Nanoparticles: An approach to controlling an electro-optical behavior of nematic liquid crystals

We report an orientational effect in suspension of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) with solid nanoparticles, controlled by the optically hidden electrophoretic effect: electrophoretically controlled nematic (EPCN). Adding the nanoparticles results in an additional phenomenon in conventionally designed NLC cell: polarity-controlled bistable/multistable switching. The EPCN is based on the nature of an interaction of nanoparticles with LC molecules and not on specific fabrication technology, which makes it applicable to various current LC displays technologies and gives a big opportunity to produce low power consumption high informative displays, including low cost large scale flexible displays. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.