Construction of liquid crystal (LC) alignment by introducing polyimide (PI) to indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes is one of the main methods to realize high-resolution images in liquid crystal displays (LCD). However, the loss of transmittance caused by the difference in refractive index between ITO and PI leads to direct degradation of LCD performance. Thus, we herein fabricated a functional hybrid PI alignment layer that reduces the difference in refractive index and greatly increases the transmittance of the device by introducing inorganic titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NP) to the organic PI. The highly refractive TiO2 NPs were surface-treated with stearic acid comprising long alkyl chains to improve their dispersibility and uniformly dispersed in the PI matrix by simply stirring the mixture. The hybrid PI mixture was spin-coated on the ITO substrate, and the resulting LC cell exhibited excellent electro-optical properties. In addition, the reliability of the LC cells was enhanced by the inclusion of the TiO2 NPs, which was confirmed through the evaluation of voltage holding ratio, residual direct current, and LC cell reliability. Overall, functional hybrid PI can be used in advanced display technology for next-generation LC devices that require high transmittance and reliability.
Keywords: TiO2 nanoparticle; hybrid polyimide; liquid crystal display; reliability; transmittance.