{"id":2071,"date":"2012-04-24T23:08:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T03:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/magnes\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2013-07-11T10:28:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T14:28:57","slug":"twisted-nematic-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/2012\/04\/24\/twisted-nematic-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Twisted Nematic Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A big breakthrough in LCD technology came about in late 1970 when Martin Schadt and Wolfgang Helfrich constructed an LCD based on the twisted nematic effect (Buntz 2). This method employs liquid crystal in the nematic phase that exhibits an angle of 90<sup>0<\/sup> in its molecular alignment. The LC-configuration is twisted in a continuous rotation. When the light passes through the LC-cell it is rotated by 90<sup>0<\/sup>, this allows the light to pass through a second polarizer that is crossed with the first. When a voltage is applied to the LC cell from the electrodes, the liquid crystal molecules align themselves with the field, causing transparency to decrease as the light is blocked when the liquid crystal does not reorient its polarization (Yeh 4). The electrodes applied to the LC-cell are generally made from transparent materials with good electrical conductivity, ITO (indium tin oxide) has been used often in conjunction with LCD screens (Yeh 4).<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/files\/2012\/04\/TN-Effect2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2077\" src=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/files\/2012\/04\/TN-Effect2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"544\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/files\/2012\/04\/TN-Effect2.jpg 544w, https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/files\/2012\/04\/TN-Effect2-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/files\/2012\/04\/TN-Effect2-394x300.jpg 394w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 544px) 100vw, 544px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Super Twisted Nematic Displays came along in the 1980s and differ from TN-LCDs in twist angle and polarizer angle. Instead, STN-LCDs rotate from 180<sup>0<\/sup>-270<sup>0<\/sup>, while the polarizer angle\u2014instead of 0<sup>0<\/sup> as with TN-LCDs\u2014is 45<sup>0<\/sup>.\u00a0 The STN-LCDs allowed for more complex pictures. Color Super Twisted Nematic (CSTN) displays use red, green, and blue color filters to create a colored display. Double STN displays stack two STN films with opposite twist in order to achieve a better black\/white display. When the color filters are added, the DSTN-LCD has a much wider range of colors than the STN-LCD.<\/p>\n<p>I will be focusing on TN-LCDs as I am particularly interested in the \u201corigin story\u201d of LCD technology and the discovery of twisted nematic effect certainly provided a path for modern LCD improvements.<\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p>Buntz, Gerard H. (Patent Attorney, European Patent Attorney, Physicist, Basel). &#8220;Twisted Nematic Liquid Crystal Displays (TN-LCDs), an invention from Basel with global effects,&#8221; Information No. 118 (October 2005): issued by Internationale Treuhand AG, Basel, Genf, Zurich.<\/p>\n<p>Yeh, Pochi and Claire Gu.\u00a0<em>Optics of Liquid Crystal Displays<\/em>. Canada: John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc., 1999.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A big breakthrough in LCD technology came about in late 1970 when Martin Schadt and Wolfgang Helfrich constructed an LCD based on the twisted nematic effect (Buntz 2). This method employs liquid crystal in the nematic phase that exhibits an angle of 900 in its molecular alignment. The LC-configuration is twisted in a continuous rotation. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101,29897,29905],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advanced-em","category-libby","category-spring-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/432"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2394,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/magnes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}