Liquid Crystal Display Element With Alignment Auxiliary Material
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional liquid crystal display elements using the Kerr effect face challenges with high driving voltage requirements and limited propagation of molecular alignment order, leading to inefficient optical response across the display area.
Innovation Solution
A display element comprising a pair of substrates with a material layer that includes a medium with changeable optical anisotropy and an alignment auxiliary material, which stabilizes and expedites molecular alignment in the bulk region, allowing for lower-intensity field operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If conventional liquid crystal display elements use the Kerr effect, then high-speed response is achieved, but driving voltage requirement increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an alignment auxiliary material as an intermediary substance between the liquid crystal medium and the substrate. This auxiliary material mediates the molecular alignment process, enabling the liquid crystal molecules to align more efficiently with lower driving voltage while maintaining the high-speed response characteristic of the Kerr effect.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent modifies the physical and chemical parameters of the liquid crystal medium by adding an alignment auxiliary material. This changes the alignment properties and optical characteristics of the medium, allowing the system to achieve proper molecular alignment at lower voltage levels while preserving the fast response time needed for practical display applications.
2Adaptability or versatility
If liquid crystal molecules are aligned in a certain direction, then viewing angle is restricted, but if molecules rotate together under electric field, then alignment is achieved, but response speed becomes slow
Solution Approach 1:
The alignment auxiliary material creates local alignment zones within the liquid crystal medium that guide molecular orientation. This local quality approach allows different regions of the liquid crystal layer to maintain appropriate alignment characteristics, enabling wider viewing angles while the overall system responds quickly to electric field changes.
3Reliability
If the alignment auxiliary material is added to the liquid crystal medium, then molecular alignment is stabilized and expedited, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a composite liquid crystal medium by combining the original liquid crystal molecules with the alignment auxiliary material. This composite approach integrates the alignment-functioning substance directly into the liquid crystal layer, stabilizing molecular alignment and expediting response without requiring separate alignment layers or complex structural modifications.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables a display element with high-speed response and wide viewing angle capabilities while reducing the driving voltage requirement, facilitating practical operation with improved optical anisotropy control.
Implementation Method 1
The Kerr effect, that is the Kerr electro-optic effect, was adopted early on in high-speed optical shutters, and has been practically used in special measuring instruments.
Data Source
AI summary
Each of a pair of substrates respectively comprises an electrode and a rubbed alignment film on one surface, while the other surface is provided with a polarizer. The substrates are placed so that the surfaces provided with the alignment films are opposed to each other, and the area between the substrates is filled with a medium to form a material layer. Then, a medium made of a negative-type liquid crystalline compound sing a photopolymerizable monomer and a polymerization initiator is injected into the material layer held between the substrates. Further, ultra violet irradiation is performed with the medium exhibiting a liquid crystal phase, so that the photopolymerized monomer is polymerized, thus forming a polymer chain. In this manner, obtained is a display element, that causes change in degree of optical anisotropy in response to application of electric (external) field, which display element can be driven by a lower intensity electric (external) field.