Superior optical properties of homogeneous liquid crystal alignment on a tin (IV) oxide surface sequentially modulated via ion beam irradiation.

We first investigated the alignment characteristics of tin (IV) oxide (SnO(2)) thin films deposited by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. This study demonstrates that liquid crystal (LC) molecules could be aligned homogeneously by controlling the Ion Beam (IB) irradiation energy densities. We also show that the pretilt angle of the LC molecules has a close relation with the surface energy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicates that a non-stoichiometric SnO(2-x) surface converted by ion beam irradiation can horizontally align the LC molecules. The measured electro-optical (EO) characteristics showed high performance, comparable with those of rubbed and ion-beam irradiated polyimide (PI) layers.