Anisotropic thin films formation rate on PEDOT : PSS layer with high azimuthal anchoring

Oriented organic layers have great potential for organic electronics devices because of the unique modification of material properties without extensive chemical synthesis. Such layers can be prepared by wet coating of anisotropic organic molecules on top of specific surface of alignment layer. One of the most important parameter that indicates alignment properties of the surface is the anchoring energy. In this paper, we investigate azimuthal anchoring energy of pure and glycerol‐doped PEDOT : PSS layers and study the influence of the alignment layer preparation on the order parameter of the top wet‐coated oriented organic emitter. We confirm that the azimuthal anchoring energy increase leads to improvement of both dichroic ratio and contrast ratio of polarized emitter layer rod‐coated on top of the PEDOT : PSS. Suggested mechanism of anisotropic emitter formation at wet deposition grounds possibility of linear deposition rate of 2 m/s on top of PEDOT : PSS layer with obtained azimuthal anchoring above >10^?4 J/m².     

Properties of azo‐dye alignment layer on plastic substrates

Abstract— The alignment properties of the azo‐dye photo‐alignment material SD‐1/SDA‐2 on plastic substrates are investigated. Important liquid‐crystal cell parameters, such as azimuthal and polar anchoring energy, pretilt angle, voltage holding ratio, and the corresponding electro‐optical properties are presented. Excellent alignment with high anchoring energy can be achieved with a polarized UV dose less than 1.0 J/cm². A reflective six‐digit flexible passive‐matrix‐driven TN‐LCD for smart‐card applications showing excellent electro‐optical properties is demonstrated.     

Liquid‐crystal mixtures having tolane substances for field‐sequential‐color TN‐LCDs

Novel liquid‐crystal (LC) mixtures featuring high optical anisotropy Δn) and small rotational viscosity (γ¹) were developed for field‐sequential‐color TN‐LCD applications. The dynamic behavior of the TN cells in a narrow‐gap range was studied and new tolane LC substances were introduced. The newly developed LC mixtures, having a narrow‐gap cell, enable a TN‐LCD to switch fast enough to be applied to field‐sequential‐color displays not only at a room temperature but also at low temperatures. It was also confirmed that the voltage‐holding ratio (VHR) is sufficiently high in field‐sequential addressing conditions and, therefore, the LC mixtures can be used in active‐matrix LCDs. For practical use, a storage test of the TN cells under light irradiation was performed to evaluate their voltage‐holding property. It was also confirmed that their high VHR can be maintained for over 10,000 hours under practical conditions.     

Effect of photoaligning azo dye structure on liquid crystal anchoring energy

A method of controlling anchoring energy of surface interaction of liquid crystal photoaligning substances is considered to enhance the liquid crystal display performances. An important parameter of the dye's molecular structure that determines the ratio of polar and azimuthal anchoring energy is the ability to form dimers. The values of dimerization thermodynamic potentials have been found. The probability of the formation of dye molecules dimers is evaluated. The bonds conjugation transfer via intermolecular hydrogen bond is revealed, and anisotropy of polarizability of the hydrogen bond is evaluated. The effect of dimerization on polar and azimuthal anchoring energy of liquid crystal — azo dye system — is shown.     

Retardation‐controlling color filter with two directly stacked retardation layers

Abstract— A polymerizable liquid crystal (PLC), the orientation of which can be frozen, is useful for making retardation layers. In this paper, a new color filter (CF) with retardation‐controlling layers made of PLC is reported. It has a positive A‐plate and a negative C‐plate, both directly stacked on a color‐filter layer. These two retardation layers exhibit good orientation ability, and function well as retarders, even when they are only 1/10 or less as thick as ordinary retardation films. The new CF also has excellent thermal stability. The change in retardation after heat treatment at 200°C for 30 min is around 5%, and there is no observable peeling. A prototype VA‐LCD made with our new CF provides good optical compensation, with the light leakage being extremely low in all azimuthal directions. This technology is very useful for making thin, highly reliable color filters for LCDs, even with other modes.     

A dual‐cell‐gap transflective liquid‐crystal display with identical response time in transmissive and reflective regions

Abstract— A dual‐cell‐gap transflective liquid‐crystal display (TR‐LCD) with identical response time in both the transmissive and reflective regions is demonstrated. In the transmissive region, strong anchoring energy is used to decrease the response time, while in the reflective region, weak anchoring energy is used to increase the response time. And overdrive voltage technology is adopted to make the response time identical in both the transmissive and reflective regions. The device structure and operating principle of the TR‐LCD was analyzed, the anchoring energy in the transmissive and reflective regions was designed, and the response time and electro‐optic characteristics of the TR‐LCD was calculated. The simulated dual‐cell‐gap TR‐LCD demonstrated good performances.     

Review of viewing‐angle compensation of TN‐mode LCDs using WV film

Abstract— Wide‐view (WV) films for TN‐mode LCDs, which optimize the optical parameters of the polymerized discotic material (PDM) layer and cellulose triacetate (CTA) have been developed. The development concept of the WV film and realization of its concept in the past and for the future will be reviewed. In particular, the discotic molecular alignment control enabled the improvement of the contrast ratio at oblique viewing angles of TN‐mode LCDs. In addition, color shifts at oblique angles are important for large‐screen TN‐mode LCD monitors and LCD‐TV sets. To improve the color‐shift problem, new technologies have been developed.     

Parameters on the LC alignment of organosilicon compound films

Abstract— The aligning properties of a set of organosilicon compounds (OSC) were examined. The aligning films of the OSC were obtained. Pretilt angles and the polar and azimuthal anchoring energy of the LC materials on the OSC films were measured by optical and voltage‐capacity methods. The influence of both OSC and LC molecular structure on the results obtained was analyzed and discussed.     

Liquid‐crystal photoaligning by azo dyes (Invited Paper)

Abstract— Liquid‐crystal (LC) photoalignment using azo dyes is described. It will be shown that this photoaligning method can provide a highly uniform alignment with a controllable pretilt angle and strong anchoring energy of the LC cell, as well as a high thermal and UV stability. The application of LC photoalignment to the fabrication of various types of liquid‐crystal displays, such as VAN‐LCDs, FLCDs, TN‐LCDs, and microdisplays, on glass and plastic substrates is also discussed. Azo‐dye photoaligned super‐thin polarizers and phase retarders are considered as new optical elements in LCD production, in particular for transflective displays.     

Azo‐dye aligning layers for liquid‐crystal cells

Abstract— The photo‐induced alignment of liquid crystal onto a photochemical stable azo‐dye film was studied for liquid‐crystal display (LCD) applications. The photo‐aligning of azo dye takes place due to the pure reorientation of the molecular absorption oscillators perpendicular to the UV‐light polarization. The order parameters S = ?0.4 (80% of the maximum absolute value S_m = ?0.5) was measured at a wavelength of 372 nm from the polarized absorption spectra. The temperature‐stable pretilt angle of 5.3° was obtained by a two‐step exposure of azo‐dye film using normally incident polarized light followed by oblique non‐polarized light. The azimuthal anchoring energy of the photo‐aligned substrate was A_? > 10^?4 J/m², which is of the same magnitude as the anchoring of the rubbed PI layer. The VHR value of the photo‐aligned LC cell was also found to be very high (98–99%) at room temperature and more than 95% at T=80°C. The thermal stability of the photo‐aligned azo‐dye layers is sufficiently high, while UV stability has to be improved, _e.g., by polymerization. The new LCD aligning technology based on photochemical stable azo‐dye layers is envisaged.     

Reliable H ∞ filter design for T–S fuzzy model‐based networked control systems with random sensor failure

This paper investigates robust and reliable H _∞ filter design for a class of nonlinear networked control systems: (i) a T‐S fuzzy model with its own uncertainties is used to approximate the nonlinear dynamics of the plant, (ii) a new sensor failure model with uncertainties is proposed, and (iii) the signal transfer of the closed‐loop system is under a networked communication scheme and therefore is subject to time delay, packet loss, and/or packet out of order. Four new theorems are proved to cover the conditions for the robust mean square stability of the systems under study in terms of LMIs, and a decoupling method for the filter design is developed. Two examples, one of them is based on a model of an inverted pendulum, are provided to demonstrate the design method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A generalized robust H ∞ filtering for singular Markovian jump systems and its applications

In this paper, a generalized robust H _∞ filtering method is proposed for a class of singular Markovian jump systems, whose generality is mainly embodied that the desired filter could bear perturbances in terms of uncertainties on its parameter matrices. Firstly, an LMI condition of robust mode‐dependent filter is developed. Based on the given result, a new approach to mode‐independent H _∞ filter is presented, which establishes a direct connection between mode‐dependent and mode‐independent filters. Secondly, when the transition rate matrix is with elementwise bounded uncertainties or partially unknown, sufficient conditions of such robust mode‐dependent and mode‐independent filters are all developed within LMI frameworks. Finally, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bistable C1 ferroelectric liquid crystal device for e-paper application

Recent progress in both low pretilt and high pretilt defect-free C1 surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal (SSFLC) devices for e-paper application is reviewed. First, by using numerical calculation to investigate the balance between surface azimuthal anchoring energy and bulk elastic energy within the confined chevron layer geometry of C1 and C2, we found it is possible to achieve a zigzag-free C1 state by low azimuthal anchoring alignment with a low pretilt angle. The critical azimuthal anchoring coefficient for defect-free C1 state is calculated. Its relationship with elastic constants, chevron angle, and surface topography effect are also discussed. Second, by using 5° oblique SiO deposition alignment, a defect-free, large memory angle, high contrast ratio, and bistable C1 SSFLC display, which has potential for electronic paper applications has also been developed. The electro-optical properties and bistability of this device have been investigated. Various aspects of defect control are also discussed.     

Relationship between rubbing‐induced anisotropy and surface azimuthal anchoring energy of nematic liquid crystals

The relationship between the rubbing‐induced anisotropy of alignment films and the surface azimuthal anchoring energy of nematic liquid crystals was investigated using three kinds of rubbing cloths. Reflection ellipsometry revealed that the optical surface anisotropy of polyimide alignment films increases monotonically with increasing RS. The surface azimuthal anchoring energy measured by the torque balance method depends on the rubbing‐induced anisotropy of alignment films. This indicates that liquid crystal molecular alignment can be controlled by monitoring the rubbing‐induced optical anisotropy of alignment films when a suitable rubbing cloth is used.     

Anchoring and gliding of easy axis of 5CB on photoaligning PVCN‐F surface

Abstract— The photoaligning properties of the popular photoaligning material polyvinyl‐4(fluorocinnamate) (PVCN‐F) are presented. The aligning quality and azimuthal and zenithal anchoring energy were measured and the drift of the easy orientation axis (gliding effect) on the PVCN‐F surface, depending on UV exposure, was studied. Special attention is paid to unraveling the contribution of the adsorption liquid‐crystal molecules onto the aligning surface to the anchoring properties of PVCNF and measuring the drift of the easy orientation axis over the PVCN‐F surface. It is shown that a relatively weak azimuthal anchoring energy (W_az ～ 10^?7 ? 10^?5 J/m²) leads to strong drift of the easy axis in the azimuthal plane that was observed in a moderate (～0.1–0.3 T) magnetic field. A much stronger polar anchoring (W_zen ～ 10^?4 J/m²) allowed us to observe the essential gliding of the easy axis in the zenithal plane in a rather strong electric field (～5 V/μm).     

Deep Joint Design of Color Filter Arrays and Demosaicing

We present a convolutional neural network architecture for performing joint design of color filter array (CFA) patterns and demosaicing. Our generic model allows the training of CFAs of arbitrary sizes, optimizing each color filter over the entire RGB color space. The patterns and algorithms produced by our method provide high‐quality color reconstructions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by showing that its results achieve higher PSNR than the ones obtained with state‐of‐the‐art techniques on all standard demosaicing datasets, both for noise‐free and noisy scenarios. Our method can also be used to obtain demosaicing strategies for pre‐defined CFAs, such as the Bayer pattern, for which our results also surpass even the demosaicing algorithms specifically designed for such a pattern.     

Exponential H ∞ filtering for singular systems with Markovian jump parameters

This paper is concerned with the H _∞ filter design for continuous‐time singular systems with Markovian jump parameters, whose system mode is transmitted through an unreliable network. In contrast to the traditionally mode‐dependent or mode‐independent filtering method, a new partially mode‐dependent filter is established via using a mode‐dependent Lyapunov function, where the stochastic property of mode available to a filter is considered. Sufficient conditions for the existence of H _∞ filter are obtained as strict linear matrix inequalities. Finally, numerical examples are used to show the effectiveness of the given theoretical results. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy‐efficient liquid‐crystal displays (e2‐LCDs) using a photonic‐crystal backlight system

Abstract— Cholesteric liquid crystals automatically form one‐dimensional photonic crystals. For a photonic crystal in which light‐emitting moieties are embedded, unique properties such as microcavity effects and simultaneous light emission and light reflection can be expected. Three primary‐color photonic‐crystal films were prepared based on cholesteric liquid crystal in which fluorescent dye is incorporated. Microcavity effects, i.e., emission enhancement and spectrum narrowing, were observed. Two types of demonstration liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs) were fabricated using the prepared photonic‐crystal films in a backlight system. One is an area‐color LCD in which a single photonic‐crystal layer is used for each color pixel and the other is a full‐color TFT‐LCD in which three stacked photonic‐crystal layers are used as light‐conversion layers. The area‐color LCD was excited by using 365‐nm UV light, and the full‐color TFT‐LCD was excited by using 470‐nm blue LED light. Because of the photonic crystal's unique features that allow it to work as light‐emitting and light‐reflecting layers simultaneously, both LCDs demonstrate clear readable images even under strong ambient light, such as direct‐sunlight conditions, under which conventional displays including LCDs and OLED displays cannot demonstrate clear images. In particular, an area‐color LCD, which eliminated color filters, gives clear images under bright ambient light conditions even without backlight illumination. This fact suggests that a backlight system using novel photonic‐crystal layers will be suitable for energy‐efficient LCDs (e²‐LCDs), especially for displays designed for outdoor usage.     

Robust H ∞ filtering for singular time‐delayed systems with uncertain Markovian switching probabilities

This paper is concerned with the robust H _∞ filter design for a class of uncertain singular time‐delayed Markovian jump systems, whose transition rate matrix has elementwise bounded uncertainties. By the LMI approach, a novel bounded real lemma is proposed such that the singular Markovian jump system is robustly exponentially mean‐square admissible with a prescribed H _∞ performance index. Based on this, a sufficient condition for the existence of a robust H _∞ filter is developed in terms of LMIs. Finally, a numerical example is provided to show the effectiveness of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A directional backlight with narrow angular luminance distribution for widening the viewing angle for an LCD with a front‐surface light‐scattering film

Abstract— A directional backlight unit has been developed to widen the viewing angle of a TN‐LCD with a front‐surface light‐scattering film/layer. The novel directional backlight has a diagonal of 34 cm and is structured by light‐direction‐control optical micro‐features and an inverted prism film. The backlight has a symmetrical round luminance cone of ±9° and a uniform spatial distribution of 88%. By using this backlight unit in combination with an LCD, the narrow cone resulted in widening of the TN‐LCD's viewing angle up to 120° at full width at half‐maximum.