Improvement of antishocking property of ferroelectric liquid crystal device with polymer network

Surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal (SSFLC) display has many advantages, such as fast switching speed, wide viewing-angle, high contrast ratio. That caused people to examine the possibility of using it is video displays. But it also has many disadvantages. One of the most serious problems is that irreversible alignment destruction can be easily caused by a mechanical shock. Follow the polymer dispersed liquid crystal devices research's development, people developed polymer network liquid crystal devices. That changes liquid crystal molecules' alignment method from surface anchored to bulk anchored, we prepared ferroelectric liquid crystal-polymer composite. In our experiment, polymer network ferroelectric liquid crystals (PNFLC) devices and SSFLC devices were prepared. We did two kinds of test to compare the anti-shocking property of PNFLCD and SSFLCD. One is pressing test in which different pressure was put on the panels, and the other is striking test in which iron bead from different height was dropped on the panels. The experimental result shows that PNFLCD has much better anti- shocking property than SSFLCD. At last we discussed the mechanism of this phenomenon.