Reactive Mesogen Mixtures for Integrated Optical Films

TFT LCD mode has some well-documented performance limitations, namely limited viewing angle, inversion of the gray scale levels and poor luminance efficiency because of the necessity of using crossed polarisers attached to the display cell. During the last few years many initiatives have been undertaken to solve these problems by incorporation birefringent films of various designs into the LCD module. Controlling the optical performance of LCDs often requires combination of liquid crystal material properties, cell parameters and optical films. Such optical films have traditionally been made with stretched polymer materials such as polycarbonate, but recently coated liquid crystalline materials have been used to give improved optical films which can greatly enhance the performance of LCDs. We have now developed reactive mesogen materials to add ultra-thin optical layers into the display structure, and these allow the potential for many new applications.