Alignment layers for cholesteric displays on glass and plastic substrates

— The optical performance of surface‐stabilized cholesteric liquid‐crystal displays (SCT‐LCDs) has been optimized by using obliquely sputtered SiO2 as the alignment layer. A comparison with polyimides used up to now showed an improvement in the contrast ratio by a factor of 2 for glass displays. A second advantage of this material is the absence of high temperatures during the manufacturing process. Therefore, it is possible to use obliquely sputtered SiO2 for the preparation of plastic display prototypes. We have realized a 6‐in. VGA display with approximately 130 dpi. This is the largest cholesteric display with the highest resolution fabricated on plastic substrates to date.