Liquid Crystal Display Applications: The First Hundred Years

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Abstract
Although liquid crystal materials have been known for 100 years, large-scale applications for the materials in the form of electronic displays did not occur until the mid-1970s when compact, attractive calculators and watches with liquid crystal displays (LCDs) reached the marketplace and soon became household items. Now, some 12 years later, low cost LCDs are being made by the hundreds of millions. Today, we see more sophisticated LCDs appearing in such products as portable computers and hand-held color TV sets; the fabled liquid crystal TV on a wall appears to be only a few years in the future. This paper deals with a review of the liquid crystal applications which have resulted from research carried out over the past 25 years. It presents a liquid crystal research pioneer's assessment of how applications were envisioned in the past, how they actually developed and what we might expect in the future.