Alignment layerless flexible liquid crystal display fabricated by an imprinting technique at ambient temperature

The authors report on an alignment layerless (AL) flexible liquid crystal (LC) display fabricated at ambient temperature through an imprinting process. One-dimensional microgrooves and two-dimensional arrays of microstructures embossed on plastic substrates provide the spontaneous alignment of the LC molecules and spacers for the uniform cell gap in a flexible LC display, respectively. It is found that the azimuthal anchoring energy, generated from the microgrooves, is on the order of 10−5J∕m2 which is strong enough to uniformly align the LC over large area. Our AL flexible LC display shows symmetric viewing characteristics and stable electro-optic properties under a bent environment.