Re: Is magnetic allignment of liquid crystal material possible?

Hi Wayne!  I'm going to forward this to another MADSCI scientist.  Liquid
crystals in electronic displays are aligned by electric (also called
"electrostatic") fields.  I've never heard that magnetic fields have any
effects on them.

In LCD displays, the layer of liquid crystal is between transparent metal
coatings.  These allow the voltage-fields to be applied to the LCD
material, but they also act as shielding for electrostatic fields being
applied externally.  To turn an LCD display on and off, you need to tear
it loose from its original circuit board, then apply charged objects to
the connections along the edge of the glass plate.

I have a small LCD plate from a dead laptop.  If I hold the "horizontal"
connections in my hand, and then rake its "vertical" connections across
the charged surface of my computer, all kinds of lines and squares appear
on it.