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Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) and antiferroelectric liquid crystals (AFLCs) have several interesting properties; such as low switching times, high contrast, and wide viewing angle. Such properties suggest that those materials can be appropriate for high end electro-optical applications. Upon manufacturing, the alignment conditioning of the cell plates where the liquid crystal is placed has a strong influence on the eventual electro-optical behavior of the device. If the alignment conditioning of either cell surface is different, asymmetric electro-optical responses can be obtained. Asymmetric devices having fluorinated block copolymers on one side and a conventional alignment layer on the other side seem to be promising for developing grayscale in FLCs and improving dynamic switching of AFLCs. This work explores the performance of FLC and AFLC materials in asymmetric cells showing some interesting effects such as video rate multiplexed analog grayscale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes have been made to this article. See the full text for a description of the changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]