SFI Extra Clear NCAP PDLC

Historically, the development of NCAP (Nematic Curvilinear Aligned Phases) based technology has
arisen out of the extensive work on composite films of liquid crystals and polymers. These systems
were the subject of intense work for over a decade in the mid-1980s through mid-1990s, attracting
the attention of major display companies, small start-ups, and numerous academic groups. These
systems went by a variety of names: NCAP, PDLC, PNLC, liquid crystal gels, and others. All these
systems were based around the common theme of a liquid crystal cell in which a polymer network
produced droplets or domains of liquid crystal. The optical properties of the cell depended on the
alignment of the liquid crystals within each domain, with this alignment being determined by the
balance of local alignment forces by the bounding polymer network, and any applied electric field.
Nearly all of these devices could be switched between a turbid, scattering state and a transparent,
non-scattering state. Over 1,000 technical papers and patents were published during the history of
these materials.

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There were two major material systems used for the fabrication of these systems. The first relied on a
single-phase solution of the liquid crystal and the polymer precursor that was induced to phase
separate into a polymer network and liquid crystal domains. Photo-polymerization of reactive
monomers and oligomers was by far the most popular pathway, given the versatility of photopolymerization chemistry and ease of processing. The vast majority of groups working on liquid crystal
dispersion displays used phase separation methods to form their devices.
These phase separation methods, though, possessed several fundamental limitations. For the purposes
of this background, the most serious flaw is a serious incompatibility with dichroic liquid crystal
materials. Dichroic dyes tend to absorb light very strongly in the ultraviolet and visible regions of the
spectrum, and so significantly reduce the amount of radiation available to initiate the photopolymerization process. These dyes also tend to remain in the polymeric matrix and as such are unswitchable, causing relatively high adsorption even when the material is powered.
Any un-switched dye molecules will greatly degrade. More importantly, dichroic dyes can interfere with
the actual polymerization chemistry through reaction with the growing polymers used to induce phase
separation. Rather than being cured in seconds, dichroic dyes force irradiation times of an hour or
more, totally impractical in manufacturing.
Dichroic dyes dissolved in a liquid crystal provide the most attractive route for the fabrication of smart
films for energy saving and other innovative based products. The absorbance of the dye depends on

the alignment of the dye molecules, which tends to follow the alignment of the liquid crystal. In this
way, dichroic based devices provide both a controllable absorption and a controllable scattering effect,
leading to an attractive smart film product.
The other major approach towards dispersed liquid crystals used a water-based emulsion to form the
composite film. An emulsion of liquid crystal droplets was dispersed into a water-based, film-forming
polymer.