Synthesis and properties of azo dye aligning layers for liquid crystal cells

TLDR: In this paper, the rotational diffusion of the azo dye molecules in the field of the polarized light was investigated and the synthesis and properties of azo dyes that can be used for photoaligning liquid crystals (LCs) were investigated.

Abstract: The synthesis and properties of azo dyes that can be used for photoaligning liquid crystals (LCs) have been investigated. The structures and the synthetic procedure for the azo dyes are presented. The photoaligning of azo dyes takes place purely due to the reorientation of the molecular absorption oscillators perpendicular to the UV light polarization. The qualitative model for the phenomenon in terms of the rotational diffusion of the azo dye molecules in the field of the polarized light is discussed. The order parameters S = -0.4 (80% of the maximum absolute value S m = -0.5) were measured from the polarized absorption spectra at the wavelength 372 nm. A temperature stable pretilt angle of 5.3° was obtained by a two-step exposure of the azo dye film using normally incident polarized light followed by oblique non-polarized light. The azimuthal anchoring energy of the photoaligned substrate was Aϕ , 10−4 J m−2, which is the same as the anchoring of the rubbed polyimide (PI) layer. The voltage holding rati...