New characterization technique for rubbed polyimide film for liquid crystal display

A new technique is proposed to characterize optical anisotropy of rubbed po lyimide film used in liquid crystal displays, The technique consists of mea suring the polarization of reflected light in various incident orientations using a combination of a microscope objective, a half-wave plate; and a tw o-dimensional position-sensitive detector. High spatial. resolution without mechanical rotation of the sample is achieved. The performance of this tec hnique was demonstrated by observing a rubbed polyimide film on a glass sub strate.