Fabrication of Pre-tilted Vertical Alignment Layers for High-Speed Liquid Crystal Display Using Bi-functional Photoreactive Monomers

Abstract

To enable recent 3D and moving picture applications, liquid crystal displays (LCD) must exhibit fast response and wide viewing angle characteristics. Pre-tilted vertical alignment layers for high-speed LCD were fabricated using bi-functional photoreactive monomers. The monomers can be confined to the polyimide layer and photo-polymerized by UV exposure under voltage. Response characteristics of photo-controlled alignment films according to the structure were investigated. Vertical alignment properties were evaluated using a polarizing optical microscope, and electro-optical characteristics were compared through the voltage-transmittance curve and response time measurement. Faster response speed could be obtained by using photoreactive monomers having a long alkyl chain.     

Measurement of Residual Dipolar Couplings of Organic Molecules in Multiple Solvent Systems Using a Liquid-Crystalline-Based Medium

Residual dipolar coupling (RDC), a robust anisotropic NMR parameter for structural elucidation of organic molecules, is only accessible in an anisotropic environment. Herein, we introduce a novel alignment medium based on the molecular self-assembly of oligopeptide amphiphile (OPA). This medium is compatible with different intermediate and polar solvent systems, such as CD₃OD, [D₆]DMSO, and D₂O. The preparation of the OPA-based medium is simple and rapid, while only very weak background signals were observed from OPAs. Furthermore, we show that the purity of OPA has only a minor influence on the quality of the RDC data. These advantages allow RDC measurements of organic molecules with different polarities and solubilities with high efficiency and accuracy.     

Facile non‐lithographic route to highly aligned silica nanopatterns using unidirectionally aligned polystyrene‐block‐polydimethylsiloxane films

Thin films (monolayer and bilayer) of cylinder forming polystyrene‐block‐polydimethylsiloxane (PS‐b‐PDMS) were shear aligned by the swelling and deswelling of a crosslinked PDMS pad that was physically adhered to the film during solvent vapor annealing. The nanostructures formed by self‐assembly were exposed to ultraviolet‐ozone to partially oxidize the PDMS, followed by calcination in air at 500 °C. In this process, the PS segments were fully decomposed, while the PDMS yielded silica nanostructures. The highly aligned PDMS cylinders were thus deposited as silica nanolines on the silicon substrate. Using a bilayer film, the center‐to‐center distance of these features were effectively halved from 38 to 19 nm. Similarly, by sequential shear‐alignment of two distinct layers, a rhombic array of silica nanolines was fabricated. This methodology provides a facile route to fabricating complex topographically patterned nanostructures. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1058–1064     

曲线距离法的二维光纤光谱弯曲校正

多目标光纤光谱望远镜可以在一次观测中获得大量的不同天体的光谱数据。从天体探测到的光在通过光纤之后，再通过光谱仪狭缝，然后在CCD传感器中成像为二维光谱图；之后经过光纤光谱数据处理系统的一系列软件处理，最终输出可供天文界使用的一维光谱并存储起来。一维光谱是天文学家研究目标天体的主要手段，它是通过处理二维光谱图得到的。以LAMOST为例，望远镜系统在一次观测后首先会得到32幅由250条光纤光谱组成的二维光谱，然后经过一系列的处理得到一维光谱。在这个过程中，会有很多因素影响到最终一维光谱的精确度。比如由于望远镜使用时间的增加，某些元件会产生磨损、老化或变形，使得二维光谱中光纤形状会产生一定程度的弯曲，这种弯曲在二维光谱的两侧表现得尤为明显。在一幅常见的二维光谱中，纵坐标方向代表了抽取的一维光谱的波长方向，横坐标方向代表了抽取的一维光谱的流量方向，这种弯曲形变的产生会影响到之后的波长定标和流量定标，使得抽取的一维谱信息不准确。目前初步的解决办法是通过与定标灯谱的比对来尽量减少其影响。但这样不仅造成了时间和人力的浪费，而且准确率和效率不高。就这一现状，提出了一种基于曲线距离法的思想，将弯曲的二维谱线校直：首先采用灰度重心法将一幅二维光谱中的250条光纤中心轨迹进行定位，将异常点采用稳健的局部回归方法剔除；然后将中心轨迹进行曲线拟合，得到光纤中心轨迹的方程；通过模仿曲线变弯的逆过程，即保持轨迹上两点间的曲线距离不变，再将弯曲的光谱映射到竖直的法线上，完成校直过程。在整个过程中保持各个对应点的灰度值不变，通过边缘处理和插值运算解决产生的像素点稀疏问题。最后采用累加法进行一维谱抽取，并将校直后抽取的一维光谱与未校直抽取的一维光谱进行比对，比对后可发现校直前后在一维光谱的两端差别较大，其差值谱线也说明了这一点。该方法实现了二维光谱的自动校直，大大提高了抽取一维谱的效率和准确性。二维光谱的预处理和校直方法首先在LAMOST数据上进行验证，鉴于多目标光纤光谱望远镜系统原理的相似性，该处理方法也适用于其他的多目标光纤光谱望远镜系统，具有较好的参考和应用价值。     

Liquid crystal alignment properties on surface-reformed solution-derived lanthanum-doped zinc oxide films

Liquid crystal (LC) alignment characteristics were investigated using a solution-derived lanthanum-doped zinc oxide (La:ZnO) film that was exposed to various intensities of ion-beam (IB) irradiation. At an IB intensity of 1700 eV, uniform and homogeneous LC alignment was achieved, as revealed by cross-polarized optical microscopy and pre-tilt angle measurement. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to verify that the IB irradiation induced physical and chemical surface reformation of the La:ZnO film that relate to LC alignment. FE-SEM and AFM revealed that the IB irradiation reformed the existing surface structure into a new structure with an altered surface roughness. The XPS results showed that the van der Waals force with anchoring energy increased as the IB intensity increased, and this profoundly affected the state of LC alignment. The capacitance-voltage (C-V) hysteresis curve was measured as a function of IB intensity to characterize the accumulated charge as a residual DC. Nearly zero C-V hysteresis was achieved at an IB intensity of 1700 eV. Therefore, a solution-derived La:ZnO film with an IB intensity of 1700 eV has great potential for high-quality LC applications.     

An Ensemble Kalman Filter Approach Based on Level Set Parameterization for Acoustic Source Identification Using Multiple Frequency Information

In this paper, a reconstruction problem of the spatial dependent acoustic source from multiple frequency data is discussed. Suppose that the source function is supported on a bounded domain and the piecewise constant intensities of the source are known on the support. We characterize unknown domain by the level set technique. And the level set function can be modeled by a Hamilton-Jacobi system. We use the ensemble Kalman filter approach to analyze the system state. This method can avoid to deal with the nonlinearity directly and reduce the computation complexity. In addition, the algorithm can achieve the stable state quickly with the Hamilton-Jacobi system. From some numerical examples, we show these advantages and verify the feasibility and effectiveness.     

基于EKF的水下LD通信精对准控制算法

高速激光通信中接收机与光斑中心很难处于精对准状态,导致水下光通信链路难以稳定建立.首先采用蒙特卡洛仿真统计法分析激光光子在海水中传输的接收光强分布规律,再通过实验对接收端的光斑图像进行采样分析,利用曲线拟合得到接收器位置与接收光强的关系.仿真与实验结果表明:光束经过25 m的水下传输,接收光强分布仍近似为高斯分布.采用非线性估计算法(扩展卡尔曼滤波)与基本状态控制反馈理论,根据接收光强度估计接收器当前位置与最大光强处的距离,通过反馈算法实现接收端与光斑中心的主动跟踪对准.算法仿真结果显示,接收端对准误差在2 mm以下,稳定后接收效率超过98%.     

Applications of Tamm plasmon-liquid crystal devices

ABSTRACT

The Tamm-plasmon-polariton (TPP) occurs at the interface between a metallic film and the photonic-crystal (PC) substrate. Unlike conventional surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP), TPP can be directly excited by both the transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) electromagnetic waves without using additional coupling optics. The fact that the optical functionality of most plasmonics devices is determined after fabrication limits their applications. Tunable SPP devices by applying liquid crystals (LCs) have been widely demonstrated due to their large birefringence and easy controllability via external stimuli. However, actively tuning TPP is difficult because the localised electric field is between the metallic film and PC substrate, the change of refractive index above the metallic film has only small influences on TPP. This article is intended to briefly review recent progress towards using LCs for actively tuning TPP devices. Not only TPP devices can gain benefits from LCs, we will also discuss the applications of TPP for measuring the anisotropy of the alignment films of LC devices. The sensitivity of the proposed scheme will be discussed.     

Collection of NMR Scalar and Residual Dipolar Couplings Using a Single Experiment

A new DMSO‐compatible aligning gel based on cross‐linked poly(2‐hydroxylethyl methacrylate) (poly‐HEMA) has been developed. Due to a significant difference in bulk magnetic susceptibility between the DMSO inside and outside the gel, it is possible to simultaneously collect isotropic and anisotropic NMR data, such as residual dipolar couplings (RDC), in the same NMR tube. RDC‐assisted structural analysis of menthol and the alkaloid retrorsine is reported as proof of concept.