A thermally tunable focusing lenticular liquid crystal (LC) lens array was fabricated using a polymer LC component, including a polarizer that produces linearly polarized light. The focal length in the proposed structure could be tuned by temperature-adjusted applied voltage to a transparent heater in a lenticular LC lens cell because it alters the birefringence of the LC and varies the difference in refractive index between the LC and the polymer. The results showed that the focal length of the E7 LC used varied continuously with temperature from 5.6 to 8.7 mm from 25°C to 54°C, respectively. The proposed lenticular LC lens has potential use in photonic devices such as biological imaging, phone cameras, and optical sensors.

A normally black ECB mode with two domains is presented to improve the low contrast ratio of the conventional, normally white, electrically controlled birefringence [ECB] and gray inversion of twist nematic [TN] modes. This system requires a λ/2 plate to compensate for optical phase retardation at the liquid crystal layer, and a good dark state is then obtained under no-field, indicating a high contrast ratio. The two domain structure to improve the gray inversion was obtained using the ion beam alignment technique. The simulated and measured results showed that the proposed mode can improve the gray inversion and contrast ratio considerably, compared to the TN mode and normally white ECB mode.

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We present a normally black patterned electrically controlled birefringence [NB-PECB] mode with patterned electrode structure to improve the low contrast ratio of the general electrically controlled birefringence [ECB] mode and the gray inversion of twist nematic mode [TN]. The electrode structure used in the patterned vertical alignment [PVA] electro-optic mode is adopted in our proposed NB-PECB mode to produce two domains that are required for improving viewing angle uniformity. A λ/2 plate is also used to generate normally black state. Simulated results show the proposed mode can improve the gray inversion and the contrast ratio, compared with the two domain TN mode and the two domain ECB mode.

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