JP2009156930A - Liquid crystal display unit - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce light leakage along an edge portion of a pixel of a vertical alignment liquid crystal display unit. <P>SOLUTION: A liquid crystal display unit has: a pair of opposing substrates; an electrode pattern formed on each of the substrates on an opposing surface side; a vertical alignment film formed on each of the substrates and covering the electrode pattern; a liquid crystal layer squeezed between the substrates; and a pair of polarizer plates which are formed on the substrates on an opposite side to the side of the liquid crystal layer and whose axial directions are crossed Nicols directions. The electrode pattern is composed of a segment electrode and a common electrode, an edge of the electrode pattern includes a zigzag pattern parallel or vertical to one of axial directions of the polarizer plates and an edge of a pixel defined by the segment electrode and the common electrode is parallel or vertical to the axial directions of the polarizer plates. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device in which an electrode pattern for display is devised.

  The vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element in which the liquid crystal molecular alignment direction in the liquid crystal layer when no voltage is applied is perpendicular to the substrate has a very good black level when no voltage is applied. The vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element is very effective by introducing an optical compensator having negative optical anisotropy at an appropriate position on either the upper or lower substrate or the upper or lower substrate among the liquid crystal cells constituting the vertical alignment type liquid crystal display device. Good viewing angle characteristics.

  As the alignment type of the vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element, monodomain alignment by rubbing treatment, etc., or by providing an opening in the pixel electrode to generate an oblique electric field, the liquid crystal is aligned in multiple directions within the same plane parallel to the substrate There are multi-domain orientations to allow.

  The alignment of the monodomain vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element is controlled so that the in-plane alignment direction in the liquid crystal layer is uniform regardless of the presence or absence of voltage application. In the case of the vertical alignment type, the liquid crystal is tilted to be nearly horizontal with the substrate when voltage is applied. If the liquid crystal molecules are completely perpendicular to the substrate when no voltage is applied, alignment defects in which the alignment of the liquid crystal molecules is partially disturbed when a voltage is applied are likely to occur. Therefore, a pretilt angle is given so that the liquid crystal molecules are slightly tilted from the perpendicular to the substrate when no voltage is applied.

  A vertically aligned liquid crystal display element subjected to rubbing treatment has been proposed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-234254.

  In a mono-domain vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element, when high duty driving as applied in dot matrix display is performed, the driving voltage is set based on transmittance. At this time, the effective value of the OFF voltage is determined from the effective value of the ON voltage and the bias ratio. Under high duty driving conditions, the OFF voltage may be higher than the threshold voltage at which the liquid crystal molecules start to fall. Therefore, even when the OFF voltage is applied, the transmittance of the liquid crystal changes, and light leakage may occur in the display portion. is there. This light loss causes a reduction in the contrast ratio and should be avoided.

  In order to prevent the light leakage, it is known that the change in voltage-transmittance is steep near the threshold value. One of the methods is to perform an alignment process with a high pretilt angle to bring the angle of the liquid crystal closer to perpendicular to the substrate in order to increase the threshold voltage at which the liquid crystal molecules start to fall. A method of increasing the so-called retardation of the liquid crystal cell is also used.

JP 2005-234254 A

  An oblique electric field may be generated between the upper and lower electrodes corresponding to the edge portion of the display pattern of the liquid crystal display element. Even when the above light leakage prevention method is used, the liquid crystal molecules in the region to which the oblique electric field is applied begin to tilt at a lower voltage than the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the display region, so that light leakage is observed.

  The light omission not only lowers the contrast ratio but also deteriorates the viewing angle characteristics.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element with reduced light leakage.

  According to one aspect of the present invention, a pair of opposing substrates, an electrode pattern formed on each opposing surface side of the substrate, and a vertical alignment film formed on the substrate so as to cover the electrode pattern And a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the substrates, and a pair of polarizing plates formed on the opposite side of the liquid crystal layer side of each of the substrates and having an axial direction of crossed Nicols, and the electrode pattern A side consisting of a segment electrode and a common electrode, and a side constituting the electrode pattern is a zigzag pattern parallel or perpendicular to the axial direction of the polarizing plate, and an edge of a pixel defined by the segment electrode and the common electrode is the polarization A liquid crystal display element is provided that is parallel or perpendicular to the axial direction of the plate.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element in which light leakage is reduced.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal display element.

  The illustrated liquid crystal display element includes a glass back substrate 1a and a glass front substrate 1b opposed thereto, and a liquid crystal layer 2 is provided between the substrates 1a and 1b.

  A rear transparent electrode 3a serving as a segment electrode is formed on the liquid crystal layer 2 side surface of the rear substrate 1a, and a front transparent electrode 3b serving as a common electrode is formed on the liquid crystal layer 2 side surface of the front substrate 1b.

  Both transparent electrodes 3a and 3b overlap with the liquid crystal layer 2 interposed therebetween, and a pixel region is formed at the overlapping portion.

  Further, vertical alignment films 4a and 4b are provided on the liquid crystal layer 2 side of the substrates 1a and 1b so as to cover the respective transparent electrodes. An insulating film may be provided between the vertical alignment film and the transparent electrode as necessary.

  A pair of polarizing plates 5a and 5b are formed on the outside in the normal direction of the upper and lower substrates 1a and 1b. The transmission (absorption) axis directions of the polarizing plates 5a and 5b are arranged so as to make 90 ° with each other. If necessary, an optical compensation plate (A plate, C plate, biaxial retardation plate, etc.) 6 may be disposed between the substrate and the polarizing plate (for example, 1b and 5b).

  A method for manufacturing the liquid crystal display element will be described. Transparent electrodes 3a and 3b are formed on both substrates 1a and 1b mainly using indium tin oxide ITO.

  The vertical alignment films 4a and 4b are applied and baked so as to cover the transparent electrodes 3a and 3b, respectively. SE1211 manufactured by Nissan Chemical Industries is used as the vertical alignment film material. The vertical alignment film may be a polyimide or an inorganic film.

  Next, a pretilt of 89.5 ° is given to the vertical alignment film by rubbing or the like. Rubbing is performed in the 12 o'clock direction and 6 o'clock direction so as to be anti-parallel on the upper and lower substrates. The tilt direction of the liquid crystal molecules may be controlled by slit alignment, protrusion alignment, ultraviolet light alignment, or the like.

  Next, a main sealing material is applied to either of the substrates 1a and 1b, and further, a gap control material (6 μm in this case) having a predetermined diameter is dispersed, and then both substrates 1a and 1b are overlapped with the electrode sides facing each other. Then, the main sealing material is cured to form an empty cell.

  Liquid crystal is injected into the formed empty cell to form the liquid crystal layer 2 to form a liquid crystal cell. A liquid crystal material having Δε = −2.2 and Δn of about 0.20 is used. The liquid crystal molecules 2m of the liquid crystal layer 2 are vertically aligned by the action of the vertical alignment film.

  An optical compensation plate and a polarizing plate are bonded to the liquid crystal cell. Four C plates (in-plane retardation ΔR = 0 nm, retardation in the thickness direction Δth = 220 nm) are laminated between the lower polarizing plate and the liquid crystal cell as optical compensation plates. SHC-13U manufactured by Polatechno Co., Ltd. is used as the polarizing plate. An iodine polarizing plate and a dye polarizing plate are also possible. Thus, a liquid crystal display element is completed.

  In a normal monodomain vertical alignment type liquid crystal display element, the liquid crystal central molecular alignment direction (liquid crystal director) is set to 12 o'clock direction or 6 o'clock direction when the liquid crystal display element is observed from the front. By setting the director, it is possible to obtain a wide viewing angle display in which the left and right viewing angle characteristics are substantially equal. At this time, the transmission (absorption) axis angle of the polarizing plate is set to be crossed Nicols (the axial directions of the two polarizing plates are orthogonal) of + 45 ° and −45 ° with respect to the liquid crystal director.

  As a preliminary stage (comparative example), the inventors produced a liquid crystal display element sample having the following electrode pattern in the liquid crystal display element having the above configuration.

  FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a part of a pixel of a liquid crystal display element according to a comparative example. Here, it is assumed that the 3 o'clock direction is 0 ° when the display portion of the liquid crystal display element is viewed from the front, and the angle increases counterclockwise (counterclockwise). In that case, in the normal dot matrix display, the pixel 3d is formed at a portion where the segment electrode 3s composed of a 90 ° line and the common electrode 3c composed of a 0 ° line overlap. When the liquid crystal director is set to 90 ° (12 o'clock direction), the transmission (absorption) axes of the two polarizing plates are 45 ° and 135 ° crossed Nicols. The liquid crystal display element in the case of this polarizing plate arrangement is normally black mode.

  In this configuration, when an OFF voltage is applied, an oblique electric field is generated between the upper and lower (segment-common) electrodes at the edge portion in the horizontal direction (0 ° -180 °) of the pixel 3d, and the longitudinal direction in the plane (90 ° or 270 °). ) Liquid crystal molecules fall down. An oblique electric field is also generated between the upper and lower (segment-common) electrodes at the edge portion in the vertical direction (90 ° -270 °) of the pixel, and the liquid crystal molecules are inclined with respect to the substrate surface in the in-plane lateral direction (0 ° or 180 °). Fall into.

  For example, when the liquid crystal molecules are tilted in the direction of 0 °, the in-plane refractive index in the 0 ° -180 ° direction becomes higher than the refractive index in the 90 ° -270 ° direction. The light polarized at 45 ° is decomposed into a 0 ° -180 ° component and a 90 ° -270 ° component, a different refractive index is felt, a phase difference occurs, and the polarization state changes. Light leakage occurs due to a change in the polarization state. Thus, when the polarization component of incident light is divided into an in-plane direction in which liquid crystal molecules fall and an in-plane direction perpendicular to the in-plane direction, it is considered that light leakage occurs. If the polarization direction is parallel or orthogonal to the in-plane direction in which the liquid crystal molecules fall, such light component division will not occur.

  The inventors pay attention to the transmission (absorption) axis angle of the polarizing plate and the shape of the dot pattern so as not to cause light leakage even when the liquid crystal molecules fall due to an oblique electric field, and the electrodes corresponding to the edges of the display pixels. A liquid crystal display device in which the side of the pattern is parallel or perpendicular to the transmission (absorption) axis angle of the polarizing plate has been proposed.

FIG. 3A is a plan view illustrating a part of the pixels of the liquid crystal display element according to the first embodiment. 3B is a plan view showing a part of the segment electrode pattern of the liquid crystal display element according to Example 1. FIG. FIG. 3C is a plan view illustrating a part of the common electrode pattern of the liquid crystal display element according to the first embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3B, the segment electrode 3s has a form in which a plurality of longitudinally long zigzag electrode patterns having sides of 45 ° and 135 ° are arranged in the row direction, and the common electrode 3c is 45 ° as shown in FIG. 3C. And a plurality of zigzag electrode patterns which are long in the horizontal direction and have sides of 135 ° are arranged in the column direction. A drive signal is sent to each segment electrode and each common electrode. As shown in FIG. 3A, a pixel 3d defined by overlapping both electrodes is a rectangular dot inclined at 45 ° (here, referred to as an oblique dot). ) The length of one pixel 3d in the short side direction is 286 μm, and the length in the long side direction is 593 μm. In each of the segment electrode 3s and the common electrode 3c, the shortest distance (interval) between adjacent electrodes is 30 μm. When a sample of this liquid crystal display element was prepared and a voltage was applied to it, the light was not observed at the pixel edge portion.

  FIG. 4 shows transmittance-voltage characteristics when the OFF waveforms of Example 1 and the comparative example are applied. The transmittance shown on the vertical axis and the voltage shown on the horizontal axis were measured with a liquid crystal cell evaluation apparatus LCD-5200 manufactured by Otsuka Electronics. In 1/32 Duty drive, Example 1 and Comparative Example had the same transmittance-voltage characteristics in the region of transmittance of 0.5% or more when the ON waveform was applied. At this time, the voltage at which practical transmittance was obtained was 16 V or more. As shown in the figure, in the case of the sample of the comparative example, the transmittance gradually started to increase from around 15V. On the other hand, in the case of the sample of Example 1, the transmittance increased rapidly from around 17.5V. It can be seen that Example 1 has a low OFF transmittance and suppresses light leakage near a voltage (about 16 V) at which a practical ON transmittance can be obtained.

  FIG. 5 shows contrast ratio-to-transmittance (Ton) characteristics of Example 1 and Comparative Example when voltage is applied. The contrast ratio is Ton / Toff (the drive here is 1/32 Duty, 1/6 Bias). As shown in the figure, in Example 1, the contrast ratio was large, and the maximum was 800 or more. Further, the transmittance for obtaining the maximum contrast ratio was 13% of the comparative example, while that of Example 1 was 18%. If a high contrast ratio can be realized with a higher transmittance, there is an advantage that the display of the liquid crystal display element becomes brighter.

  Considering the results of FIGS. 4 and 5, it is considered that the sample according to Example 1 was able to realize a high contrast ratio by maintaining the low transmittance when applying the OFF waveform up to a higher voltage region than the comparative example. In addition, maintaining the low transmittance when the OFF waveform is applied can be said to support the reduction of light leakage at the pixel edge portion when the OFF waveform is applied.

  FIG. 6 is a graph showing the viewing angle dependence of the contrast ratio when the front transmittance is 13% (the transmittance at which the maximum contrast ratio was obtained in the comparative example). In order to make the front transmittance the same, the applied voltages of the comparative example and Example 1 are different. As shown in the figure, Example 1 has a higher contrast ratio than the comparative example in the viewing angle range up to about 20 degrees on the left and right. From this, the liquid crystal display element according to Example 1 has good viewing angle characteristics. I can say that. In addition, when about 10 persons observed whether there was any sense of incongruity in the display by the oblique dots in Example 1, no particular sense of incongruity was felt. It should be noted that the size of one pixel that is not problematic in visual recognition is about 400 μm or less (between the pitch and the line).

  As in Example 1, the transmission (absorption) axis angle of the polarizing plate and the side of the electrode pattern are matched in parallel or perpendicularly, thereby reducing light leakage and realizing high contrast.

  FIG. 7A is a segment electrode pattern according to the second embodiment, and FIG. 7B is a common electrode pattern according to the second embodiment. The inventors aim for a wider viewing angle, and as shown in the figure, cut the electrode so that both the segment and the common are cut as much as possible in the part corresponding to the side of the oblique dot (the part circled by the dotted line in the figure). Tried to form. This is because, at a deep viewing angle, a deviation occurs in the transmission (absorption) axis angle between the liquid crystal director and the polarizing plate due to an oblique electric field generated on the side of the oblique dot, so that light leakage due to the deviation is suppressed.

  FIG. 8 is a graph showing the viewing angle dependence of the contrast ratio of the liquid crystal display elements according to the first and second embodiments. As shown in the figure, Example 2 had a higher contrast ratio than that of Example 1 up to about 60 ° on the left and right, and a wider viewing angle was obtained. This is considered to be because the oblique electric field could be reduced by cutting both the segment electrode and the common electrode in the portion corresponding to the side of the oblique dot.

  The depth of cut can be arbitrarily set. However, it is desirable that the electrode is deep enough not to increase the resistance of the electrode. As a guideline, it is better to leave about one-fifth of the sides of the diagonal dots as electrode portions. The length (width) in the short side direction of the cut is preferably about 10 μm or more.

  9A and 9B are a segment electrode pattern and a common electrode pattern according to a modification of the second embodiment, respectively. As shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, the slits 7 separated from the electrode edges may be used as the cuts of the electrode pattern.

  Although the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments, the present invention is not limited thereto.

  FIG. 10 is a plan view showing a part of a pixel of the liquid crystal display element. As shown in the drawing, a plurality of oblique dots may be combined to form one dot.

  The polarizing plate transmission (absorption) axis angles are desirably 90 °, but may be shifted by several degrees.

  Further, in the above-described embodiments, the monodomain liquid crystal display element has been described. However, even in a multidomain liquid crystal display element, the polarization direction is + 45 ° or the direction in which the liquid crystal molecules in the pixel plane fall (liquid crystal director) or If it is −45 °, the example would be applicable.

  It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that other various modifications, improvements, combinations, and the like can be made.

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal display element. FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a part of a pixel of a liquid crystal display element according to a comparative example. 3A is a plan view showing a part of a pixel of the liquid crystal display element according to Example 1, FIG. 3B is a plan view showing a part of a segment electrode pattern of the liquid crystal display element according to Example 1, and FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a part of a common electrode pattern of the liquid crystal display element according to Example 1. FIG. FIG. 4 shows the transmittance-voltage characteristics of Example 1 and Comparative Example. FIG. 5 shows the contrast ratio-transmittance (Ton) characteristics when voltage is applied in Example 1 and the comparative example. FIG. 6 is a graph showing the viewing angle dependence of the contrast ratio when the front transmittance is 13% (the transmittance at which the maximum contrast ratio was obtained in the comparative example). FIG. 7A is a segment electrode pattern according to the second embodiment, and FIG. 7B is a common electrode pattern according to the second embodiment. FIG. 8 is a graph showing the viewing angle dependence of the contrast ratio of the liquid crystal display elements according to the first and second embodiments. 9A and 9B are a segment electrode pattern and a common electrode pattern according to a modification of the second embodiment, respectively. FIG. 10 is a plan view showing a part of a pixel of the liquid crystal display element.

Explanation of symbols

1a, 1b (transparent) substrate 2 liquid crystal layer 2m liquid crystal molecule 3a, 3b electrode 3c common electrode 3d pixel 3s segment electrode 4a, 4b vertical alignment film 5a, 5b polarizing plate 6 optical compensation plate 7 slit

Claims (4)

A pair of opposing substrates;
An electrode pattern formed on each opposing surface side of the substrate;
A vertical alignment film formed on each of the substrates to cover the electrode pattern;
A liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the substrates;
Each of the substrates has a pair of polarizing plates formed on the side opposite to the liquid crystal layer side, the axial direction of which is crossed Nicol,
The electrode pattern is composed of a segment electrode and a common electrode, and a side of the electrode pattern is a zigzag pattern parallel or perpendicular to the axial direction of the polarizing plate, and an edge of a pixel defined by the segment electrode and the common electrode Is a liquid crystal display element which is parallel or perpendicular to the axial direction of the polarizing plate.   2. The liquid crystal display element according to claim 1, wherein in the electrode pattern, a cut is provided in a portion corresponding to an edge of the pixel, and the length of the cut is up to about 4/5 of the edge length.   The liquid crystal display element according to claim 2, wherein the cut is a slit formed separately from an edge of the electrode pattern.   4. The liquid crystal display element according to claim 1, wherein the structure is a passive matrix type.

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