The critical splay-to-bend-alignment transition in a liquid-crystal cell treated by parallel rubbing (π cell) was investigated to improve the optical performance of the display mode using this cell with a compensator. By analyzing the free energy in liquid crystal cells, it was found that nematic media with a smaller K33/K11 ratio can reduce the transition voltage considerably, and therefore, also reduce the required optical anisotropy of the liquid-crystal cell. The significantly improved viewing angle for this mode, achieved by using these newly designed parameters, is also confirmed theoretically and experimentally.
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Kuo et al. (1996) studied this question.