Blue Phase Mode LCD - First Blue Phase LC-display

First Blue Phase LC-display

In May, 2008 Samsung Electronics announced that it has developed the world's first Blue Phase LCD panel which can be operated at an unprecedented refresh rate of 240 Hz. Samsung unveiled a 15 inch prototype model of its Blue Phase LCD panel at the SID (Society for Information Display) 2008 international Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, which was held in Los Angeles from May 18 to 23, 2008.

Developed with a look at cost-efficiency, Samsung's Blue Phase mode does not require liquid crystal alignment layers, unlike today's most widely used TFT LCD modes such as Twisted Nematic (TN), In-Plane Switching (IPS) or Vertical Alignment (VA). The Blue Phase mode can make its own alignment layers, eliminating the need for any mechanical alignment and rubbing processes. This reduces the number of required manufacturing steps, resulting in savings on production costs. Additionally it has been claimed that Blue Phase panels would reduce the sensitivity of the liquid crystal layer to mechanical pressure which could impair the lateral uniformity of display (e.g. luminance, chromaticity).

In a blue phase based LC-display for TV applications it is not the selective reflection of light according to the lattice pitch (Bragg reflection) that is used for display of visual information, but an external electric field induces a birefringence in the liquid crystal via the Kerr effect. That field induced birefringence becomes apparent as a change of transmission when the Blue Phase Mode LC layer is placed between crossed polarizers.

Response time compensation by voltage overdriving as currently applied in many LCD panels with 120 Hz frame frequency for improvement of the display of moving images in LCD TVs could become obsolete since the Blue Phase mode features a superior response speed (in the range of 10 - 100 microseconds, see ref. 1), allowing images to be reproduced at 240 Hz frame rate or higher without the need for any overdrive circuit.

For a detailed discussion of the blue phase LCs in in-plane switching (IPS) structures and related modeling method based on the Kerr effect in a macroscopic scale see references. With an isotropic dark state, blue phase LCDs show many interesting electro-optic performances. Presently, the driving voltage of blue phase LCs in IPS structures is still a little bit too high. To reduce the voltage, material engineering for developing high Kerr constant mixtures is critically important.

Read more about this topic:  Blue Phase Mode LCD

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