Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Masayuki Okamoto

Seiichi Mitsui

Nobuaki Yamada

Shuichi Kozaki

Hajime Hiraki

Masahiko Kondo

Shun Ueki

Wataru Horie

Motohiro Yamahara

Takashi Satoh

Kiyoshi Minoura

Nobukazu Nagae

Makoto Shiomi

Noriaki Onishi

Tokihiko Shinomiya

Toshiyuki Hirai

Teiyu Sako

Masahiko Tomikawa

Shigeaki Mizushima

Yoshito Hashimoto

Kohichi Fujimori

Shin-ichi Terashita

Teruyoshi Hara

A liquid crystal display is furnished with: a liquid crystal display element having a pair of substrates, to which alignment members are provided to their respective opposing surfaces, and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched by the pair of substrates; an alignment mechanism for providing at least two different director configurations simultaneously on different arbitrary regions used for display in the liquid crystal layer; and a reflection film provided to at least one of the different arbitrary regions showing different director configurations; wherein the different arbitrary regions showing different director configurations are used for a reflection display section for showing reflection display and a transmission display section for showing transmission display, respectively. Examples of the alignment mechanism include an alignment film to which the alignment treatment is applied in different orientations in the reflection display section and transmission display section, respectively, an insulation film having different film thicknesses in the reflection display section and transmission display section, and so forth.

Liquid crystal display

A reflective color liquid crystal display device with a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between a first substrate having a light reflectibility and a second substrate having a light transmissibility. The liquid crystal layer being composed of twist-aligned nematic liquid crystal having a positive dielectric anisotropy. A circularly polarizing unit, including a single linear polarizer plate, selectively passes either right handed or left handed circularly polarized light out of natural light. The circularly polarizing unit is disposed so that a major surface of the circularly polarizing unit is on a liquid crystal layer side, the circularly polarized light exiting the circularly polarizing unit through the major surface when natural light enters the circularly polarizing unit. Various parameters of the liquid crystal layer are optimized for a liquid crystal layer having a twist angle in the range of 0&#xb0; to 100&#xb0;.

Reflective liquid crystal display device and reflective liquid crystal display device incorporating touch panel arranged therefrom

A reflective display device includes a switching layer, placed between substrates, for switching between a transmissive state for allowing transmission of incident light and a scattering state for scattering the incident light, and a retro-reflector for reflecting an incident ray from the liquid crystal layer so that an outgoing ray of the reflected light is parallel to the incident ray. A pitch of smallest unit structures of the retro-reflector is set to be larger than 0 mm and not more than 5 mm. The retro-reflector is preferably in a form of a corner cube array and has light absorbing surface portions at borders of the smallest unit structures. With this reflective display device, brightness of white state and contrast ratio can be improved.

Reflective display device and retro-reflector used therefor

The present invention offers reflective color liquid crystal display devices with a high contrast ratio and eye-friendly multi-color display capability, and liquid crystal display devices incorporating a touch panel arranged therefrom, of which the display is not adversely affected by the installation of a pressure sensitive input device. In a reflective liquid crystal display device arranged from a light reflexible substrate ( ) and a substrate ( ); a liquid crystal layer ( ) in which nematic liquid crystal having a positive dielectric anisotropy is sandwiched between the substrates ( ) and ( ); a first optical retardation compensator plate ( ); a second optical retardation compensator plate ( ); and a polarizer plate ( ), {circle around (1)} the retardation of the optical retardation compensator plates ( and ) in the substrate normal direction, {circle around (2)} the angle formed by the slow axes of the optical retardation compensator plates ( and ) and either the transmission axis or the absorption axis of the polarizer plate ( ), {circle around (3)} the twist angle of the liquid crystal layer ( ), {circle around (4)} the product of the birefringence difference of the liquid crystal in the liquid crystal layer ( ) and the thickness of the liquid crystal layer, and {circle around (5)} the angle formed by the alignment direction of the liquid crystal molecules in a close proximity of the substrate ( ) and either the transmission axis or the absorption axis of the polarizer plate are optimized.

Reflection liquid crystal display and reflection liquid crystal display provided with built-in touch panel and comprising the same

A laminated phase plate is formed by laminating a first optical phase difference compensation plate, having a retardation between 100 and 180 nm for transmitted light, with a wavelength of 550 nm and a second optical phase difference compensation plate having a retardation between 200 and 360 nm for transmitted light with a wavelength of 550 nm. The optical phase difference compensation plates are arranged so that &verbar;&thgr;1&minus;(2&times;&thgr;2)&verbar; is between 80 and 100 degrees. The term &thgr;1 is an angle between a vibration direction of linearly polarized light and a slow axis direction of the first optical phase difference compensation plate when the linearly polarized light, which is visible light and has a fixed plane of vibration, is incident on the second optical phase difference compensation plate. The term &thgr;2 is an angle between the vibration direction of linearly polarized light incident on the second optical phase difference compensation plate and a slow axis direction of the second optical phase difference compensation plate.

Laminated phase plate and liquid crystal display comprising the laminated phase plate

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Kashiwa, Japan

Masayuki Okamoto