Rolic^® LCMO Photo Alignment Technology: Mechanism and Application to Large LCD Panels

Abstract

Abstract. Rolic® Light Controlled Molecular Orientation (LCMO) technology is the basis for todays advanced mass production technologies for large LCD-TV panel, high-resolution 3D patterned-retarders and high-resolution optical security devices. This fundamental technology allows an easy achievement of high resolution azimuthal LC-director patterns with defined bias angles, from homogeneous planar to homeotropic orientation, depending on the target application [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. In addition to the control of bias angles, LCD panel manufacturers require alignment layers with a wide range of optimized properties. Thin alignment films must be easily coatable and should have high photosensitivity in order to achieve fast processing. The photoalignment film should also have high stability and good electrical properties such as Voltage Holding Ratio (VHR), Residual DC (RDC) and image sticking.Because of in-situ photo crosslinking during processing [1, 2], our proprietary LCMO photoalignment technology is shown to be thermally and optically stable. Last years, enormous progress has been made in the development of advanced materials that meet all requirements for mass production of large-area flat panel displays. LCMO-VA technology, for vertical alignment LCDs, is the basis for the state of the art UV 2 A production technology recently used in the manufacturing of advanced new generation LCD-TV panel displays with reduced production costs and low energy consumption [8,9]. LCMO-VA mechanism and performances of state of the art materials will be discussed.

Identifying Photoreaction Products in Cinnamate-Based Photoalignment Materials

“…Still, the emergence of the tta' dimer configuration as the most stable suggests that antiparallel coupling of Trans molecules can be favoured: this indicates that the interpolymer linking by cycloaddition would be an efficient mechanism for realizing an alignment film. Experimentally, we have found that UV exposed thin films of typical photoalignment materials, are insoluble in common solvents 31 , starting from low exposure doses, which is a strong indication of inter-polymer cross-linking.…”

39.1: Invited Paper: Novel Photo‐Alignment Material for Ultra‐High Definition VA LCDs

“…The photo-alignment method LCMO [3,6] is used for obtaining the multi-domain structure, i.e., when cinnamate chromophores are irradiated obliquely by the linearly polarized UV light, the cinnamate chromophores arranging along the polarized UV light plane photo-crosslink by forming cyclobutane groups and form some kind of an anisotropy surface as shown in Fig. 1.…”

“…It took about two decades from the proposal of photo alignment methods [1][2][3] to the mass production of liquid crystal display panels utilizing the photo alignment technology. In 2008, Sharp UV 2 A® (Ultra Violet Induced Vertical Alignment) display mode [4,5] using Rolic® LCMO (Light Controlled Molecular Orientation) technology [6] was applied to LC-TV (Liquid Crystal Television) because of its excellent properties such as high contrast ratio, high transmittance, fast response and high production yield. After introduction of the UV 2 A technology into China, CEC Panda in Nanjing has successfully introduced the first Rolic ready-to-use photo alignment material into mass production in 2013.…”

83‐2L: Late‐News Paper: Investigation of Transmittance Dependence upon Pre‐Tilt Angle in Photo Aligned Vertical LCDs

“…It took about two decades from the proposal of photo alignment methods [1][2][3] to the mass production of liquid crystal display panels utilizing the photo alignment technology. In 2008, Sharp UV 2 A® (Ultra Violet Induced Vertical Alignment) display mode [4,5] using Rolic® LCMO (Light Controlled Molecular Orientation) technology [6] was applied to LC-TV (Liquid Crystal Television) because of its excellent properties such as high contrast ratio, high transmittance, fast response and high production yield. After that, the UV 2 A display mode has been widely used for several applications.…”