Film compensation of twisted nematic liquid crystal display using a rod-like reactive mesogen

A hybrid aligned nematic liquid crystal compensation film using UV curable rod-like mesogen has been made to compensate the residual birefringence of a twisted nematic (TN) device at oblique viewing directions in the dark state. Effective retardation value of the fabricated film was characterized by experiment and calculation using simulation. The results showed that the film has a hybrid alignment with a tilt angle variation from 3° to 19°. The optical compensation effects are evaluated in terms of light leakage in the dark state and contrast ratio (CR). The measured results showed that the light leakage is greatly suppressed with the compensation film and the viewing angle characteristics of TN device are greatly improved, most particularly in the up direction.

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► A hybrid aligned compensation film using rod-like reactive mesogen (RM) affected the performance of the twist nematic liquid crystal display (TN-LCD).
► UV-curing process to polymerize a rod-like RM is required.
► A hybrid LC alignment of the rod-like RM could be uniformly obtained after UV-curing process under ambient condition.
► A hybrid aligned compensation film using rod-like RM is cheaper than WV film using discotic liquid crystal.