A recently developed new liquid crystal display, which operates in the fringe-field switching mode, is known to exhibit high transmittance as well as a wide viewing angle unlike the conventional in-plane switching (IPS) mode display. The device shows unique electro-optic behavior, nevertheless the liquid crystal director rotates almost in-plane as in the IPS mode. We found that light efficiency decreases as the rubbing angle with respect to the horizontal component of the fringe field decreases for a liquid crystal with positive dielectric anisotropy, whereas this is not observed for a device driven by the in-plane field. In this paper, the switching mechanism and voltage-dependent transmittance characteristics with respect to rubbing directions have been investigated.

A high performance liquid crystal display using combined fringe and in-plane horizontal electric fields is proposed. The strong electric fields cause more liquid crystals to reorient almost in plane above and between the pixel electrodes. As a result, the operation voltage is lower and transmittance is higher than those of fringe field switching and in-plane switching modes, while preserving a wide viewing angle. Such a high performance device is particularly attractive for large panel liquid crystal displays.

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The photoluminescence of porous silicon prepared by etching in an aqueous solution of hydrofluoric acid mixed with phosphoric and that with nitric acid were red and orange, respectively. The optical characteristics were stable under laser illumination or when stored in air for the aging test. For etching in an aqueous hydrofluoric acid/phosphoric acid electrolyte, the stability is attributed to the existence of Si-P and P-O-Si bonds formed on the porous silicon surface. For etching in an aqueous hydrofluoric acid/nitric acid electrolyte, it is attributed to more Si-O bonds formed on the porous silicon surface.