Merck liquid crystals (licristal)
Liquid crystal mixtures from Darmstadt that switch the pixels of LCD screens. Merck has sold liquid crystals since 1904 and said in 2015 it produced more than 60% of those sold worldwide.
- Made by
- Merck KGaA
- From
- Darmstadt, Hesse
- Category
- Materials
- Introduced
- 1904
What it is
Liquid crystals are organic compounds that flow like a liquid but keep an ordered, crystal-like alignment of their molecules. In an LCD, a thin layer of a carefully blended mixture sits between two glass plates. Merck KGaA of Darmstadt sells these mixtures under the licristal brand to display makers.
How it works
Each pixel applies a small voltage across the liquid crystal layer. The molecules rotate in response, changing how polarised light from the backlight passes through. A commercial mixture blends many individual compounds to balance switching speed, viewing angle, temperature range and energy use. Merck's UB-FFS (ultra-brightness fringe field switching) technology was adopted in smartphones and tablets because it lets more light through, improving outdoor readability and battery life.
Why it stands out
- The phenomenon was discovered in 1888 when the botanist Friedrich Reinitzer examined substances from carrots and the physicist Otto Lehmann described the new state of matter.
- Merck was selling liquid crystals for research by 1904, more than 60 years before the first working LCD in 1968.
- After George Gray's discovery of the cyanobiphenyls in Britain, Merck developed stable mixtures from 1976 that made mass-market displays possible.
- In 2015 Merck said it produced more than 60 per cent of all liquid crystals sold worldwide; this is the company's own figure.
Merck also works on liquid crystals outside displays, including switchable windows under the licrivision brand, piloted in Darmstadt in 2015.
In LCD televisions, monitors, laptops, car dashboards and the many smartphones and tablets that still use LCD panels. As phones moved to OLED, Merck added OLED materials (livilux), opening a production unit in Darmstadt in 2016 for more than 30 million euros. Merck does not disclose which phone models use its materials.
Sources
Stories
Inside your smartphone: the German parts nobody sees
No phone sold today carries a German brand of note, yet German sensors, liquid crystals, glass and silicon sit inside a great many of them. A walk up the supply chain, from Reutlingen to Burghausen.
Germany's forgotten firsts: ten technologies you use without knowing where they began
Jet engines, chip cards, airbags, tape and the electron microscope all have German origins that rarely travel. Ten cases, checked against museums and patent records, with rival claims set out honestly.
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Last reviewed 4 November 2026. Main source: www.chemeurope.com/en/news/144800/. Suggest a correction.