Abstract

Liquid crystal (LC) devices are finding widespread applications in electrooptical systems such as LC displays. Numerical modeling and simultions can prove to be an invaluable tool for the design of high speed and high resolution LC displays. The theoretical treatment of LC devices is generally quite cumbersome. [ 1 ] We introduce here a novel method for modeling LC materials and devices; the method is based on the particle technique, which is widely used in plasma physics and other branches of science [2]. For a LC cell in a display, the dynamical response to applied voltage is studied by solving equation of motions of a sufficiently large number of particles, each representing a large number of molecules. The particles’ motions include viscous, elastic and electrostatic torques on the molecule in self-consistent electrostatic fields.

© 1996 Optical Society of America