Liquid crystals are a growing technology bringing solutions for a number of applications in high performance displays featuring video-rate, color and high resolution images, and in prototypes of photonic devices. Electrooptic response of antiferroelectric liquid crystals (AFLC) might be superior to nematic liquid crystals that are been customarily employed nowadays. AFLC show reduced time response being promising candidates for portable multimedia devices, optical routing applications, among others. In this work, temperature and frequency dependence of impedance measurements, in passive devices of commercial antiferroelectric liquid crystals, has been studied. Measurements of the temperature dependence of optical transmission have been obtained. 1Hz triangular waveforms with different amplitude have been applied to the devices to carry out such characterization. Simultaneous measurements of optical transmission and electrical impedance have been performed. Specific addressing schemes have been tested in order to obtain the optimum electrooptical performance. Display blanking takes place when a saturation pulse is applied. Results achieved show that increasing temperature shifts the dynamic range of the analogue grayscale towards lower voltages. Impedance analysis of these devices upon switching has been performed as well. Temperature and frequency dependence of the impedance measurements have been characterized. Negative phase responses show there is a combined capacitive and resistive behavior. As the frequency increases the capacitive effect grows. Magnitude shows a linear decrease on a log-log frequency scale. As temperature increases, phase profile becomes slight more complex. New capacitive effects are suggested in a model of the electric response of AFLC cells at low frequencies.

Date Published: 25 June 2007
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 6593, Photonic Materials, Devices, and Applications II, 65930Z (25 June 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.722024

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6593:
Photonic Materials, Devices, and Applications II
Ali Serpengüzel; Gonçal Badenes; Giancarlo C. Righini, Editor(s)