Special Issue "Fast Response Time of Liquid Crystals"

Dear Colleagues,

The fast response time of liquid crystals (LCs) has long been an important topic for both display and non-display applications. In many new advanced applications, such as VR/AR, the fast response time of liquid crystals has become an even more important and critical requirement in order to minimize problems such as motion blur, motion sickness, etc.

At present, there are many possible techniques for improving the response time of nematic LC, such as over-drive, materials development (e.g., low viscosity, high birefringence, etc.), virtual walls, dual frequency, pi-cell or OCB, polymer stabilization, three-electrode design, etc. Some of these techniques have already been employed by industry, and some are still being actively researched and developed for next-generation displays and advanced photonics applications. Apart from nematic LC, other possible LC effects such as blue phase, flexoelectrics, Sm*C surface-stabilized ferroelectrics (SSFLC), Sm*C deformed-helix ferroelectrics (DHFLC), Sm*A, etc., may also be employed. These non-nematic LC effects can potentially achieve a much faster intrinsic response time compared to that of nematic LC. Thus, very active research has been carried out in recent years to develop these non-nematic LC effects for displays and advanced photonics applications. With the advancement of technologies such as photo-alignment, some of these non-nematic LC technologies have been demonstrated in recent years to be capable of producing high-quality and high-performance LC devices with a fast response time, high light efficiency, high pixel density, etc.  

In this Special Issue, we intend to focus on collecting papers that are related to some of the latest developments and advancements in this highly important topic of the fast response time of liquid crystals, for both nematic and non-nematic liquid crystals and for both display and non-display applications. We hope that this Special Issue can help bring together some of the latest research that can help further develop next-generation liquid crystal devices that will continue to require higher and higher operation speeds.

Dr. Wing-Kit Choi
Dr. Huang Ming Philip Chen
Guest Editors

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• fast response
• low viscosity
• high birefringence
• virtual walls
• dual frequency
• polymer stabilization
• blue phase
• Sm*C ferroelectrics
• deformed-helix ferroelectrics (DHFLC)
• flexoelectrics
• Sm*A