In our studies, it was confirmed that the cause of image sticking on liquid crystal (LC) cells is based on attacks of electrostatic discharge (ESD), which can be greatly relieved by doping with a small amount of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) nanoparticles. Our proposed remedy allows the residual time of image sticking to be significantly reduced by more than an order and may protect the LC displays against any adverse ESD conditions, thus enhancing the overall display quality and reliability. In this study, conventional voltage-transmittance (V-T) characterization, voltage holding ratio (VHR) measurement, and ESD testing were employed to investigate the properties of the ITO-doped LCs. Based on our low voltage measurement results, it is interesting to find that ITO nanoparticles do not evidently alter the intrinsic properties of the LC. Namely, ITO additive initiates an early breakdown of the doped LC samples exposed to high electric fields. A model is proposed in this paper to depict the possible role of ITO particles applied in LCs.
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