Irradiation device for an alignment layer of a liquid crystal cell element

Abstract

Uniform irradiation of an entire region to be irradiated with polarized light for optical alignment of a liquid crystal cell element using a small polarization element is achieved by light, which contains UV radiation emitted from a lamp, being focused by an oval focusing mirror, and being incident via a first planar mirror and a polarization element using a multilayer film on an integrator lens which makes a uniform distribution of the portion of unpolarized light or the distribution of the illuminance of the polarized light in a certain direction and the distribution of the polarization direction. The extinction ratio of the polarized light emerging from the integrator lens is therefore made uniform over the entire region to be irradiated even if scattered light is incident on the polarization element. The light emerging from the integrator lens is incident on a bandpass filter via a shutter. The polarized light in a predetermined wavelength range is incident, via a second planar mirror, on a workpiece, such as a liquid crystal cell element or the like. Furthermore, a polarization element using the Brewster angle or the like can also be used.