Improvement of Light Scattering in Reverse Mode Liquid Crystals using Micro-Lens Array Effect

Abstract

A reverse mode liquid crystal (LC) characteristic which shows a transparent voltage off-state and a light scattering on-state can be obtained by two light scattering mechanisms. One is using an index mismatching between LC and polymer matrix and another is using a micro-lens array with a short focal length. Here, we combine two reverse mode technologies in one LC cell. We investigate relations between the cell thickness and the lens diameter of a hole array patterned electrode and successfully obtained the stronger light scattering with low driving voltage. Not only an extraordinary ray but an ordinary ray can also be scattered by non-uniform electric field which is caused by using hole pattered electrodes on both side of the substrates.