Experimental Evaluation of Surface Tension Criteria for Alignment Behavior of Liquid Crystals on Solid Surfaces

Abstract

Experimental verification has been carried out the surface tension difference criteria for liquid crystal alignment on solid surfaces. Organic polymer films, with surface tension values controlled from 16.0 to 44.8 mN/m (which includes the surface tension of liquid crystal ZLI-1132) were examined. On films thick enough to avoid undesirable topological effects ( >80 nm), the surface tension value at which the surface changed from a homogeneous to a homeotropic alignment was 31.2 mN/m, which is very close to the 31±0.5 mN/m value of ZLI-1132.