Liquid crystal polymer composite materials for LCDs

Digital displays nowadays play an essential and ubiquitous role in everyday life, and, in several
applications, flexibility (i.e., the possibility to bend the device) or, at least, bending capability (i.e., the
possibility to manufacture devices on a curved surface) is desirable or required. Polymer-dispersed liquid
crystals (PDLCs) and other liquid crystal/polymer compounds are an interesting class of composite
materials for the realization of flexible displays, since they couple the electrooptical properties of liquid
crystals to the mechanical properties of polymers and can take full advantage from electronic properties of
conducting copolymers. In this chapter, we will brie
fly discuss preparation techniques and then illustrate
the working principle corresponding to different liquid crystal configurations (nematic, chiral, smectic,
ferroelectric, holographic) with some examples