New functional polymers for liquid crystal displays - review of some recent developments

Polymeric materials play an important role in the construction and performa nce of liquid crystal displays. New functional polymers are developed to im prove the displays on brightness, power efficiency and viewing angle perfor mance. Polymer films with a controlled molecular structure and architecture provide new polarization optics to convert non-polarized light into polari zed light with higher efficiency than the traditional polarizers based on s tretched iodine doped poly(vinyl alcohol). Other films provide a polarizati on compensation function to maintain an angular invariant net optical retar dation of the display device and therewith a better contrast to wider viewi ng angles. Color generation by non-absorbing methods is believed to improve on the display brightness. Special control of the liquid crystal alignment by photo-sensitive orientation layers, polymer protrusions or photo-formed polymer walls provide multiple director patterns within a single pixel to average out angular LC effects.