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A personal account of the liquid crystal community (1978–1990s) and the founding of the International Liquid Crystal Society (1987–1990) is presented. The founding process was unlike that of many other learned societies but like other historic events, it resulted from a combination of necessity and contingency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A seminal scientific contribution that engenders a paradigm shift in the way in which we view the world may be measured by (1) the changes induced in the methods in which scientists and engineers prosecute their research and development programmes, and/or (2) the changes to common words and phrases used in languages across the world. George Gray’s discovery and engineering of stable, room temperature, nematic liquid crystals led directly to the creation of the current liquid crystal display industry and the introduction of new expressions to all languages, etc., thereby fulfilling both of the above-mentioned criteria. His work has touched the lives of most people and provides a superb example of nano- and micro-engineering of materials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper addresses an improved low-power high-speed buffer amplifier topology for large-size liquid crystal display applications. The proposed buffer achieves high-speed driving performance while drawing a low quiescent current during static operation. The circuit offers enhanced slewing capabilities with a limited power consumption by exploiting a slew detector which monitors the output voltage of the input differential amplifier and outputs an additional current signal providing slew-rate enhancement at the output stage. Post-layout simulations show that the proposed buffer can drive a 1 nF column line load with 8.5 V/μs slew-rate and 0.8 μs settling time, while drawing only 8 μA static current from a 3 V power supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the characteristics and uses of liquid crystals. Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are given as an example of the responsivity to excitations of liquid crystals. Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer is credited with discovering liquid crystals in 1888. The use of liquid crystals in televisions and smaller displays has helped the liquid crystal display industry garner a net worth of over $70 billion.

The square-wave grating silica surfaces are fabricated by soft embossing silica sol-gel precursor on glass substrates with an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane mold. The patterned silica surface could induce the planar alignment of liquid crystal 4-n-pentyl-4′-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) along the direction of microgrooves but with no pretilt angle. The pretilt angle of 5CBs is adjusted from 0° to 90° by the further deposition of organosilane self-assembled monolayers with different functional end-groups on the patterned silica surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]