Bistable Liquid Crystal Displays

Summary

Bistable displays are able to realize an image memory at zero field, similar to a page of a book. All displays discussed exhibit only one stable state at zero field, which was imposed on the configuration of the directors by the molecules on top of the orientation layers. This chapter describes bistable displays utilizing ferroelectric, cholesteric or nematic liquid crystals. Chiral nematic, or as they used to be called, cholesteric liquid crystals, are composed either of intrinsically chiral nematic materials or of non‐chiral nematics with the addition of chiral dopants. There are three varieties of bistable nematic displays that exhibit the potential for applications in the near future. In all cases, bistability is imposed by a special surface alignment leading to bistable twist cells, grating aligned nematic devices and monostable surface anchoring switching.