Liquid Crystals and Films

Task Two: develop a one-of-a-kind material and gain dominance over its market.

Rather than a task, this was more of a development plan.

For Zhou Feiyu, Fei Yang New Material Technology Company was only just getting started. Even with FY-01, a near-perfect material, it was like a great martial artist possessing peerless inner strength—but that alone was not enough, because it was not safe.

Even King Material Company of Eagle Country, whose core product was King Material, scientifically known as "King Polymer Optical Film," did not have just that one product. It possessed a great many materials, including light-concentrating materials, luminescent materials, various adhesive materials, graphite materials, and a whole series of different materials. That was why King Material Company stood unrivaled in the materials field, with such an illustrious reputation and a market value of tens of billions of US dollars!

Only by possessing so many materials could King Material Company achieve such a high market value, earn broader and greater profits, and then support research and development across all kinds of materials, including materials that appeared useless.

Therefore, Zhou Feiyu himself was also eager to develop a second material. First, to continue cultivating the materials field and build a solid foundation for Fei Yang New Material; second, to earn more profits to support the subsequent research and development of his other technologies.

Money was not omnipotent, but without money, nothing could be done.

For now, Zhou Feiyu needed to find a target within the fields he was involved in.

"What area is it used in?"

Zhou Feiyu continued asking Jiang Xinyi.

Jiang Xinyi did not answer immediately. Instead, she asked, "President Zhou, do you know much about liquid crystals?"

Zhou Feiyu thought for a moment and said, "I do. They're a special state of matter that possesses some properties of both crystals and liquids. They were discovered by the nineteenth-century botanist Leinitzer. After certain substances are melted or dissolved, they lose the rigidity of solids but gain the fluidity of liquids, while retaining some characteristics of crystalline matter—a transitional state."

"It seems President Zhou's physics is pretty good. You still remember it so clearly."

Jiang Xinyi smiled and praised him.

Emmm...

My physics level is only LV0!

Zhou Feiyu quietly grumbled to himself.

Naturally, Jiang Xinyi had no idea what Zhou Feiyu was thinking at that moment. She continued, "Liquid crystals are a transitional state and possess the characteristics of crystalline matter. Those crystalline characteristics refer to anisotropic ordered arrangements. To manufacture Mobile Phone Glass, this transitional material, liquid crystal, is needed..."

Inside the office, the three of them listened quietly, with only Jiang Xinyi's voice echoing through the room.

As humanities and art students, Xiao Jianguo and Li Shihan were listening with great interest as well. It was their first time hearing someone from a science and engineering background give such a detailed yet easy-to-understand explanation.

Although Zhou Feiyu was also in science and engineering, his major was not related to this field. Still, as Jiang Xinyi explained, he gradually gained a rough understanding of the composition and manufacturing process of Mobile Phone Glass.

Liquid crystals were a miraculous transitional state. After being discovered in the nineteenth century, they attracted the attention and study of many scholars. Yet it was not until the middle of the twentieth century, when a young scholar in Eagle Country had a sudden idea, that liquid crystals were applied to display screens. Due to their anisotropic ordered arrangement, when voltage was applied, changes in voltage could alter the orientation of liquid crystal molecules, thereby controlling the passage and blocking of light, as well as changes in color. Thus, liquid crystal screens were born.

However, although liquid crystal screens originated in Eagle Country, they missed out on this discovery. Instead, the Little Country folks seized the initiative and ultimately gained control.

Jiang Xinyi briefly expanded on the topic. There were quite a few domestically produced liquid crystals, but high-quality liquid crystals were basically monopolized by the Little Country folks.

During the manufacturing process of phone screens, liquid crystals had to be injected between two pieces of glass. A phone screen required two glass substrates, with the liquid crystals positioned between them.

It was like building a house—you had to lay the foundation first.

The upper and lower glass substrates were the foundation. The liquid crystals changed between those two pieces of glass, allowing the phone screen to display different images.

The liquid crystals were not simply poured between the glass, nor was it like flooding the place and calling it done. After being injected, the liquid crystal molecules had to arrange themselves along regular, pre-designed paths.

To achieve that effect—and achieve it perfectly—the key player, PI Film, had to be used.

"...Inside the glass, PI Film is attached to the glass along the designed circuitry to carry the liquid crystal molecules. Why use PI Film rather than other film materials? That involves PI Film's two key characteristics. The first is thickness. PI Film has excellent extensibility and flexibility, allowing it to be manufactured into extremely thin products, as thin as several micrometers. The second is its high reliability. It remains completely unchanged in conditions below negative two hundred degrees or above two hundred degrees Celsius. It's practically absurd."

By the end, Jiang Xinyi's tone was full of admiration for PI Film's formidable performance.

Zhou Feiyu finally understood. He used an analogy: "If Mobile Phone Glass were compared to a person, then the liquid crystal molecules would be platelets, while PI Film would be blood vessels that carry those liquid crystal molecules. Then, as the voltage changes, the liquid crystal molecules shift into different directions through the channels formed by the PI Film."

"That's so profound."

Li Shihan was struggling greatly to follow along, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed. She was beginning to regret it. "I shouldn't have listened."

Zhou Feiyu smiled faintly, stroked her hair, and said, "Of course it feels profound when an art student like you listens to this. You've never encountered it before, so you have no concept of these terms or the logic behind this knowledge. Listen more in the future. Even if you still don't understand it, you'll at least be able to say a few things when you go out, and the people under you won't dare fool you so easily."

Li Shihan nodded obediently. "Mm!"

She understood what Zhou Feiyu meant.

She did not need to understand too much. She only needed to know a little and remember it; that would be enough. Only when she understood nothing at all would outsiders or insiders casually make up excuses to fool her whenever she encountered problems in this area.

That was also why a boss or founder had to understand the industry they entered.

"Then it seems there should be many companies working in the PI Film industry?"

Xiao Jianguo raised a question.

Jiang Xinyi immediately replied, "Of course there are many companies doing it. There are more than a dozen domestically. But whether at home or abroad, high-quality PI Film is basically monopolized by Eagle Country and the Little Country folks, who occupy eighty percent of the market share. Only scraps from the low-end market are left for domestic companies. BE, HE, and other leading domestic Mobile Phone Glass companies basically use imported PI Film. The small company I worked for in Peng City also used imported PI Film for eighty percent of its production. Domestic PI Film was only used for Mobile Phone Glass in knockoff phones sold domestically or to less developed countries, because it had a cost advantage."

Xiao Jianguo was instantly speechless and replied with two words: "All right."

Zhou Feiyu was also speechless. In almost every industry, domestic companies appeared to win when looking at the finished products on the surface. But once you dug deeper into the products themselves, they were immediately monopolized by foreign countries again—especially Eagle Country. It was everywhere.

Until now, no one else knew that PI Film was also one of the foundational raw materials for FY-01. That was why he had reacted so strongly when Jiang Xinyi mentioned PI Film.

"I haven't paid much attention to this area. Should I say it was fortunate that I called my old classmate back to work?"

It was never too late to mend the fence after the sheep were gone. Zhou Feiyu immediately became more alert, and a decision swiftly formed in his mind.