38.1: Invited Paper: Innovation of Optical Films using Polymerized Discotic Materials: Past, Present and Future

Optical films using liquid crystal materials are key components for enhancing the display performance of LCDs etc. Especially, Wide View film (WV film), which has a hybrid alignment of polymerized discotic materials, has been used worldwide in TN-LCDs as a main LCD mode for monitors. In this paper, we show the evolution of polymerized discotic materials alignment, leading to (i) new WV film featuring highly improved grayscale image qualities for TN-LCDs, (ii) novel film patterned retarder (FPR) for reduced oblique cross-talk in 3D displays, and (iii) achromatic quarter wave film for OLEDs, made by a roll-to-roll process.