Viewing angle switching from a wide viewing angle to a narrow viewing angle has been studied. Conventional multidomain vertical alignment (VA) mode offers the advantages of a high contrast ratio (CR) not only in the front view but also in the wide viewing directions only if compensation films such as a negative C plate and a positive A plate are used. The positive A plate can be replaced by a homogeneous aligned (HA) liquid crystal layer, and the retardation of the HA layer at the off axis can be controlled by applying an electric field while keeping the retardation value at zero in the normal direction. Consequently, the viewing angle range of a VA device can be controlled from a wide viewing mode (over 170° in terms of CR=10) to a narrow viewing angle mode (approximately 60° in terms of CR=2) in the horizontal direction while keeping a high image quality at the normal direction.
Viewing angle control of a patterned vertical alignment (PVA) liquid crystal display using only one panel is investigated. In conventional PVA modes, a vertically aligned liquid crystal (LC) director tilts down in four directions making 45 • with respect to crossed polarizers to exhibit a wide viewing angle. In the viewing angle control device, one pixel was divided into two sub-pixels such that the LC director in the main pixel is controlled to be tilted down in multiple directions making an angle with the polarizer, playing the role of main display with the wide viewing angle, while the LC director in the sub-pixel is controlled to be tilted down to the polarizer axis, playing the role of sub-pixel to the viewing angle control for the narrow viewing angle. Using sub-pixel control, light leakage or any type of information such as characters and image can be generated in oblique viewing directions without distorting the image quality in the normal direction, which will prevent others from peeping at the displayed image by overlapping the displayed image with the made image.
Viewing-angle controllable liquid crystal display (LCD) without using an additional panel or pixel division is proposed. In the device, hybrid aligned nematic liquid crystal using a liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy is used. The device shows narrow viewing angle when it is driven only by fringe-electric field, however, it exhibits wide viewing angle if driven by vertical- as well as fringe-electric field. With the approach, the viewing angle of the LCD can be controlled from 120° to 20° in horizontal direction.
This study examined the viewing angle control of twisted nematic liquid crystal displays (TN-LCDs). Conventional TN mode has intrinsic characteristics, such as a narrow viewing angle along the vertical direction and a relatively wide viewing angle along the horizontal and diagonal directions. Our study shows that the viewing angle of the TN-LCD can be made wider and smaller than that of a normal TN cell by adding one or two homogeneously aligned liquid crystal layers between the TN cell and polarizers, and controlling their retardation with an applied voltage.
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