Liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film, manufacturing method and application
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of films, and particularly relates to a liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film, a manufacturing method and application.
Background
Flexible OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting diodes) are currently growing very fast future display technologies, and are particularly widely used in high-end mobile phone products.
The cover plate is required to withstand complex friction and impact as an interface directly facing the consumer. Ordinary polymer materials (such as polyimide) cannot meet the requirement of friction resistance as an initial solution, and the current mainstream solution in the industry is ultra-thin flexible glass (UTG, ultra-thin glass), UTG has excellent scratch resistance. To achieve good flexible folding function, UTG is typically designed to be around 0.1mm, which leads to another key problem: the impact resistance decreases sharply. The ultra-thin UTG is easily cracked when subjected to external impact (a typical test is a steel ball drop test) (shown in fig. 4), and based on the above problem, the current UTG flexible OLED panel still needs to solve the cracking problem.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide a liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film, a method for manufacturing the liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film and a flexible OLED display, and further solves the problem of breakage of ultrathin glass under external force impact.
In order to achieve the purpose, the technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows:
the liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film comprises a base material, wherein an alignment film is coated on the base material, reactive liquid crystal is coated on the alignment film, and the alignment film can be arranged according to a specific angle under the irradiation of polarized ultraviolet light.
Preferably, the number of layers of the alignment film and the reactive liquid crystal is at least 1.
A method for manufacturing a liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film is characterized by comprising the following steps: the method comprises the following specific steps:
s1, selecting a substrate, and coating an alignment film on the substrate;
s2, irradiating the coated alignment film by using polarized ultraviolet light to complete alignment and curing;
s3, coating reactive liquid crystal, heating to evaporate solvent, and arranging the reactive liquid crystal according to the direction set by the alignment film;
s4, ultraviolet light is used for curing, and the reactive liquid crystal generates macromolecule cross-linking reaction to form the macromolecule film.
Preferably, the substrate is made of ultrathin flexible glass or polyimide.
Preferably, single layer alignment fabrication: the mixture of the reactive liquid crystal and the alignment molecules is coated on the substrate, and the alignment and the manufacture of the reactive liquid crystal can be finished by curing with polarized ultraviolet light.
Preferably, multilayer alignment production: when the reactive liquid crystal is in a liquid state, the upper surface of the liquid crystal tends to be aligned perpendicular to the interface, the inclined alignment film coating at the bottom is directly carried out, after the alignment film is solidified, the reactive liquid crystal is coated on the upper surface of the liquid crystal, and the liquid crystal is slowly irradiated by ultraviolet light for solidification, so that the liquid crystal can be formed at one time.
Preferably, the alignment film may form alignment by photo-alignment, and may also form alignment by rubbing.
An application of a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film is to apply the liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film to a flexible OLED display.
The technical scheme can obtain the following beneficial effects:
the multi-directional film improves the impact resistance of the flexible display surface, designs the internal structure of the material, disperses the energy at the contact point position to a large area, reduces the energy on unit area, thereby reducing the deformation and solving the fracture problem of the ultrathin glass.
When being impacted by external force (such as falling of a steel ball), the film can disperse local impact force to a larger area and improve the cracking problem of the ultrathin glass.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film.
Fig. 2 is a schematic view of the internal stack structure of the thin film.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a laminated structure of a flexible OLED panel using a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of ultra-thin glass breakage caused by steel ball drop test.
In the figure:
in the figure: 1. a reactive liquid crystal; 2. an alignment film; 3. a substrate.
Detailed Description
The invention is further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings:
as shown in fig. 1-3, a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film comprises a substrate 3, an alignment layer coated on the substrate, a reactive liquid crystal 1 coated on the alignment layer, and an alignment layer 2 capable of aligning at a specific angle under polarized ultraviolet light irradiation.
Preferably, the number of layers of the alignment film and the reactive liquid crystal is at least 1.
A method for manufacturing a liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film comprises the following steps: the method comprises the following specific steps:
s1, selecting a substrate, and coating an alignment film on the substrate;
s2, irradiating the coated alignment film by using polarized ultraviolet light to complete alignment and curing;
s3, coating reactive liquid crystal, heating to evaporate solvent, and arranging the reactive liquid crystal according to the direction set by the alignment film;
s4, ultraviolet light is used for curing, and the reactive liquid crystal generates macromolecule cross-linking reaction to form the macromolecule film.
Preferably, the substrate is made of ultrathin flexible glass or polyimide.
Preferably, single layer alignment fabrication: the mixture of the reactive liquid crystal and the alignment molecules is coated on the substrate, and the alignment and the manufacture of the reactive liquid crystal can be finished by curing with polarized ultraviolet light.
Preferably, multilayer alignment production: when the reactive liquid crystal is in a liquid state, the upper surface of the liquid crystal tends to be aligned perpendicular to the interface, the inclined alignment film coating at the bottom is directly carried out, after the alignment film is solidified, the reactive liquid crystal is coated on the upper surface of the liquid crystal, and the liquid crystal is slowly irradiated by ultraviolet light for solidification, so that the liquid crystal can be formed at one time.
The alignment film may form an alignment by photo-alignment or rubbing.
An application of a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film is to apply the liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film to a flexible OLED display.
Example (b):
the first step is as follows: the alignment layer is coated on a substrate, which may be UTG, polyimide, or other materials. Alignment films are widely used in liquid crystal display production to align liquid crystals, and include the types of retardation, polymerization, and isomarization.
The bottom layer of the reactive liquid crystal in FIG. 1 has a small tilt angle, and an alignment film widely used in TN (twisted nematic) liquid crystal displays can be directly used; the top layer reactive liquid crystal, as shown in fig. 1, perpendicular to the interface, can use an alignment film widely used in VA (vertical alignment) liquid crystal displays.
The second step is that: and irradiating the coated alignment film by using polarized ultraviolet light to complete alignment and curing. At this time, the alignment film has the alignment capability to the reactive liquid crystal, so that the reactive liquid crystal can be arranged according to a specific angle; the alignment film is thin, typically tens of nanometers thick.
The third step: the reactive liquid crystal is coated and heated to evaporate the solvent, and the reactive liquid crystal is aligned in the direction set by the alignment film. Then, ultraviolet light is used for curing, and the reactive liquid crystal can generate macromolecule cross-linking reaction to form a macromolecule film. The polymer film obtained by performing the above three steps is shown in FIG. 1.
Based on the specific manufacturing basic method, different alignment films are needed, and the liquid crystal polymer multidirectional film shown in FIG. 2 can be manufactured by repeating the steps; since the upper surface of the reactive liquid crystal is inclined to be aligned perpendicular to the interface when the reactive liquid crystal is in a liquid state, the bottom inclined alignment film can be directly coated, after the alignment film is cured, the reactive liquid crystal is coated on the upper surface of the liquid crystal film, and the liquid crystal film is slowly cured by ultraviolet irradiation, so that the laminated structure of the liquid crystal high polymer film shown in the figure 2 can be formed at one time; the number of stacked layers is not particularly limited within the molecule, and the angle is gradually changed from top to bottom. However, if the coating is applied layer by layer, the preferred number of layers is 2 to 10.
The alignment film may form an alignment by photo-alignment or rubbing.
The above embodiment modes are preferred: the alignment of the reactive liquid crystal can be realized by the way that the optical alignment molecules are doped in the reactive liquid crystal, so that the alignment process can be simplified, and the production efficiency can be improved. The specific process is as follows: the mixture of the reactive liquid crystal and the alignment molecules is coated on the substrate, and the alignment and the manufacture of the reactive liquid crystal can be finished by curing with polarized ultraviolet light.
Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a flexible OLED display applying a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film to the flexible OLED display, specifically including a processing layer, a liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film, an ultrathin glass, a circular polarizer, a touch panel layer, a display layer, and a back protection layer, where when the flexible OLED display is impacted by an external force (for example, a steel ball falls), the film can disperse a local impact force to a larger area and improve the fracture problem of the ultrathin flexible glass; fig. 4 shows the prior art, when the steel ball falls to the surface of the cover plate, a large amount of energy is conducted to the ultra-thin glass at the corresponding position at the contact position, which causes rapid deformation of the local position and further leads to UTG rupture.
By comparing fig. 1 and fig. 4, it can be obtained that the liquid crystal polymer multi-directional film of the present invention is not adopted to perform the material structure design of the internal lamination to achieve the purpose of dispersing the acting force of the steel ball, when the external impact is applied (the typical test is the steel ball drop test), the ultrathin glass is easy to crack, and the internal structure of the material designed by the present invention disperses the energy of the contact point position to a large area, and reduces the energy on the unit area, thereby reducing the deformation, and solving the cracking problem of the ultrathin glass.
The above description is the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and it is within the scope of the appended claims to cover all modifications of the invention which may occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.