The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Tao Du

Hoi Sing Kwok

Vladimir Grigorievich Chigrinov

Fan Fan

A liquid crystal display (LCD) backlight system includes: a light source, configured to generate light; a patterned polarization grating polarization converter (PPG-PC) assembly, configured to convert the generated light from a first polarization state to a second polarization state. The PPG-PC further includes: a patterned polarization grating (PPG) having a plurality of domains, wherein the plurality of domains of the PPG include at least two different types of domains, and wherein each domain of the PPG is configured to diffract incident light into first and second types of light beams corresponding to a first diffraction order; and a patterned retarder (PR), having a plurality of domains, the plurality of domains of the PR including domains corresponding to areas where the first type of light beams output from the PPG and including domains corresponding to areas where the second type of light beams output from the PPG converge.

Patterned polarization grating polarization converter

The present invention provides a patterned polarization converter having multiple domains that can be used to convert input linear polarized light to output light with spatially varying polarization states, including domains that produce linearly polarized light and domains that produce circular polarized light based on the patterning of the domains. A patterned polarization converter having multiple domains may be used in a polarization sensor application capable of detecting the polarization state of input light. The present invention further provides patterned radial and azimuthal polarization converters, which have utility in applications such as optical tweezers. Additionally, patterned polarization converters may be used to fabricate more patterned polarization converters having the same pattern using one-step photoalignment to copy the pattern of an existing patterned polarization converter to an unpatterned photoalignment layer.

Patterned polarization converter

A polarization converter and polarization conversion systems are provided. The polarization converter and polarization conversion systems include a patterned polarization grating with left hand and right hand polarization grating domains. The polarization grating domains are configured to diffract incident non-polarized light into beams having left and right circular polarization states.

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Hong Kong, China

Tao Du