Liquid crystal displays and novel optical thin films enabled by photo-alignment

Photo-alignment and photo-patterning of monomeric- and polymeric liquid cry stals by the linear photo-polymerisation (LPP) technology enables novel mol ecular configurations in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as well as a pletho ra of new thin-film optical elements on single plastic substrates. A molecu lar building block design of LPP photo-co-polymers with display-specific fu nctional groups is depicted. Contrast and brightness of twisted nematic (TN )-LCDs are shown to markedly improve by combining photo-aligned multi-domai n TN-LC-configurations with liquid crystal polymer (LCP) wide-view films. T o illustrate the diversity of the LPP/LCP technology, the following photo-a ligned new optical thin-film elements on plastic films are presented; color less nematic wide-view films for TN-LCDs, ideally bright polarisation inter ference color filters which meet PAL/SECAM standards, as well as photo-alig ned and photo-patterned linear polarizers. Photo-generated monomer and poly mer liquid crystal devices are key to enable future complex plastic LCDs.