Nanoparticle-doped polymer-dispersed liquid crystal display

Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) represent an important new class of materials for optical device applications. Their valuable advantages such as low operating voltage, high contrast ratio, requiring no extra optical elements (i.e. polarizer), quick electro-optical response, no leakage of materials, simple fabrication, low-cost production and ease of processing make them more popular over other display technologies. Among them, the nanomaterials-doped PDLCs are observed to have superior performance relative to conventional PDLCs materials due to their improved contrast ratio and time response. The present article gives an overview of the various recent approaches involving nanoparticle-doped PDLC techniques which are suitable for the low operating voltage of PDLC, off-axis haze improvement of PDLC, their quick time response, liquid crystal alignment with polymers in PDLC as well as increase in the refractive index. The merits, the various applications in such nanoparticle-doped PDLC display devices, and the advances made in this technology are reviewed.