Granted Patent B2

US 7,573,553 · App. 11/935,462 · Granted Aug 11, 2009

Abstract

Claims (37)

1. A liquid crystal display device comprising:

a first substrate;

a second substrate;

a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between said first substrate and said second substrate, an orientation status of said liquid crystal layer being a homogeneous orientation when an electric field is not applied thereto;

a plurality of color filters having at least three colors formed on a plane located in the vicinity of the liquid crystal layer of said first substrate;

a pixel electrode and a common electrode, which are formed on a plane located in the vicinity of the liquid crystal layer of said second substrate; and

a plurality of pixels; a liquid crystal layer of each of said pixels is applied an electric field containing a component parallel to a substrate plane by both said pixel electrode and said common electrode and said pixels have a reflection display portion which has a reflection layer and a transmission display portion; wherein:

said reflection display portion has a phase difference layer formed over a plane near the liquid crystal layer of the first substrate; and

a retardation value of the phase difference layer corresponding to at least two color filters having 2 colors is different from a retardation value of the phase difference layer corresponding to another color filter.

2. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

said color filters are classified into 2 sets of a short wavelength color filter and a long wavelength color filter in response to a wavelength range of transmission light; and retardation values of the phase difference layers corresponding to said short wavelength color filter and said long wavelength color filter are different from each other.

3. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 2 wherein:

the retardation value of the phase difference layer corresponding to said short wavelength color filter is smaller than the retardation value of the phase difference layer corresponding to said long wavelength color filter.

4. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 2 wherein:

said color filters are arranged by a red color filter, a green color filter, and a blue color filter;

a retardation value of a phase difference layer of a pixel corresponding to said red color filter is equal to a retardation value of a phase difference layer of a pixel corresponding to said green color filter; and

a retardation value of a phase difference layer of a pixel corresponding to said blue color filter is smaller than the first-mentioned retardation value.

5. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

said phase difference layer is formed in such a manner that liquid crystal molecules having an optical polymerization characteristic are coated, and the coated layer is irradiated by light so as to be polymerized and solidified; and light irradiation amounts for the phase difference layers corresponding to at least two color filters are different from each other.

6. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

the light irradiation amount when the phase difference layer of the pixel corresponding to said short wavelength color filter is formed is smaller than the light irradiation amount when the phase difference layer of the pixel corresponding to said long wavelength color filter is formed.

7. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

a film thickness difference forming layer is formed prior to forming of the phase difference layer on the forming plane of said phase difference layer; and

a distribution of said film thickness difference forming layer corresponds to a distribution of such a phase difference layer whose retardation value is smaller.

8. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

assuming now that the retardation value of the phase difference layer corresponding to the green color filter among said color filters is “Rp” and the retardation value of the liquid crystal layer of the reflection display portion is “Rl”, both said retardation values “Rp” and “Rl” are located close to a straight line which is indicated by a relative formula:

Rp= 1.37 Rl+ 86.

9. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

slow axis azimuth of said phase difference layer defines an angle of a range near 67.5 degrees with respect to an orientation direction of the liquid crystal layer.

10. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 9 wherein:

at least one of said pixel electrode and said common electrode has any one of a slit structure and a comb-tooth-shaped structure; and

a direction of said slit, or azimuth of the comb-tooth direction is located within an angle defined between the slow axis of the phase difference layer and the orientation direction of said liquid crystal layer.

11. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

said phase difference layer is constructed of discotic liquid crystal having a flat disk-shaped molecular skeleton; and

a plane constituted by the molecular skeleton of said discotic liquid crystal is intersected perpendicular to the plane of said first substrate.

12. A liquid crystal display device as claimed in claim 1 wherein:

an Nz coefficient of said phase difference layer is equal to 1.

Assignments (8)