Enhanced Heteroepitaxy
Abstract
Oriented crystal growth on an amorphous substrate has been achieved using an artificially created submicrometer-dimension surface-relief grating. Crystallites of KCl grown from a water solution onto a 320-nm spatial-period square-wave grating in SiO2 nucleated preferentially at vertical steps and grew with (100) directions parallel to the grating axis. 320-nm spatial-period square-wave gratings fabricated on amorphous SiO2 substrates were used to produce uniform alignment of the director in nematic and smectic liquid-crystal layers. This demonstrates that molecular alignment can be achieved using surface structures fabricated by a planar process. A novel method of producing twisted-nematic liquid-crystal displays using surface gratings is described.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 31, 1977
- Accession Number
- ADA056917
Entities
People
- Alan L. McWhorter
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology