-A homogeneously aligned liquid crystal layer on a substrate film on which it is not necessary to form a liquid crystal alignment film can be assembled by a slit coater. Types of twisted nematic and in-plane switching flexible liquid crystal displays were demonstrated. The production time can be considerably shortened because of the lack of need for an alignment film. The slit coater method is also applicable to the roll-to-roll process.

We have recently reported on a method that utilizes a slit coater as a novel liquid crystal alignment technique. We carried out this study under two ultraviolet (UV) irradiation conditions, viz., (i) UV irradiation from the side of a glass substrate (exposure type 1) and (ii) UV irradiation from the side of the air–liquid crystal interface (exposure type 2), and investigated the electro-optical characteristics and azimuthal anchoring energy of liquid crystal sample cells performed under these two UV irradiation conditions.

A homogeneously aligned liquid crystal layer can be assembled on a film substrate using a slit coater. Flexible twisted nematic and in‐plane switching LCDs with such a liquid crystal layer are demonstrated. The production time of this method is expected to be several tens of minutes shorter than that of the conventional method since it does not require an alignment film. This method can also be used to fabricate photovoltaic cells and optical compensation films.

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