2D Nanos for low-cost LCDs-
- November 14, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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2D Nanos for low-cost LCDs-
Subject: Science and Technology
Context-
- A new easier technique of manufacturing liquid crystal displays (LCDs) which can reduce the cost of the devices has been developed.
Problems with the conventional technique-
- An essential requirement of these LCDs is the uni-directional planar alignment of the constituent liquid crystals (LC) over large areas.
- Although the conventional polymer rubbing method yields quality LC alignment, it possesses unavoidable and undesirable drawbacks such as the production of electrostatic charges and dust particles that interfere with display operation, and even cause damage to the electronic components of the display.
- While electrostatic charges increase the failure rate, dust creates defects which seriously compromise the performance of the device.
- Other problems include a multistep process for coating and the necessity for high-temperature curing.
- This has led to a surge in demand to replace this rubbing method with new non-contact techniques.
How 2D nanomaterials solve this problem-
- The latest among these techniques is to employ 2D nanomaterials — graphene, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), transition metal dichalcogenides, and so on — as alignment layers. But this requires high deposition temperature, precursors and yields hazardous by-products. Besides, when the CVD method is used, unidirectional LC alignment is observed over only small regions.
- A team of scientists from the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bengaluru, has developed a novel way of employing 2D materials to overcome the drawbacks of current methods.
- Using h-BN nanoflakes as the specific material researchers employed a solution-processed deposition technique and found it to be effective in getting the LC alignment over a much larger area.
- They also found the resultant crystals to be quite robust with no evidence of decay in LC orientation over several months.