Abstract

The monolayer hexagonal boron nitride ($h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$) nanosheet is transferred onto an indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrate. This $h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$ slide is placed together with a conventional planar-aligning polyimide (PI) slide to fabricate a liquid crystal (LC) cell, in which the LC achieves uniform planar alignment. The effective polar anchoring strength coefficient of this $h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$-based hybrid LC device is found to increase significantly compared to that of a standard PI/PI LC device. The presence of the monolayer $h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$ nanosheet as an alignment agent increases the planar anchoring energy through the epitaxial interaction between the LC and the honeycomb structure of the two-dimensional $h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$ lattice in this hybrid device. The amplified polar anchoring energy is found to accelerate the electro-optic response time of the LC in this $h\text{-}\mathrm{BN}$-based hybrid device.

Two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride nanosheet as the planar-alignment agent in a liquid crystal-based electro-optic device

Rajratan Basu and Lukas J. Atwood
Opt. Express 27(1) 282-292 (2019)

Reduced ionic effect and accelerated electro-optic response in a 2D hexagonal boron nitride planar-alignment agent based liquid crystal device

Rajratan Basu and Lukas J. Atwood
Opt. Mater. Express 9(3) 1441-1449 (2019)

Characterizations of a graphene-polyimide hybrid electro-optical liquid crystal device

Rajratan Basu and Lukas J. Atwood
OSA Continuum 2(1) 83-91 (2019)

Electro-optic liquid crystal device employing two-dimensional WSe₂ as the planar-alignment layers

Rajratan Basu and Lukas J. Atwood
Opt. Mater. Express 10(6) 1405-1412 (2020)

Rubbing-free liquid crystal electro-optic device based on organic single-crystal rubrene

Pravinraj Selvaraj, Po-Yin Li, Mareena Antony, Yu-Wu Wang, Jyh-Pin Chou, Zhi-Hao Chen, Che-Ju Hsu, and Chi-Yen Huang
Opt. Express 30(6) 9521-9533 (2022)