental decision to make is if the display will have
the drive circuitry attached (module), or not (glass only). There
are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.
When purchasing a Custom Module, the basic electronic design
work will be done by the module supplier. This obviously saves

design time and reduces the manpower needed to bring a product

to market. You can benefit from the experience we have gained
during our previous designs to shorten the design cycle and
deliver an optimized product. The major decisions you need to
make are the Interface Type, with standard serial or parallel
interfaces being the most common, and the Type of Backlighting
desired. The Temperature Range, Viewing Angle, Viewing Mode,
and Contrast will need to be considered, but those decisions are
common to both approaches.
A Glass Only Design puts the design burden on the end user. You
will need to learn a great deal about LCD's in order to complete
your design. Fortunately, there is an enormous amount of data
available to help. In addition to our web site, which supplies most
of the basic LCD design information you will need, the suppliers of
products associated with LCD's, shown in our Products related to
LCD's area have technical information available. We also have a
few links to other technical sites, mostly colleges, where you can
find an enormous amount of basic information.

The main benefits to buy the LCD glass only are to reduce costs
and provide design flexibility. The total cost of the components
necessary to build the drive circuitry is less than the cost of a prebuilt module. As long as you have space on your existing PC
board, you won't have to pay for an extra PC board on which to
mount the display. By doing a little homework, your design will
work just as well as a module, and will allow the flexibility most
designers need to adapt their design to ever-changing demands.
Technology - TN or STN
The type of technology used is determined by the specific
performance characteristics of the display you are designing. For
a display with a low multiplex rate, i.e. about 8:1 or less, it is
possible to use a standard TN cell and still get an acceptable
viewing angle and contrast ratio. Above this level, the contrast
falls off quickly.
For displays with multiplex rates greater than 8:1, it has been
found that increasing the twist angle to 180 to 240 degrees, gives
superior results. By using a higher twist angle, one can achieve a

larger number of multiplexed lines, with a much higher contrast

ratio.
By designing displays with higher multiplex rates, a few problems,
which could be tolerated at low multiplex rates, come into play.
The first problem is the color. Normal STN cells have a greenish
background which is objectionable in some designs. The green
color can be corrected. However the correction adds cost to the
display. The operating temperature range of the displays also
suffers, which may require a heater to overcome.
Viewing Mode - Reflective, Transflective and Transmissive. A
Reflective Display has the brightest appearance with the highest
contrast ratio possible. However, it will be difficult to read at night
or under changing lighting conditions. If your display must be
readable under a wide range of lighting conditions, you will
generally want a Transflective Display so that it will look very
good in the bright sunlight, but will also be backlightable at
twilight and at night. A Transmissive Display must always have a
working backlight, and is therefore unacceptable in applications
where power consumption is a problem.

The tradeoff with a Transflective Display is that it will not look as

good as a Reflective Display during the day, and it will not look as
good as a Transmissive Display at night. It will however enable
you to have an acceptable compromise between the two, and
provides a very acceptable appearance. A further discussion of
viewing modes can be found in or technical Q & A section under
What is Reflective? Transflective?
The display can also be Negative Image or Positive Image. What is
Viewing Mode? in our Technical Q & A area discussed these terms.
Viewing Angle (Direction) - The viewing angle of a part is
discussed on the What is Viewing Angle page in the Technical Q &
A area. In general, the face of the display is divided into
quadrants. A display with a 12:00 viewing angle has optimum
contrast from above the normal. One with optimum contrast
below the normal has a 6:00 viewing angle. Similarly, a display
which will be viewed mostly from the left or right should have
either a 9:00 or 3:00 optimum viewing angle.
Drive Method - In general, any LCD will have better contrast and
viewing angle the lower the mux rate. For parts which are to be

viewed under changing lighting conditions, a direct drive part is

desirable. Any design which has 14-segment digits will have to be
multiplexed to some level, and the mux rate kept as low as
possible. This item ties into the next item directly, and the two
must be balanced to give the best looking display possible. Direct
Drive and Multiplexing are discussed extensively in the Technical
Q & A, andApplication Notes Sections.
Indoor / Outdoor - In general, the two natural elements that
destroy displays are high heat and humidity. The parts of a display
which are most sensitive to heat and humidity are the polarizers.
Under extreme conditions, the seals which hold the glass together
can fail. However, at LXD we have developed materials which
effectively eliminate this failure mode. When designing a display
for an extremely rugged environment, it is important to make sure
that

seals

will

not

be

problem.

In

general

then,

the

environmental considerations comes down to the polarizers.

Displays

which

will

be

indoors,

or

mostly

indoors,

can

use commercial grade polarizers, These polarizers will hold up

very well when used in most instrumentation, office and home

products, and other applications where the products will be

protected from high temperature and humidity.
For harsh environments, a polarizer specifically designed for
outdoor and extremely humid conditions should be used. We call
these polarizers industrial grade. A wide variety of different
outdoor materials is available, with varying contrast, coloration,
and efficiency. Because of the many different options, we can
supply samples of displays with different polarizers so that you
can choose the one which best fits your application.
Color Filters - LXD can add a color decal to the back of the display.
This decal can have different colors in different areas so as to give
different annunciators different colored backgrounds. This method
has the lowest cost, but also gives the dimmest colors.
Screen Print - Similar to the color filters, LXD can screen
print different colors onto either the front or rear of the display.
Each color can be applied in an intricate pattern, thus giving the
same flexibility as the decals but with much brighter colors. This
method usually costs more than a color decal, but is the preferred
method for most applications.

Color Polarizers - LXD can add a colored polarizer to the front of

the display. This method will cause the individual segments to be
colored when they are activated, i.e. all segments will be red,
green or other color on a silver background. This method will add
only slightly to the cost of the display. These colored polarizers
are not as efficient as normal polarizers, and the resulting
segments do not have the same contrast as a normal black on
silver display.
Filters - It is possible to put anti-reflective or anti-glare filters over
the front of a display to improve viewability in harsh lighting
conditions. These filters are usually bonded directly to the front
polarizer of the display.
An anti-glare filter is one that has its front surface either
physically or chemically roughened. This surface scatters specular
reflections over a wide area. It produces diffuse, bright reflections
that will reduce the overall contrast, but can improve the display
readability.
A better, but more expensive solution, is to use a high
efficiency anti-reflective material. These materials do not scatter

the light like the anti-glare materials, but rather re-direct the light
waves so that they continue traveling forward instead of
reflecting back toward the observer. New anti-reflective materials
can reduce the front surface reflections to less than 0.3% or less.

CHAPTER 4
Organic Light Emitting Diodes

4.1 OLED Principle

Organic light emitting diodes are a relatively new technology for
solid state light sources. A typical OLED consists of two organic
layers

(electron

and

hole

transport layers), embedded between two electrodes. The top

electrode is usually a metallic mirror with high reflectivity and the
bottom electrode a transparent ITO layer on top of the glass
substrate.

When a voltage is applied to the electrodes the charges start

moving in the device under the influence of the electric field.
Electrons leave the cathode and holes move from the anode in
opposite direction. The recombination of this charges leads to the
creation of a photon with a frequency given by the energy gap (E
= h) between the LUMO and HOMO levels of the emitting
molecules.

Therefore,

the

electrical

power

applied

electrodes is transformed into light.

Charge transport and light generation in OLED's

to

the

4.2 Efficiency
The ratio between the electrical power supplied to the device and
the optical power that comes out through the glass substrate
determines the efficiency of our device. It can be divided into the
internal efficiency, that is the number of generated photons per
injected electron, and the optical outcoupling efficiency which is
the percentage of the generated light that is able to escape from
the device through the glass substrate.

Limitation of the efficiency by total internal reflection

The latter depends strongly on the refractive index of the emitting

material (n = 1.7), the refractive index of the substrate (n = 1.5)
and the reflectivity of the cathode. In a thick device (relative to
the wavelength of light), and in absence of scattering effects, the
out coupling efficiency () is given by the following analytical
formula following from Snell's law:

But in actual OLED's the thickness of every layer is in the order of

the wavelength of the generated light, yielding an angular
distribution very different from isotropic. Interference effects like
Wide-Angle or Multiple Beam interferences are presents in the
actual OLED. Therefore, the thickness of every layer and the
location of the emitter play an important role on the angular
distribution of the generated photons.

Wide angle interference

Multiple beam interference

The emission depends strongly on several factors:

The wavelength

The location of the emitter

 The thickness of the emitting layer

But,

in

general

the

most

restrictive

parameters

for

the

outcoupling efficiency are the reflectivity of the metallic mirror

and the refractive index of the organic layers.
The amount of light that is emitted into air can be enhanced by
optimizing the thickness of the different layers.

Maximizing the efficiency by varying the thikness of the

different layers
The presence of scattering centers in the substrate or especially
in the active medium, where most of the light is trapped, could
result in an increment of the outcoupling efficiency. Photonic
crystals or nanostructured surfaces can also be applied to avoid
lateral propagation of the light inside the OLED, bringing more
light into the escape cone.

Scattering centers in OLED's can modify the direction of

the trapped light
Applications and advantages
OLED's can be used for general lighting as well as for displays,
backlight sources in LCD displays, signaling (emergency lighting,
traffic signals) or automotive applications (dashboard).

Applications using OLED's

OLED

technology

has

some

major

advantages

applications:
High efficiency and large area sources.
High brightness and wide viewing angle.
Thin, flat and lightweight.
Low voltage and fast switching technology.
Form freedom and tunable emission.
Flexible displays.
Low cost production.

for

these

4.3 Electrophoretic Displays

The term electrophoresis is a composition of 'electro' and

'phoresis', two words that are derived from the Greek words for
'charge' and 'the act of carrying'. In that way, the name
'electrophoretic display (ED)' already gives a hint about its basic
working principle. As shown on the picture below an ED is made of
an ink layer, sandwiched between two layers that can be plastic,
glass or even paper. The total thickness of the layer structure is
between 0.5mm on glass and 0.1mm on plastic, which is in the
order of a sheet of paper.

4.4 Principle of an electrophoretic display

In the simplest case of a black and white display, the top
substrate is covered with a single transparent electrode, while the
bottom substrate contains a complex pattern of line-electrodes.
Using active matrix driving, a single pixel can be addressed,
meaning that the bottom electrode can be made either positive or
negative compared to the top-electrode. The electrophoretic ink
between these electrodes is a mixture of transparent liquid and

microscopic charged pigment particles. The usual choice is

negatively charged black particles (carbon black) and positively
charged white particles (TiO2). In practice the ink is captured
inside microcups, or microcapsules as in the figure. When a
voltage is applied over the top- and bottom electrode, the
charged pigments will move due to an electrostatic force to the
attracting electrodes. For instance, when the bottom electrode is
positive, it will attract black particles and repel white particles.
These white particles gather at the top-electrode, where they
reflect incident light in all directions. This is the white state. In the
opposite case a negative bottom electrode pushes the black
particles to the surface, where they absorb the light. This is the
black state. This basic principle is different than most displays by
the fact that it is reflective. So, an ED is a type of display that
reflects or absorbs ambient light in contrast to transmissive
displays such as the CRT or LCD. In practice this looks like:

Zoomed image of an electrophoretic display

4.5 Electrophoretic Displays Advantages

The major advantages of the electrophoretic technology are:

High reflectivity of the white state and high contrast:
Electrophoretic ink uses basically the same pigments as in
regular ink for books, newspapers, etc. Therefore ED's have
the same agreeable readability as printed paper.
High resolution:
The current resolution is about 170 pixels per inch, which is
similar to the current LCD monitors for instance.
Excellent readability in direct sunlight and in dimmed light
under all angles
Very low energy consumption:
There is no need of a backlight that is the main energy
consumer in most displays. Energy consumption is 1/10 to
1/100 of a regular LCD display.
Possibility

of

thin,

mobile

and

flexible

displays:The

technology of polymer transistors has advanced to the point

that all components of an ED can be made flexible. This

means that it is now possible to make a bendable or even

rollable display.

4.6 Electro chromic displays

Since time immemorial, mankind has been fascinated by light and
how to manipulate it. Some big inventions, like the breaking of
light on a prism, the photograph, and the television, have only
sharpened the curiosity of scientists. That is why up till now, a lot
of research happens in the field of display technology and
integration of colors in displays. Nowadays, we have already tens
or maybe hundreds of different sorts of displays. Some of the
most famous are: cathode ray tube (CRT: television or computer
screen), liquid crystal displays (LCD), electrophoretic displays (EINK), (organic) light-emitting diodes ((O)LED), electro chromic
displays (ECD)
In this section, we present you a survey of what chromic, and in
particular, electro chromic materials are and what they are used
for.
The chromic effect

Chromic materials have the possibility of changing their colour

reversibly when they are placed in a different environment. Every
day, new materials are discovered with chromic properties. To
classify all these chromic materials, we put them in groups along
their

stimuli.

For

instance:

thermochromics

materials

are

materials that change their color when the temperature of the

environment

is

raised

or

lowered.

This

effect

is

called

thermochromics and examples of such materials are biathlons

and cobalt hexacyanoferrate. Besides this chromic effect, you
have

phototropism

(exposure

to

electromagnetic

radiation

changes the color of the material), halochromism (a change in pH

of the solution), solvatochromism (a reversible change of colour
induced by the present of solvents), .
One of the most useful forms of chromium is electrochromism. In
this case, a material is able to reversibly change its colour when it
is placed in a different electronic state. So by absorbing an
electron (the materials is reduced) or by ejecting one (the
material is oxidised), the material is able to change its colour.

4.7 Principle of oxidation and reduction

Electrochromism was discovered in 1968 by S.K. Deb and J.A.
Chopoorian and has a broad range of commercial applications.
Some of those applications are smart windows and mirrors (e.g.
darkening a window to control the inlet of sun light), active optical
filters (e.g. sunglasses), displays and computer data storage.

A flexible, electro chromic display

Electrochromes (electrochromic materials) can be classified in

different groups depending on their physical state at room
temperature. This way, three different types of electrochromes
can by distinguished. Type I electrochromic materials are soluble
and remain in the solution during usage. Type II electrochromic
materials are soluble in their neutral state and form a solid on the
electrode after electron transfer, whereas type III electrochromic
materials are solid and remain solid during usage. In reality, three
big

groups

of

electrochromes

are

popular

in

making

electrochromic devices (ECDs): metal oxide films (inorganic type

III), conducting polymers (organic type III) and molecular dyes

(type I). The research in our group is mainly on all-solution

systems,
better known as the molecular dyes.

4.8 Molecular dyes

The technology for making a working electrochromic cell is very
similar to the technology used in LCD displays. One way of

making a working cell is by placing the electrochromic material

between two transparent electrodes (preferentially Indium Tin
Oxide, better known as ITO). The colouring of the EC-material
results from changing the potential of the cell by charging the
electrodes.

Structure of ECD in offStructure of ECD in on-state

state
An example of an electrochromic material that is able to turn blue
is EV (Ethyl Viologen) and is one of the many electrochromic dyes,
originating from the bipyridinium group. In most cases, the
viologen molecules are symmetrical, so R' is equal to R''. For EV
for instance, R' is equal to the ethylene group:

The colouring of EV from completely transparent to intense blue

happens by absorption of an electron. This process is reversible. If
the EV-molecule absorbs a second electron, EV turns pale blue.
This reduction however is irreversible and definitely not wanted.

Schematic representation of the colouring mechanism in

EV
A typical property of all-solution electrochromic devices is the big
difference between the transparent state and the dark state. On
top of this, one can obtain a complete set of tones of the same
colour just by varying the applied voltage.

Transmission measurement of EV at different potentials

Advantages of electrochromic devices
Low power consumption:
Recent EC displays are bistable and are able to work in reflection.
This means that when you switch off the power, the colour
remains. You can even lower the power consumption by the
addition of high reflective molecules, like Titania. This way, you
don't need a backlight, so you are able to use the display as an
electronic book.

 Cheap:
The raw materials used in EC displays are cheap.
Switching is quite fast
One of the main issues of the first generation EC devices was the
long switching time. This is the time needed to change colour,
starting from the transparent state (about 5 seconds). This
however can be solved by using porous electrodes, like is done
now with the EC displays of the new generation. Typical switching
times are now of the order of 200 milliseconds.
Integration of colours without colour filters:
Researchers have developed a molecular dye that can
display red, green or blue, depending upon the applied
voltage. This implies that you wouldn't need to use colour
filters, which diminish the brightness of the display.
Easy transformation to make them in large amounts:
Recent studies show that existing LCD-manufacturers could
easily transform their assembling machines to assemble EC
displays.

Chapter 5
Computer simulation of confined and flex electric liquid
crystalline systems

Systems of confined and flexoelectric liquid crystal systems have

been studied using molecular computer simulations. The aim of
this work was to provide a molecular model of a bistable display
cell in which switching is induced through the application of
directional electric field pulses.
In the first part of this Thesis, the study of confined systems of
liquid crystalline particles has been addressed. Computation of
the

anchoring

phase

diagrams

for

three

different

surface

interaction models showed that the hard needle wall and rodsurface potentials induce both planar and homeotropic alignment
separated by a bistability region, this being stronger and wider for
the rod-surface varant.
The results obtained using the rod-sphere surface model, in
contrast, showed that tilted surface arrangements can be induced
by surface absorption mechanisms.

Equivalent studies of hybrid anchored systems showed that a

bend director structure can be obtained in a slab with monostable
homeotropic anchoring at the top surface and bistable anchoring
at the bottom, provided that the slab height is sufficiently large
and the top homeotropic anchoring is not too strong.

In the second part of the Thesis, the development of models for

tapered (pearshaped) mesogens has been addressed. The first
model considered, the truncated Stone expansion model, proved
to be unsuccessful in that it did not display liquid crystalline
phases. This drawback was then overcome using the alternative
parametric hard Gaussian overlap model which was found to
display a much richer phase behaviour. With a molecular
elongation k = 5, both nematic and interdigitated smectic
A2phases were obtained.
In the final part of this Thesis, the knowledge acquired from the
two previous studies was united in an attempt to model a bistable
display cell. Switching between the hybrid aligned nematic and

vertical states of the cell was successfully performed using pear

shaped particles with both dielectric and dipolar couplings to an
applied field. Also, a parameter window was identified, for values
of the electric field, dielectric susceptibility and dipole moment,
for which directional switching is achievable between the bistable
states.
The liquid crystalline phases which were discovered in 1888,
represent a state of
matter which shares properties of both its neighbouring isotropic
liquid and crystal solid phases. As a result of this, liquid crystals have found
many industrial
applications in fields as different as biology, rheology, laser optics
or tribology.
However the greatest application of liquid crystals is, without any
doubt, in the
field of electro-optic displays.

In the most common liquid crystal display cells, the so called

super-twisted nematic displays, surface interactions play a
significant role in device operation; switching between the on
and

off

states

orientations

is

from

arrangement.

The

achieved
field

surface

by

changing

aligned

to

treatment

of

the

molecular

surface

the

cell

aligned
surfaces,

therefore, plays a significant role in the cell performance

characteristics such as switching speed, viewing angle and
contrast.
Surprisingly, the surface treatments used industrially are often
applied following 1empirical rules and a full understanding at a
molecular scale of the surface-induced structural changes near
the surfaces is still lacking. The reasons for this lie in the very
complexity of liquid crystalline phases which renders a full
theoretical treatment extremely difficult while most experimental
approaches are unable to achieve the much needed molecular
resolution. Consequently, the behavior of liquid crystals at
interfaces

has

become

particular

focus

for

numerical

simulations in which the study of generic models, based on

statistical mechanics, can be used to gain an in-depth insight into

molecular behavior.
The latest developments in liquid crystal display technology have
led to bitable displays which are thought to rely on the properties
of flex electric mesogen molecules for their operation. The
advantage of these displays lies in their re- duced power
consumption, leading to a battery lives about one thousand times
longer than those super-twisted nematic displays. Again, bitable
devices rely cru- cially on surface effects for their successful
operation, hence the importance of a sound knowledge of the
interfacial region properties. Also, the use of flex electric particles
requires a good understanding of this particular class of liquid
crystal.
Up to the end of the 19thcentury, the three known states of
matter were gas, liquid and solid. According to dictionary
definitions [3, 4] a substance is gaseous

it expands to fill its

container homogeneously, regardless of its volume, displays a

high compressibility and shows no positional correlations on
length scales greater than the molecular size. At the other

extreme, a solid retains its shape, can support shear and its
atoms are restricted in space, oscillating about a fixed position.
Two type of solids can be distinguished; in crystalline solids, the
atoms are regularly spaced on a 3 dimensional lattice, whereas in
amorphous or glassy solids, the atoms are disordered on a large
scale but ordered in the range of a few molecular lengths.
Liquid is a state of matter which exists between the two
preceeding phases. A liquid substance only fills part of its
container and its localisation is largely controlled by the
gravitational force. Actually a liquid is only one component of a
two phase system as every liquid is always searching to be in
equilibrium with its own saturated vapor. A liquid has no rigidity,
gives no resistance to shear under static conditions and has a
small volume compressibility. On a microscopic scale, the
positions of the constituent molecules are randomly distributed
and no long range order can be found. Molecules in a liquid are
subject to Brownian diffusion.
However, this picture changed somewhat in the late eighteen
eighties. Slightly before then a number of scientist noticed some

uncommon crystallization behaviour in certain substances which

were found to transform from isotropic liquid to a non-crystalline
form before undergoing full crystallization. At the time, this was
attributed to the presence of impurities in the samples. The actual
discovery of liquid crystals is attributed to Friedrich Reinitzer [5]
who, in 1888, was studying a compound related to cholesterol
(cholesteryl benzoate). Reinitzer observed what he referred to as
two melting points and identified the new phase; this was later
termed liquid crystal by his friend and colleague Otto Lehmann
[6]

who

performed

the

first

polarised

optical

microscopic

measurements on liquid crystals.

Although not much studied at first because of the lack of the
direct

applications,

interest

in

liquid

crystals

increased

dramatically during the 20thcentury, mostly because of Liquid

Crystal Display (LCD) applications; a wide understanding of these
phases and the molecules that form them has now been built up.

5.1 Density functional theory

The phase structure of simple atomistic fluids can be described
successfully using
Hard spheres as models, that is considering only the repulsive
part of their pair Potential. The extension of this principle to the
mesoscale was first achieved by Lars Onsager in 1949 in a study
of colloidal particles (tobacco virus). The main idea underlying this
seminal work is that the mechanism for spontaneous ordering in a
system of hard molecules is based on competition between the

orientation entropy that destroys nematic order and the positional

entropy that favors it

Where Fidand Fexare the ideal and excess parts of F and f( u) is

the orientational distribution function that depends on the particle
orientation vector u. Each Bi represents the excluded volume in
a cluster of i particles.

Onsager made the following assumptions:

The molecules (spherocylinders of length L and diameter D)
interact only through steric repulsion (no interpenetration).
The volume fraction is much smaller than 1.
The rods are very long (L > D).

Within these assumptions, Onsager showed that the virial

expansion can be truncated after the second coefficient; he
showed that the third one vanishes and assumed the same for the
the following coefficients. This makes his approach the simplest
form of density functional theory.
The implication of his results is that, in the limits considered, the
N-I transition can be explained exclusively using short range
repulsive forces. However, the approximations made in this theory
worsen considerably as the particle elongation is reduced
because the density of the transition is not vanishing. Therefore
this theory cannot be applied to mesogens with a standard
elongation of 3 to 5. Early computer simulations of hard prolate
particles by Vieillard-Baron
and later Frenkel et al. [38, 39] showed qualitative but not
quantitative agreement with Onsagers theory This does not imply
that density functional theory cannot be applied to liquid
crystalline behaviors, only that, for the accurate description of
mesogens, more virial coefficients are needed. The most obvious
approach then is to calculate higher order coefficients, as been

done in, but the difficulty of the task increases significantly with
the order of the coefficients. A better approach is the use of
resumptions techniques such as the y-expansion that allow the
indirect

inclusion

of

high

order

coefficients.

Some

other

resumptions methods have been used successfully on single

component

and

mixture

systems

leading,

recently,

to

considerable improvements in the description of anisotropic

fluids.

5.2 Maier Saupe theory

In the early 20thCentury, Born showed that the anisotropic

component of the pair potential was responsible for the orderdisorder transitions in nematic phases. This was later expanded
by Maier and Saupe to give rise to the so called Maier Saupe (MS)
theory

Where Xn Represents the full set of positional and orientational

coordinates for the N particles of the fluid. In the case of a perfect
gas, as every particles behavior can be taken to be independent
of all others, the partition function can be transformed into the
product of N single particle partition functions, each of which is
easily solvable. However, in the case of a fluid phase, and even
more so a mesophase, the relatively high density implies that
each particles energy is

dependent on several other particles

coordinates so that the previous simplification is no longer valid.

MS theory aims to resolve this difficulty using the so called

molecular field approximation. This approximation removes the
need for the consideration of each individual pair potential; rather
each particle is taken to reside in a field which mimics the
presence of all the other particles. Effectively each particle is
assumed to be was moving in an energy continuum. As a result
U(XN) can be written as the sum of N energies, each of which is a
function of the coordinates of a single particle :

The problem, then, is to find an expression for the mean-potential

experienced by the particles. Several approaches have been used
for this. The most intuitive approach is to average the anisotropic
pair potential over the coordinates of one particle while one of the
most simple and rigorous is to start from the singlet distribution
function and solve the Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon
hier- archy of equations as described In a transnationally invariant
situation, the general form of the final mean potential depends

only on , the angle between the particle under consideration and

the director n, so:

The main conclusion that can be drawn from this is that while MS
theory is most effective at long range it can successfully describe
liquid crystalline behaviour. This implies that short-range repulsive
forces have little role to play, whereas short range potentials have
been shown to be responsible for both the ordering of nematics
and the structure of normal liquids. This apparent discrepancy can
be resolved by appreciating that the long range attractive part of
the potential used in MS theory can be regarded as describing the
interactions between clusters of highly ordered particles.

5.3 Technology
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. For instance, a liquid crystal may flow like a
liquid, but its molecules may be arranged and oriented in a
crystal-like manner. There are many different types of liquid
crystal phases, which can be distinguished based on their
different optical properties.
The liquid crystal molecules are electrically charged. By applying
an electric current to transparent electrodes over each pixel or
subpixel, the molecules are twisted by electrostatic forces. This
changes the twist of the light passing through the molecules, and
allows varying degrees of light to pass through the polarizing
filters.

Before an electric current is applied, the liquid crystal molecules

are in a relaxed state. Charges on the molecules cause them to
align themselves in a helical structure, or twist. If the liquid
crystals are completely untwisted, light passing through them will
be polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be
completely blocked. The pixel will appear unlit. By controlling the
twist of the liquid crystals in each pixel, light can be allowed to
pass through in varying amounts, correspondingly illuminating the
pixel.
In color LCDs, each individual pixel is divided into three cells, or
subpixels, which are colored red, green, and blue by additional
filters. Each subpixel can be controlled independently to yield
thousands or millions of possible colors for each pixel.

Cross-section of a TFT-LCD Display

Depending on the location of the light source, LCDs are either

transmissive or reflective. Transmissive LCDs are illuminated from
the back by a backlight and viewed from the opposite side (the
front). This is the type of LCD used in computer displays, personal
digital assistants, and mobile phones. These applications require

high luminance levels, and the illumination device usually

consumes much more power than the LCD itself. Reflective LCDs
are often found in digital watches and calculators; they are
illuminated by external light which may be reflected by a diffusing
reflector behind the display. These LCDs have higher contrast
than the transmissive types, and significantly lower power
consumption.
Small monochrome displays use a passive matrix structure using
supertwist nematic (STN) or double layer STN technology. Each
row or column of the display has a single electrical circuit; the
pixels are addressed one at a time by row and column addresses.
This type of display is called a passive matrix because the pixel
must remain in its state between refreshes without the benefit of
a steady electrical charge.
Modern LCD computer monitors and televisions, with highresolution color displays, use an active matrix structure. A matrix
of thin-film transistors (TFTs) is added to the polarizing and color
filters. Each pixel has its own dedicated transistor. Active matrix
displays are much brighter and sharper than passive matrix

displays of the same size, and generally have quicker response

times.
There are approximately 300 different liquid crystal compounds
used. Up to four fluorescent lamps and a thin light diffuser are
used to provide light.
Three manufacturers currently supply 90 percent of the liquid
crystals and liquid crystal mixtures used in LCDs worldwide. These
are

Merck

KGaA

(Darmstadt,

Germany)

and

the

Japanese

companies Chisso Corporation and Dainippon Ink. Merck KGaA

alone has an approximate market share of 69 percent (Becker and
Lemp 2004) and holds about 2,500 patents on liquid crystals and
mixtures.

The

remaining

10

percent

of

liquid

crystal

manufacturers are located primarily in China and in many cases

their products and mixtures follow old recipes of Merck (Prsler
1999). LCDs use mixtures of liquid crystals and usually contain 25
or more types of liquid crystal molecules.
Worldwide, sales of 165,000 tons of LCDs (containing about 190
tons of liquid crystals) are predicted for the year 2008 (Prsler
1999). A study by DisplaySearch (2005) projects that the market

share of LCDs in the flat panel display market will grow from 73.3
percent in 2004 to 81 percent in 2008. LCDs represented a total
display area of 13.2 million square meters in 2004 and are
projected to represent a total display area of 39.7 million square
meters in 2008. In 2004, passive matrix LCDs represented 4
percent of the market display area (684,000 square meters); they
are expected to represent 1.4 percent (6.7 million square meters)
of the total display area in 2008.
Average display size of LCD computer monitors will increase from
about 16.7 inches in 2005 to 17.2 inches in 2008 (DisplaySearch
2004, Becker 2005). LCD notebook displays are expected to
increase from a 14.5-inch display size in 2005 to an average size
of 14.8 inches in 2008.
Worldwide sales are predicted to grow from about 55 million
pieces in 2005 to over 85 million pieces in 2008 (DisplaySearch
2004). U.S. markets for LCDs are expected to increase at an
annual rate of 17 percent to reach about $14 billion by 2008
(Freedonia 2004).

Technical difficulties with early LCD panel televisions have largely

been overcome in recent years, and the market for LCD
televisions is booming. Sharp Corporation, Samsung and LG
Philips are producing ever-larger panels; 40-inch to 45-inch LCD
televisions are widely available, and Sharp Corporation has
announced the successful manufacture of a 65-inch panel. In
March 2005, Samsung announced an 82-inch high definition
television (HDTV) TFT- LCD panel and in 2006 Sharp announced a
108-inch LCD. LCD television sales are projected to grow from
about 9 million pieces and an average display diagonal of 21.3
inches (average display area 218 square inches) in 2004 to about
55 million pieces and a display diagonal of 30.4 inches in 2008
(average display area of 480 square inches).
A plasma display is an emissive flat panel display where light is
created by phosphors excited by a plasma discharge between two
flat panels of glass. A mixture of noble gases (neon and xenon),
which is inert, is used to produce the gas discharge. Plasma
displays do not use mercury.

The word plasma refers to an ionized gas, and is usually

considered to be a distinct phase of matter. It refers to a system
of charged particles that is large enough to behave collectively;
even a gas in which as little as 1 percent of the particles are
ionized can behave as a plasma and have the characteristics of a
plasma. Plasmas are the most common phase of matter,
comprising more than 99 percent of the visible universe.
Examples of plasmas found in nature include flames, lightning,
the Northern Lights, and the sun and stars. Artificially produced
plasmas include rocket exhaust, the electric arc in an arc lamp or
arc welder, and the inside of neon signs and fluorescent lamps.
Plasma displays are bright, have a wide color range, and can be
produced in fairly large sizes (up to 80 inches). The display panel
is 2 1/2 inches thick. Plasma display panels use as much power
per screen area as a CRT; the larger screen sizes can use up to
700 watts of power, enough to make some critics worry about the
environmental consequences of wide adoption of plasma displays
(Mann 2004). In addition, plasma displays are susceptible to
screen burn, a phenomenon where images can be permanently
imprinted on the screen if the device is left on for too long a

period. This will limit plasma technologys penetration into the

potentially high-volume personal computer market (Freedonia
Group 2004).

5.4 Electroluminescent Displays

Electroluminescent display (ELD) technology is used to produce
very thin display screens and is mainly used in portable
computers. The origin of ELDs lies in scientific discoveries that
were made during the first decade of the twentieth century.
However, commercially they did not become viable products until

the1980s. They are particularly useful in applications that require

ruggedness of the display, high display speed, brightness, high
contrast, and where a wide angle of vision is needed and at the
same time full color is not necessarily required. In recent years,
color ELD technology has advanced significantly, especially for
microdisplays.
Inside an ELD screen, a thin film of phosphorescent substance is
sandwiched between two plates. One plate is coated with vertical
wires and the other with horizontal wires, forming a grid. The
phosphorescent film at the intersection of the wires glows,
creating a display pixel, when electrical current is passing through
the respective horizontal and vertical wires.
The two main firms that have developed and commercialized
ELDs are Sharp in Japan and Planar Systems in the United States
(Hart et al. 1999). The US market for ELDs is expected to grow
from $55 million in 2003 to about $75 million in the year 2008
(Freedonia

2004).

Growth

in

demand

matches

those

microdisplays and LED arrays but with a lower market share.

of

Nevertheless, depending on future innovations and actual market

development, ELDs could potentially become an important
technology for flat panels.

5.5 Light-Emitting Diode (LED) Arrays

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits

narrow-spectrum

light;

this

effect

is

form

of

electroluminescence. The color of the emitted light depends on

the chemical composition of the semiconducting material used,
and can be near-ultraviolet, visible or infrared.
Common

materials

used

include

compounds

of

aluminum,

gallium, arsenic, zinc, selenium, indium, nitrogen, phosphorus,

indium, and silicon. LEDs are used as information indicators in
various types of systems, in thin, lightweight message displays,
instrument displays, flashlights, and as a light source in fiber optic
communications. LED panels may be used indoors or outdoors;
the largest LED display in the world is 118 feet high in Times
Square, New York City.
Demand for LED arrays is expected to reach $225 million in 2008
(Freedonia 2004).

Flat panel display (FPD) devices are known to contain some

potentially toxic or hazardous constituents. This section reviews
various FPD constituents and highlights those that may be
hazardous

to

human

health

and

the

environment.

Lists

components and materials in FPD devices reported by the

electronics industry and researchers. Highlights the toxic or
hazardous

nature

of

individual

constituents,

including

uncertainties about the toxicity of particular constituents

The purpose of this section is to provide a broad overview of
known or suspected hazards associated with individual FPD
constituents. The section is not intended to evaluate specific
human health or ecological risks associated with end-of-life
management of FPDs. Potential impacts of FPD devices are
dependent not only on the hazardous nature of the constituent
but on the quantities present and the type of exposure. The
relative quantities, release potential, and specific exposure
scenarios during end of life management will ultimately influence
the degree of risk to both human and ecological receptors.

6.1 Toxicity of FPD Constituents

This subsection presents an overview of what is known and not
known about the toxicity of the constituents in FPD devices.
Summaries

of

the

effects

of

the

more

well-studied

FPD

constituents as documented in the literature are kept relatively

brief. More discussion is provided on those constituents for which
studies are ongoing or inconclusive.
Documenting

the

potential

toxicity

and

hazards

of

FPD

constituents requires consideration of a myriad of factors,

including but not limited to evidence from human and animal
studies documenting irritant or other acute effects; various organ
system effects (e.g., central nervous system, lung, kidney, liver);
functional effects such as immune system or developmental
effects; and known or suspected constituent carcinogenicity. Also
of

interest

are

constituent

bioaccumulation

potential

and

bioavailability, as both affect a constituents potential toxicity. the

human health and environmental effects associated with lead,
mercury, and other heavy metals, are fairly well described in the
scientific literature. Research is ongoing on other inorganic
constituents (e.g., plasma gases, indium-tin oxide [ITO]) and
organic compounds such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs),
plastics and plasticizers (phthalates), and liquid crystals. As such,
less definitive conclusions can be made about the toxicity of these
constituents.
Several data sources were reviewed to identify relevant toxicity
information on FPD constituents. Where possible, particularly for
the more well-studied constituents (e.g., mercury, lead, and other
metals), authors of this report relied upon data from the most upto-date peer-reviewed databases or toxicity reviews prepared by
governmental or other reliable scientific bodies (e.g., National
Library of Medicine resources such as the Hazardous Substance
Data Bank [HSDB] and Haz-Map; the Agency for Toxic Substances
and

Disease

Registry

[ATSDR]

toxicological

profiles;

EPAs

Integrated Risk Information System). As needed, authors also

sought and reviewed data Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDSs)

and studies generated by material manufacturers, and in a limited

number of cases from the primary published peer-reviewed
scientific literature. Due to the proprietary nature of data related
to some constituents of concern (in particular liquid crystals),
complete data sets could not be reviewed in all cases.

6.2 Inorganic Constituents

Heavy Metals
Many

of

the

metals

and

metal

compounds

used

in

the

manufacture of FPD devices are associated with a wide range of

adverse health effects, ranging from mild irritant effects to
serious longer-term illnesses in both children and adults. Many of
these metals are most hazardous when inhaled as a dust or fume
(e.g., antimony, beryllium, cadmium, chromium VI). Some are
known or suspected carcinogens. Most are known to persist in the
environment, and generally bioaccumlate in fish and wildlife. The

extent of uptake and/or harm incurred by plants varies element

by

element

and

depends

on

local

soil

conditions.

Metal

contaminated dust deposition on soils and plants serves as the

primary vehicle for movement up the food chain.
As noted above, lead and mercury continue to be among the most
closely

watched

and

managed

constituents

due

to

their

persistence and well-documented toxicity. Lead has been studied

quite extensively. The main target for lead toxicity is the central
and peripheral nervous systems, including developmental effects
in children. Lead exposures also are linked with kidney and
reproductive system effects, as well as cancer (ATSDR, 2005). The
primary health
effects of mercury are on the neurological development of
children; effects depend on the level of exposure but may include
decreases

in

IQ,

development

delays,

mental

retardation,

blindness, muscle weakness, and inability to speak (USEPA 1999b;

ATSDR 1999). Children, infants, and fetuses are more vulnerable
to the effects of lead and mercury; both can be passed from a
pregnant woman to her unborn child.

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)

Limited information on the toxicity of indium compounds is
available. Indium is believed to be moderately toxic, with
potential liver, heart, and kidney effects. It is mildly irritating
when inhaled. A recent study describes a case of fibrotic lung
disease after a 4-year exposure to ITO (Homma et al., 2005).
Following the first report on lethal lung injury in an ITO worker in
2001, industrial physicians in a Japanese plant conducted
pulmonary check-ups for 115 workers.
Interstitial pulmonary disease was reported in three workers who
had engaged in wet-surface grinding of ITO for 8 to 12 years
(Taguchi and Chonan, 2006). According to Homma et al. (2005)
and Taguchi and Chonan (2006), inhaled indium compounds may
cause new and unique lung diseases that warrant preventive
measures.
Phosphors
Fluorescent

phosphors

may

contain

antimony,

manganese,

yttrium, tin and other metal compounds (Socolof et al. 2001). The
only information identified on the potential toxicity of these

phosphors was from an MSDS prepared by General Electric (GE)

for fluorescent lamps.
GE reports two types of phosphor systems. One system uses
calcium choro-fluoro-phosphateith small amounts of antimony
and manganese. The other system uses a mixture of rare earth
elements such as yttrium used as oxides or phosphates, along
with barium/aluminum oxide.
GE reports no significant adverse effects, either by ingestion,
inhalation, skin contact, or eye implant in a 5-year animal study
conducted by the IH Foundation of the Mellon Institute, and no
"significant" adverse effects on humans by any of these routes
during the many years of manufacture (GE, 2004).

6.3 Organic Constituents

Liquid Crystals
Manufacturers have conducted a fairly wide range of testing to
evaluate the potential for harmful effects associated with liquid
crystals. The findings of liquid crystal compounds and mixtures
tested to date generally suggest a low toxicity to humans and
ecological receptors and that test compounds are not mutagenic.
Though much of the underlying data were unavailable for review
for proprietary reasons, tests were reportedly conducted in
accordance with international guidelines set forth for industrial
chemicals (e.g., Organization for Economic Cooperation and
evelopment

[OECD],

European

Union

[EU])

and

prior

to

introduction to the market. According to manufacturers, tested

liquid crystals are representative of untested liquid crystal
compounds.
Further, no liquid crystal is introduced in the market if it is shown
to be acutely toxic or mutagenic. More detail on liquid crystal
toxicity from available study data is presented below.
Liquid crystals are organic compounds with optical and structural
properties of crystals but with the mechanical features of fluids. In

general, they consist of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as

phenylcyclohexanes

and

biphenyls

(EIAJ

1996).

There

are

hundreds of liquid crystal compounds that are used in LCDs, and a

typical LCD contains as many as 25 different compounds that are
mixed together to form a white, opaque liquid that flows easily.
Each of these liquid crystal compounds has different physical and
optical characteristics. Liquid crystals are low molecular weight
compounds with very low solubility and low vapor pressures
(Broschard et al. 2000). Some liquid crystals are not readily
biodegradable (Becker et al.,2003).
The make-up of specific liquid crystal compounds is proprietary;
however, it should be noted that as of 2006, many contain
fluorinated compounds.
Three manufacturers are responsible for 90 percent of liquid
crystal production - Merck KGaA, Dainippon Ink and Chemicals
[DIC], and Chisso Corporation. These companies have conducted
testing for acute toxicity and irritant effects on skin and eyes, as
well mutagenicity testing in bacteria and mammalian cells.
Mutagenicity

tests

are

generally

used

in

evaluating

the

carcinogenic potential of an agent. Some skin sensitization study

data also are available. The most comprehensive publicly
available summary of liquid crystal toxicity was generated by
Merck, as summarized in Becker et al. (2003), with a more recent
update in 2007 (Becker and Simon-Hettich, 2007). According to
Merck, testing data presented are representative of materials
produced by other liquid crystal manufacturers. Mercks findings
can be summarized as follows:
Liquid crystals in production are not acutely toxic. Of the 261
substances tested, 252 (97%) did not show any potential for
acute toxicity; 8 substances had an LD50 of less than 2,000
milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) body weight (classified as
harmful by the European Union) and one substance had an
LD50 of less than 200 mg/kg body weight (classified by the
European

Union

as

toxic).2

Merck

emphasizes

that

the

concentration of tested liquid crystals in mixtures are present at

concentrations of 10%. Of the 14 liquid crystal mixtures tested,
none reported LD50s below 2,000 mg/kg body weight. According
to Merck, no substance found to be acutely toxic is introduced
to the market.

 Some liquid crystals may be irritants, corrosive, or sensitizing.

Six compounds of 141 tested by Merck showed slight skin
irritation; 3 were classified as corrosive. Of the 74 compounds
tested for eye irritation, 2 caused slight eye irritation.
Liquid crystals are not mutagenic in bacteria and in mammalian
cells. Merck tested 263 individual substances and 14 liquid crystal
mixtures for mutagenic effects in bacteria. Of these, only one
compound showed mutagenic potential. This substance was
excluded from further development and was never marketed.
Merck also tested possible genotoxic effects of 55 liquid crystals
in mammalian cells; all tests were negative.
Merck, DIC, and Chisso Corporation, in conjunction with the
German Federal Environmental Agency, also conducted testing to
evaluate potential ecotoxicity of liquid crystals. Ten individual
liquid crystal compounds and one liquid crystal mixture (typically
used in TFT-LCDs for laptop computers) were tested for their
toxicity to daphnia and algae. Researchers report that the ten
selected compounds represent technically and commercially
very important substance classes and the tested mixtures

represent typical mixture formulations (Broschard et al., 2000;

Becker and Simon-Hettich, 2007). Concentrations of liquid crystals
in the test media were measured using high performance liquid
chromatography (HPLC); toxicity tests were performed according
to

the

OECD

and

EU

guidelines.

Results

for

daphnia

immobilization and algal growth inhibition showed no adverse

effects to aquatic organisms up to the limit of solubility of the
liquid crystal compounds. Based on available testing results,
investigators concluded that liquid crystals are not harmful to
aquatic organisms (bacteria, algae, daphnia, and fish), but
acknowledge that because of the poor water solubility of liquid
crystals, they are difficult to test in aquatic systems (Broschard et
al., 2000; Becker et al., 2003).
Based on these test results, the German Federal Environment
Agency does not require special requirements for the disposal of
LCDs based on the content of liquid crystals (GFEA, 2000).
Subsequent testing by Merck include 6 tests for acute toxicity in
fish, 8 bacterial toxicity tests, 12 algae growth inhibition tests,
and 35 daphnia immobilization tests, all of which reportedly show

no hazard to aquatic organisms (Becker and Simon-Hettich,

2007).
Other

potentially

relevant

testing

includes

bioaccumulation

studies conducted by Japanese manufacturers. Again, due to the

proprietary nature of the study information, only summary data
were available. Investigators generally conclude that liquid
crystals do not show a significant bioaccumulation potential
(Becker and Simon-Hettich, 2007).
Additional perspective, a subset of European (2003) and U.S.
(2007) material safety data sheets (MSDSs) generated by Merck
were reviewed.3 MSDSs were originally established in the United
States by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) to protect workers, firefighters, and other emergency
response

personnel.

They

provide

information

on

physical

properties, hazards to personnel, fire and explosion potential, safe

handling recommendations, health effects, and proper disposal.
They do not, however, provide enough information to determine
whether releases of these substances to the environment would
pose a long-term risk to human health or the environment. Each

MSDS disclosed some degree of hazard associated with each

particular liquid crystal compound or mixture (e.g., irritating to
eyes and skin, may cause sensitization by skin contact). Also,
some of the MSDSs include notes such as the following, which
could be perceived to contradict available study summaries
described above:
Completed quantitative data on the toxicity of these mixtures
are generally not available, and therefore hazardous properties
cannot be excluded.
Some of the preparations contains a substance which has not
been fully tested so far (e.g., various Merck Licristal mixtures).
The test results available so far do not permit a complete
hazard evaluation.
Quantitative data on ecological effects are generally not
available.
Do not allow to enter waters, waste water, or soil.

Manufacturers emphasize,

however,

that criteria

for

MSDS

development require that uncertainties be clearly disclosed; many

statements are included as precautionary measures.

Other words, because every liquid crystal compound/mixture has

not been studied individually, such statements are included even
if the testing of representative or like liquid compounds or
mixtures showed low toxicity.
Others who have reviewed liquid crystals in FPD devices also have
concluded that the relative impact of liquid crystals in overall lifecycle assessment does not appear to be significant, though
uncertainties have been consistently acknowledged (Socolof et
al., 2001).
In addition, reviews of numerous liquid crystal mixtures by EPA
under the auspices of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
have

drawn

similar

conclusions.

EPAs

Office

of

Pollution

Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) has evaluated the potential hazards

and risks associated with the release of liquid crystals through
TSCAs New Chemicals Program for several years as companies

have submitted Premanufacturing Notices (PMNs). Based on these

reviews, OPPT has concluded that liquid crystals do not pose an
unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. This
conclusion is based on Structure Activity Relationship (SAR)
analyses and exposure assessment modeling based on physical
and chemical properties of these chemicals.
EPAs chemists, toxicologists, and engineers conducting these
reviews

have

determined

that

the

physical

and

chemical

properties of liquid crystals result in negligible absorption through

human skin, in lungs, and in the gastrointestinal tract. SAR
predictions also indicate that liquid crystals would have low acute
toxicity and low chronic toxicity towards aquatic organismsthat
is, if tested, no-toxic-effects at saturation would be the expected
result. This conclusion is generally consistent with the findings
reported in Broschard et al. 2000.
Additionally, EPAs New Chemicals Program risk assessors have
modeled the potential fate and transport of liquid crystals if they
were released into the environment. Based on this modeling, EPA
believes the potential exposure to humans and the environment is

low. Liquid crystals are predicted to have negligible water

solubility; high adsorption potential to organic matter in sewage
sludge, sediments and soils; high removal by sewage treatment
(i.e., equal to or greater than 90 percent via sorption to sludge);
negligible transport through soils to ground water; and low
bioconcentration potential. Thus, any release of liquid crystals
throughout their life cycle is expected to result in a low
unreasonable risk finding towards humans and the environment.
Liquid crystals are expected to be destroyed via municipal
incineration without the production of any persistent degradation
products. While a liquid crystal may be expected to be persistent
in the environment, liquid crystals are expected to have nil
absorption through membranes and negligible bioconcentration
potential in organisms. Even if liquid crystals were to be inhaled,
they are not large enough to cause lung over-load toxic effects.
Because of these conclusions, EPAs New Chemicals Program
categorizes liquid crystals as a class of chemicals that will not
pose an unreasonable risk towards humans or the environment.

Therefore, each liquid crystal submitted by industry as a New

Chemical is quickly reviewed to ensure its chemical structure
meets the Liquid Crystal Drop Category requirements. If so, it is
dropped from further review at the first step of the New Chemical
Review assessment process based on low concern for toxicity
towards humans and the environment.
The collective findings described above suggest that liquid
crystals present a relatively low risk of harm to human and
ecological receptors; however, some data gaps remain.

No information on chronic (i.e., long-term) effects was identified

for any of the liquid crystal compounds.
No tumorogenic studies for liquid crystal compounds were
identified; as noted above, negative mutagenicity test results
suggest a low carcinogenic potential but are not definitive. For
example, no data are available to rule out carcinogenicity of
agents possibly acting via a non-mutagenic mode of action.

The overall negative findings of short-term, irritant/sensitization,

mutagenicity, Eco toxicity, and bioaccumulation studiescoupled
with the premise that liquid crystals are unlikely to present
exposure threatshave however precluded the initiation of more
elaborate longer-term studies.

Brominated Flame Retardants

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a class of brominated
hydrocarbons that are used as flame retardants in a variety of
consumer products including plastics that are found in various
electronic components such as FPD devices. PBDE chemicals
consist of compounds in which one to ten bromine atoms are

attached to a biphenyl structure in up to 209 combinations,

known as congeners
Commercial production of PBDEs began in the 1970s. They are a
group of synthetic organic chemicals with no known natural
sources in the environment. Some PBDEs are added to the
polymer material, but often are not chemically incorporated into
the polymer matrix. Therefore, they are able to migrate from the
plastic and find their way into the environment. The exact
mechanism by which these chemicals find their way from their
source (the plastic) through the environment and to receptors is
not known. Nor is the actual level of concern completely
understood from a toxicity standpoint. However, recent studies
indicate

potential

toxicity

concerns

for

some

congeners.

Additional studies show that some of these chemicals persist in

the environment and bioaccumulate (ATSDR, 2004) Because of
the quantity of PBDEs being used and the uncertainty regarding
their hazard potential, the scientific community world-wide is
conducting tests to acquire more data. Much of the current
research and legislation surrounds three specific congeners that
have

been

commercially

manufactured:

penta,

octa,

and

decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE). Two of these congeners

may be present in flat panel displays and ancillary equipment
components that are at or nearing their end of life (octaBDE and
decaBDE). OctaBDE was used almost exclusively in acrylonitrile
butadiene-styrene (ABS) polymers incorporated into casings for
computers and other electronic equipment before its domestic
manufacturing was phased out on January 1, 2005 (pentaBDE was
concurrently phased out, but was never used in plastics).
DecaBDE is still manufactured in large quantities and is the only
congener now incorporated into plastics for flat panel displays. It
is used as an additive flame retardant for hard, dense plastics of
consumer electronic products such as TV cabinets, CPU housings,
and associated wires and cables.
While pentaBDE and octaBDE are no longer manufactured in the
United States, production of decaBDE is continuing. It is used in a
variety of applications, including high impact polystyrene (HIPS)
for use in the television industry for cabinet backs, polypropylene
and other polymers used in electrical and electronic equipment

(such as computers, connectors, electrical boxes, wire and cable),

and textiles (carpet backing).
Concerns about potential human health effects (e.g., neurological
development in infants) have increased in recent years because
PBDEs have been found to be ubiquitous in the environment, at
varying concentrations (Washington Department of Ecology and
Washington State Department of Health 2005). Also, the lower
brominated PBDE congeners have been found in human blood,
breast milk, and body fat of individuals throughout the U.S., at
higher levels than in other regions of the world. Health effects in
laboratory animals exposed to lower brominated PBDEs include
thyroid effects, behavioral changes, and effects on the immune
system.
Animal studies indicate that commercial decaBDE mixtures are
generally less toxic than products containing lower brominated
PBDEs (such as pentaBDE) and recent risk assessments in Europe
and for the U.S. Voluntary Childrens Chemical Evaluation Program
show inconclusive data regarding its hazard potential. While some
have concluded decaBDE is expected to have relatively little

effect on the health of humans (ATSDR, 2004) others have raised

additional concerns about decaBDE because of its potential to
degrade in the environment to the less-brominated (and more
toxic) congeners. Further, decaBDE is classified by EPA as a
possible human carcinogen, based on limited evidence in animals
but not evidence in humans.
It should be noted that although pentaBDE and octaBDE are no
longer manufactured and incorporated into products, significant
quantities were used prior to 2005. Therefore, older flat panel
displays (and associated equipment) that enter waste or recycle
streams in the future have the potential of containing decaBDE as
well as octaBDE.

Chapter 7
Recycling Technologies under Development

7.1

Recycling

of

Liquid

Crystals

and

Liquid

Crystal

Mixtures
Technically, recovery of liquid crystals from end-of-life LCDs is
possible. However, there are a number of factors greatly limiting
the practicability of recycling the liquid crystals. These include:
The liquid crystal mixture in an LCD typically contains 25
components or more (Becker 2002);
The quantity of liquid crystals in each LCD is very small: 0.6 mg
per square cm display size in a layer about 5 micrometers thick
(Becker 2002; LIREC no date);
Mechanical reclaiming of liquid crystals is not very efficient,
because adhesive forces between the liquid crystals and the glass
plates are high and lead to the risk of glass breakage; and
The extensive use of solvents is necessary to reclaim the liquid
crystals; the use of these solvents is restricted by economic and
regulatory considerations.

There are also legal ramifications to the reclamation of liquid

crystal mixtures. The specific composition of liquid crystal
mixtures contained in LCDs varies by manufacturer. Many of the
liquid crystals and liquid crystal mixtures are patented. Thus,
liquid crystals reclaimed from LCDs would have to be separated
into their individual liquid crystal components or would need to be
segregated by specific recipes, to be offered to their respective
original manufacturers. Research done by Merck indicates that
this

reclamation

procedure

is

more

expensive

than

the

manufacturing of the same amount of virgin liquid crystal

mixture. Therefore, the recycling of liquid crystal mixtures does
not appear to be cost effective at this point in (Becker 2005).
In addition, the liquid crystal mixtures used in LCDs require an
extreme degree of purity, which further restricts the reuse of
reclaimed liquid crystals. The liquid crystal mixtures reclaimed
from mixed LCD waste may contain up to 500 different liquid
crystalline components; this illustrates the practical difficulties in
their reclamation and recycling.

Recyclers contacted during this study do not separate liquid

crystals from the display module; the liquid crystals are ground or
shredded or disposed with the glass/plastic screen materials.
Because they represent such a small portion of the material, they
essentially disappear.

7.2 Recycling of LCD Panels

One of the first approaches to separating liquid crystals from
LCDs and to recover glass used in the display was developed by
Vicor, a recycling company based in Berlin, Germany. LCDs were
crushed mechanically and the liquid crystals removed under low
pressure. However, the liquid crystals extracted in these trials
were not reused but destroyed at high temperature using a
catalyst in a closed system. About 70 percent of the glass from
the displays was recovered with this method
(Prsler, 1999).

Merck developed two technological options for the recovery of

materials used in LCDs (Martin et al. 2004). The focus of the
recycling technologies developed by Merck was on the recovery of
the glass substrate used in LCDs. The glass typically represents
more than 80% by weight of the LCD.
Currently two types of glass substrate are used for manufacturing
of TFT-LCDs:
Soda-lime-glass is used in STN-LCDs (typical composition is 7073% SiO2, 7-12% CaO, 13- 15% Na2O and K2O, melting point is
about 1000C); and
Borosilicate Glass is used in TFT-LCDs (typical composition is
50% SiO2, 15% B2O3, 10% Al2O3, 25% BaO, melting point is
about 1150C).
Thus, when LCDs of the types currently on the market reach their
end of life, recycling of glass from these displays will need to deal
with a mixture of two different types of glass. A selective melting
process with separation of the impurities appears to be feasible
(Becker 2004). The glass reclaimed using this process could then
be used in the cement industry or in ceramic manufacturing.

Research at Merck resulted in the development of two processes

for utilizing materials from LCDs.
The following summarizes their research results:
Use of LCDs in industrial waste incinerators
This recycling technique does not actually recover materials
from the LCDs for further use in product applications, but the LCD
materials serve some useful purpose in this application, both
replacing alternative materials and serving as an energy source,
and the quantity of LCD material ultimately disposed is reduced
by incineration of the combustible fraction.
For this process the LCD is separated from the monitors other
components,

such

as

electronics

and

plastic

case.

Merck

conducted trials that showed that LCDs could be used as a raw

material substitute for silica sand in incinerators for industrial
waste. Typically glass or melting sand is used in industrial waste
incinerators in order to protect the incinerators walls against
aggressive products during the incineration processes. Mercks
tests showed that shredded LCDs could be used as a substitute
serving the same purposes. The LCD glass is used as a substitute

for additives (silica sand or silica containing materials) in the

incineration process. Plastic foil from the LCD can be used as a
substitute for oil or gas used as an energy source in the same
process. The use of LCDs contributed to raw material cost savings
as well as to energy cost savings. Energy contained in the plastic
portion of the LCD is sufficient to melt the glass portion of the
LCD. Merck applied for a patent for this method in 2004 (Martin,
et al. 2004b).
Use of LCDs in metal recycling processes (metallurgy) In this
process, the electronics contained in the LCD monitor do not need
to be removed but can be recycled in the same process. The
study showed that LCDs could be used in metal recycling
processes for the separation of noble and base metals. The
process glass from LCDs is used as a raw material instead of
melting sand. The foil of the LCDs serves as a reduction agent
instead of coal. Suitable applications for the use of LCDs include
metallurgical processes for the production or purification of
metals

(e.g.

used

temperatures. These

catalysts

or

waste

metals)

with

high

processes typically require the use of

melting sand to separate the noble metals from the base

materials. The products resulting from this process are slag and
the recovered noble metals. To avoid the formation of metal
oxides, reducing agents - like carbon-containing products must
be added. Merck applied for a patent for this method in 2004
(Martin, et al. 2004).

CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION

In this Thesis, the study of confined liquid crystalline systems and

the development of a model for tapered pear shaped particles
were addressed. These two seemingly very different lines of work
have subsequently been united in the study of confined pear
shaped particles which lead to towards the final aim of the Thesis:
the development of a model for a liquid crystal display cell where
switching between the two stable states may be flexoelectricity
induced. The development of this latter model required two
conditions to be met, the first being a surface potential inducing
both planar and homeotropic anchoring and, with appropriate
tuning of the model parameter, a bistability region. The second
requirement was that of a molecular model for flexoelectric (i.e.
pear shaped) mesogens displaying a stable nematic phase.
Here, the conclusions that have been drawn from this study are
summarized and
various avenues for future work are discussed. The Surface
induced structural changes in symmetric anchored systems have
been studied using three surface interaction models, namely the
hard needle wall (HNW), rod-sphere (RSP) and rod-surface (RSUP)

potentials. For all three of these models, the surface interaction

was not mediated directly by the HGO particles, but by other
objects embedded within them. This approach allowed the study
to be extended to include consideration of the effect of varying
particle absorption into the surface. Through this, it has been
shown that the HNW and RSUP potentials induce planar and
homeotropic

anchoring

for,

respectively,

long

and

short

elongations of the inner object (kS) whereas with the RSP

potential and long kS, the planar arrangement was replaced by
tilted anchoring. These results have proved to be consistent with
a theoretical treatment based on the geometrical characteristics
of the surface interaction models.
The implications of these results are twofold. The behaviour found
for the HNW and RSUP models showed that the anchoring
transition between homeotropic and planar arrangements can be
controlled by the molecular volume made available to be
absorbed into the substrates. Secondly, the tilted phase obtained
with the RSP model lead to a revision of the explanation of tilted
surface

arrangements

which

had

previously

always

been

attributed to attractive forces. The observation of such a structure

in this study showed that it can also be obtained with a purely

steric potential.
Anchoring and order phase diagrams have been computed for all
models. For the HNW and RSUP potentials, using series of
simulations at constant densities and either increasing or
decreasing kS, regions of bistability between the planar and
homeotropic surface arrangement have been found. Those
regions proved to be stronger and wider for the RSUP model. This
shows that even in very simple model systems, bistable surface
behaviour can be introduced by tuning the competition between
two locally stables states. This suggests that similar tuning of real
liquid crystal substrate systems may offer a viable route to
relatively

simple

bistable

surfaces

for

low

energy

device

applications.
Hybrid anchored systems with a top home tropic surface have
been studied in the HNW as a surface potential in an attempt to
create a hybrid anchored slab

ith a top surface homotopic

anchoring and bistable anchoring at bottom substrate. It has been

shown that the instability behavior of the model at the bottom

surface is lost if the top homotopic anchoring is made too strong.

However, by reducing the latter (i.e. reducing kS), the instability
at the bottom surface can be recovered. This has been explained
in terms of the elastic forces transmitted from the top surface
particles onto those at the bottom surface. Reducing the top
anchoring strength reduces these forces and, thus, allows
bistability to be recovered. The point has also been addressed in
Chapter 7. Also, the behaviour of the homeotropic to planar
structural transition has been shown to be dependent upon the
slab height. For short slabs (i.e. small systems), there is a
discontinuous

structural

transition

between

the

two

arrangements, whereas this becomes continuous for thicker slabs

(i.e. bigger systems). These findings are consistent with both
experimental and theoretical studies of the effect of thick-ness on
the bent director structure of a hybrid anchored system. Also, this
result has shown that the first prerequisite for the modeling of a
bistable LCD cell can be met: it is possible to simulate a hybrid
anchored slab with a homeotropically anchored top surface and
bistable anchoring at the bottom surface using an appropriate
parameterisation for the surface model. In addition, provided

large enough systems are used, a continuous structural transition

from homeotropic to planar alignment can be obtained if the slab
is in the HAN configuration.
The study of tapered pear-shaped particles, The first model to be
used for this was the truncated Stone expansion model; this,
however, did not meet the requirement of displaying a stable
nematic phase and showed only two phases: an isotropic phase at
low density and glassy domain ordered phase at high density. This
behaviour proved to be very surprising as an equivalent soft
model used by the Bologna group showed isotropic, nematic and
smectic A phases. The lack of ordered fluid phases in the steric
model was attributed to concave features in the particles contact
surfaces which had the effect of preventing the particles from
sliding along one another. As an alternative, the PHGO model, a
generalisation of the HGO model to non-centrosymmetric particles
has been developed. This does not show the concave features
mentioned above. For the two shortest elongations used, k = 3
and 4, the PHGO model only showed isotropic and fluid domainordered phases at, respectively, low and high densities. However,
upon increasing the elongation to k = 5, the model phase

behaviour became much richer, with transitions from isotropic to

nematic and then to a bilayered smectic A2phase. The study of
this

latter

phase

proved

to

be

very

interesting,

showing

anisotropic compressibility behaviour. Thus the PHGO model, with

its nematic phase, met the second requirement for the bistable
LCDcell model.
Confined

systems

of

PHGO

particles

interacting

with

the

substrates through a variant of the RSUP potential have been

studied. This surface potential has been shown to exhibit both
planar and homeotropic arrangements with a narrow region of
bistability around kS/k = 0.7. In the case of hybrid anchored
systems of N = 2000 particles with a top homeotropic surface,
bistability at the bottom surface could be recovered using kSt/k =
0.6. Due to the large system size used, a continuous structural
transition was found in the case of the bent director state.
Using this, a molecular model for the LCD cell was simulated and
both hard and easy switching between the HAN and vertical
states

were

attempted

using

both

dielectric

and

dipolar

contributions in the particle-field interactions. Both switching

directions could be achieved using a narrow window of electric

field

strength

and

dipole

moment

successful

parameterisation was E/ = 0.2 and / = 2.5. However the

question as to whether the mechanism underlying this switching
behaviour is direct surface effect, indirect flexoelectric behaviour
or a combination of the two has not been resolved; this forms, in
part, the basis of future work.
Future work
The work performed in this Thesis has lead to the development of
a model for a novel bistable LCD cell where two way switching is
achieved by the application of a directional electric field pulse.
Much of the work that will directly follow this Thesis concerns the
study and improvement of this model. The first task is certainly
the implementation of a method for the calculation of the slay
flexoelectric coefficient as this would allow a good quantitative
measurement of the effects of subsequent alterations to the
model. Also, the use of the molecular dynamics method would
provide interesting results by giving access to the true dynamics
of relaxation properties of the model systems.

The cell model itself should also be improved, for instance by the
use of mixtures of ellipsoidal shaped (HGO) and pear shaped
particles (PHGO) which would allow independent tuning and/or
enhancement of the bulk flexoelectric properties of the cell and
the field-direction-dependence of its surface behaviour. This
would also make the model a better description of a real liquid
crystal cell, since mixtures of several different components are
commonly used.
Finally, incorporation of attractive forces into the molecular
models should be considered so as to render them more realistic
and give access to better control mechanisms for tuning phase
and

anchoring

behaviour.

This

could

include

addition

of

quadrupolar contributions in the particle-particle interaction as it

has been shown that quadrupole interactions are predominant in
the origins of flexoelectricity in real mesogens.

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