Liquid Crystal Alignment on Solution Derived Zinc Oxide Films via Ion Beam Irradiation

A 75-nm-thick ZnO film was deposited by a sol-gel method on indium-tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass. This film served as a liquid crystal (LC) alignment layer. We report the fabrication and characteristics of this film after ion-beam (IB) irradiation. Uniform LC alignment was achieved at an IB incident energy above 2400 eV. The IB-treated ZnO surface was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), monitoring the intensity of the Zn 2p and O 1s peaks as a function of IB-irradiation energy density. The electro-optical (EO) characteristics of a twisted nematic-liquid crystal display (TN-LCD) were comparable to rubbed polyimide.