Liquid crystal display of multi-domain structure

Claim 1

A liquid crystal display comprising: a pair of transparent substrates, each substrate having no uniform orientation direction, said substrates being arranged to oppose each other with a space therebetween, and said substrates jointly constituting display pixels having a standard observation direction; a liquid crystal layer of chiral nematic liquid crystal or nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between said pair of transparent substrates; an orientation of liquid crystal molecules of said liquid crystal layer being macroscopically omnidirectional with respect to directions in a plane parallel to said pair of substrates so that there is an equal probability of orientation of a molecule in each of a plurality of directions in said plane; said liquid crystal molecules providing a multiplicity of continuous micro-domains, each having one of a constant twist angle and no twist angle in a direction perpendicular to said plane parallel to said pair of substrates, and each of said micro-domains of said liquid crystal extending from one substrate to the other substrate; and a pair of polarizers disposed on both sides of said pair of transparent substrates and having polarization axes which are disposed in a predetermined mutual angular relationship, at least one of said polarizers having a transmission axis or absorption axis aligned with said standard observation direction.

Claim 10

A method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display comprising the steps of: preparing a pair of transparent substrates having no uniform orientation direction, and a chiral nematic or nematic liquid crystal, the liquid crystal having a chiral pitch p which is finite in the case of chiral nematic liquid crystal and is infinite in the case of nematic liquid crystal; arranging said substrates to oppose each other with a spacing therebetween; injecting said chiral nematic or nematic liquid crystal between said pair of transparent substrates which are disposed at such a distance from each other to form a liquid crystal cell that has a multi-domain structure having a multiplicity of micro-domains, each of said micro-domains extending from one substrate to the other substrate with a twist of d/p, the multi-domain structure being macroscopically omnidirectional with respect to directions in a plane parallel to said pair of substrates; disposing said liquid crystal cell between a pair of polarizers; and arranging at least one of said pair of polarizers to have a transmission axis or an absorption axis aligned with a standard observation direction, while keeping directions of polarization axes of said pair of polarizers in a fixed mutual relationship.

Claim 11

A method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display comprising the steps of: preparing a pair of transparent substrates having no uniform orientation direction, and a chiral nematic or nematic liquid crystal, the liquid crystal having a chiral pitch p which is finite in the case of chiral nematic liquid crystal and is infinite in the case of nematic liquid crystal; arranging said substrates to oppose each other with a spacing therebetween; injecting said chiral nematic or nematic liquid crystal between said pair of transparent substrates which are disposed at such a distance from each other to form a liquid crystal cell that has a multi-domain structure having a multiplicity of micro-domains, each of said micro-domains extending from one substrate to the other substrate with a twist of d/p, the multi-domain structure being macroscopically omnidirectional with respect to directions in a plane parallel to said pair of substrates; disposing said liquid crystal cell between a pair of polarizers; and arranging at least one of said pair of polarizers to have a transmission axis or an absorption axis aligned with a standard observation direction, while keeping directions of polarization axes of said pair of polarizers in a fixed mutual relationship.