Liquid Crystal Phase Shifter Layout for Uniform Capacitor Gaps
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing phase shifters suffer from non-uniformity in pillar support heights, leading to reduced phase shifting performance due to variations in the gap of overlapping capacitors between substrates.
Innovation Solution
The phase shifter design ensures equal spacing and non-overlapping projections of pillar supports relative to conductive layers, maintaining uniform cell gaps and improving phase shifting performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If pillar supports are placed close to conductive layers to reduce cell gap variation, then manufacturing precision improves, but pillar support height uniformity deteriorates due to overlapping projections causing non-uniform heights
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the pillar supports from the region overlapping with conductive layers, placing them only in non-overlapping regions. This separation eliminates the harmful interaction between pillar supports and conductive layers, ensuring uniform pillar support heights while maintaining cell gap uniformity through proper spacing design.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different spatial arrangements to different regions: pillar supports are positioned in non-overlapping regions away from conductive layers, while conductive layers maintain their optimized patterns in overlapping regions. This localized quality assignment ensures both uniform pillar support heights and effective capacitance control.
2Reliability
If pillar supports are equally spaced from conductive layer edges, then phase shifting performance improves through uniform capacitor gaps, but device complexity increases due to additional spacing constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates equipotential conditions by ensuring all pillar supports near conductive layer edges are equally spaced from those edges. This uniform spacing establishes consistent cell gaps across the device, leading to uniform capacitor characteristics and improved phase shifting performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates spacing constraints directly into the pillar support positioning design from the outset, rather than adding them as separate control mechanisms. By pre-establishing the equal spacing relationship between pillar supports and conductive layer edges, the design simplifies manufacturing while ensuring uniform capacitor gaps.
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
This design enhances the uniformity of pillar support heights, stabilizes the capacitor gap, and improves the overall phase shifting performance of the phase shifter.
Implementation Method 1
a dielectric constant of a liquid crystal layer may be adjusted by controlling orientation of liquid crystal molecules
Implementation Method 2
a dielectric constant of a liquid crystal layer may be adjusted by controlling orientation of liquid crystal molecules, so that a total capacitance in unit length of branch may be adjusted
Implementation Method 3
an orthographic projection of the at least one first electrode on the first substrate at least partially overlaps an orthographic projection of the at least one second electrode on the first substrate
Data Source
AI summary
A phase shifter, including: first and second substrates opposite to each other; an adjustable dielectric layer and a plurality of pillar supports between the first and second substrates; first and second conductive layers on sides of first and second substrates close to the adjustable dielectric layer, respectively, where patterns of the first and second conductive layers include at least one first electrode and at least one second electrode, respectively, orthographic projections of the at least one first electrode and the at least one second electrode on the first substrate at least partially overlap each other; orthographic projections of each of the plurality of pillar support, and the pattern of the first conductive layer on the first substrate do not overlap each other, and the pillar supports of the plurality of pillar supports close to an edge of the pattern of the first conductive layer are equally spaced apart therefrom.