JPH06194672A - Production of liquid crystal display element - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the process for production of the liquid crystal display element with which spacers are not visible in both of a display part and background part and which has an excellent display grade without entailing a cost increase. CONSTITUTION:Transparent electrodes 3, 4 and oriented films 5, 6 are formed on the opposite surface sides of glass substrates 1, 2. A liquid crystal is encapsulated in the spacing regulated by spacers 7 fixed via an adhesive 8 only to the non-electrode parts on the surface of the glass substrate 1. The spacers 7 are fixed over the entire surface on the glass substrate 1 on the transparent electrode 3 side of the prescribed patterns protected by a resist formed by using a photolithography technique during the course of the production process. The spacers 7 are peeled together with the resist. The specific cost increase for selective disposition of the spacers 7 is, therefore, averted. The liquid crystal display element 100 has the spacers invisible in both of the display part and the background part and has the excellent display grade by coloring the spacers 7 to black if the display mode is a negative display.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for producing a liquid crystal display device in which a pair of transparent insulating substrates are provided with opposing transparent electrodes and an alignment film, and a spacer is interposed between the transparent electrodes and the alignment film to enclose a liquid crystal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display element,
A transparent electrode and an alignment film are respectively formed on a pair of transparent insulating glass substrates. Next, a spherical spacer or the like is arranged on the entire surface of the one glass substrate surface side on which the transparent electrode and the alignment film are formed. A liquid crystal display element is manufactured by stacking a pair of glass substrates with the transparent electrodes facing each other through the spacers and enclosing a liquid crystal in the gap. Here, as the display mode of the liquid crystal display element,
There are a negative display in which characters and the like are in a transparent (bright) state and a background is in a light-blocking (dark) state, and a positive display in which characters and the like are in a light-blocking (dark) state and a background is transparent (bright). In the background portion of the liquid crystal display device having the above-described configuration, the spacer is colored black according to the display mode, that is, in the case of negative display, the spacer is colorless and transparent in the case of positive display. As a result, the spacer existing in the background portion can be made inconspicuous. On the other hand, in the display portion, the transmission / light blocking state is selectively changed with time. Therefore, when the spacer is colorless and transparent, it is observed as a bright spot when light is shielded, and when the spacer is colored black, it is observed as a black spot during transmission, and the display quality is deteriorated. was there.

As a solution to the above-mentioned problems, the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-94230, "Liquid Crystal Panel" is known. In this case, a transparent substrate having a light-shielding film provided in a region other than display pixels is used, and a mixture of a raw material for a top coat film made of a liquid photosensitive polymer and a spherical spacer (5 wt%) is spin-coated on the entire surface. After that, the top coat film in the display pixel region is peeled off together with the spacer by exposure and development, so that the spacer is provided only on the light-shielding film, that is, in the region other than the display pixel.

[0004]

However, there is a problem in that the provision of a light-shielding film and the exposure / development processing associated therewith are required, resulting in a high cost. Further, when the light-shielding film is not used, it is necessary to expose the above-mentioned top coat film raw material using a mask having a pattern similar to that of the display pixel electrodes. Further, when the light-shielding film is eliminated as described above, there is a problem that the spacers are visible and the display quality is deteriorated.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an excellent display quality in which the spacer is not visible in both the display portion and the background portion without increasing the cost. To provide a method for manufacturing a liquid crystal display device.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the structure of the invention is such that a transparent electrode and an alignment film which face each other are sequentially formed on a pair of transparent insulating substrates, and the alignment film is subjected to an alignment treatment. A method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device, which comprises applying a spacer between the insulating substrates and enclosing a liquid crystal in the gap between the insulating substrates, wherein a photolithography technique is applied to the insulating substrate having electrodes formed on one entire surface. A transparent electrode having a predetermined pattern protected by a resist is formed by using a display mode such that characters are displayed in a transparent (bright) state and a background portion with respect to the transparent electrode formation surface side of one of the insulating substrates. If it is a negative display that makes the light shield (dark), it is colored black,
Also, in the case of positive display in which the display portion such as characters is in a light-shielding (dark) state and the background portion is in a transmitting (bright) state, the spacers that are colorless and transparent and have adhesiveness are sprinkled all over and fixed, and The transparent electrode is formed on the insulating substrate by exposing the resist and the spacer on the transparent electrode on the substrate and the resist on the transparent electrode on the other insulating substrate, respectively. And

[0007]

According to the above means, a series of resist coating, exposure, development, and etching are performed on the transparent electrode having a predetermined pattern on the entire surface of the insulating substrate on which the electrode is formed, using the photolithography technique. A resist is used. That is, in one of the insulating substrates, spacers of a color suitable for the display mode are scattered and fixed on the entire surface including the resist surface on the transparent electrode before the resist is peeled off, and then the resist is peeled off. . According to this process procedure, the region where the spacer is provided can be made to be a portion other than the transparent electrode forming portion on one insulating substrate without special setting. At this time, the color of the spacer is colored black when the display mode is negative display and colorless and transparent when the display mode is reversed, so that the light-shielding (dark) state or the transmitting (bright) state is obtained.
The spacer is made invisible in the state. Therefore, by using the method for manufacturing a liquid crystal display element of the present invention, a liquid crystal display element excellent in display quality in which the gap in which the liquid crystal is sealed by the spacer is uniformly maintained and the spacer is not visible in both the display portion and the background portion. Obtainable.

[0008]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below based on specific examples. FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a sectional structure of a liquid crystal display element according to the present invention. The liquid crystal display element 100 is configured as follows. Transparent electrodes 3 and 4 and alignment films 5 and 6 are formed on the opposing surface sides of the glass substrates 1 and 2 which are a pair of transparent insulating substrates, respectively. The spherical spacer 7 is fixed to the surface of the glass substrate 1 only on a portion where the transparent electrode 3 is not formed (hereinafter referred to as a non-electrode portion) via an adhesive 8. The size of the spacer 7 defines the gap between the glass substrates 1 and 2, and the liquid crystal 9 is placed in the gap.
Is enclosed.

Next, a method of manufacturing the liquid crystal display element 100 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2, 3 and 4. 2 and 3 are schematic views showing the cross-sectional structure of the liquid crystal display element 100 during the manufacturing process, and FIG. 4 is a plan view of FIG. Here, in the liquid crystal display element 100 of the present embodiment, a case where the display mode is negative display will be described. First,
As the pattern forming step, the glass substrates 1 and 2 with the entire surface electrode
Against the resist 1 by applying resist exposure / exposure / development / etching using photolithography technology
The transparent electrodes 3 and 4 of a predetermined pattern protected by 0 are formed. Then, as a spacer fixing step, one glass substrate 1 is coated with an adhesive 8 made of an acrylic resin, which is a thermoplastic resin, on its surface in an amount of about 0.15 μm. Spacer 7 is dispersed in a mixed solvent of ethanol and water. The spacers 7 are sprayed on the entire surface of the glass substrate 1 on which the transparent electrodes 3 are formed by a spray method. And as heat treatment
The adhesive 8 is melted by heating at 160 ° C. for 30 minutes and fixed between the spacer 7 and the glass substrate 1, and the spacer 7 is fixed on the glass substrate 1 and the resist 10 (see FIG. 2).

Next, in the resist stripping step, the resist 10 is stripped from the glass substrates 1 and 2 with an alkaline aqueous solution, so that the spacer 7 existing on the upper side of the one glass substrate 1 is stripped. At this time, the spacer 7 existing in the non-electrode portion is fixed on the glass substrate 1 with the adhesive 8 and is not peeled off. As a result, the spacer 7 is fixed only to the non-electrode portion on the surface of the glass substrate 1 (see FIG. 3).

Next, as an alignment film forming step, an alignment film 5 made of a polymer film such as polyimide is spin-coated and baked on the entire surfaces of the glass substrates 1 and 2 on which the electrodes are formed.
After that, a rubbing process for controlling the molecular alignment of the liquid crystal 9 is performed by rubbing with a pile cloth or the like as an alignment process so that the formed alignment film 5 has an alignment property. In this alignment treatment, a TN (Twisted Nematic) type in which the twist angle of liquid crystal molecules is 90 ° is assumed. Next, in a liquid crystal encapsulation step, the glass substrates 1 and 2 are made to face each other with the electrode formation surfaces facing each other, and are superposed with a spacer interposed therebetween, and TN type liquid crystal 9 is injected into the gap and sealed. Through the above steps, the liquid crystal display element 1 shown in FIG.
00 is formed. Polarizing plates (not shown) are arranged on both display surfaces of the liquid crystal display element 100 such that their polarization axes are parallel to each other. Thereby, a liquid crystal display element for negative display is formed.

In the above embodiment, the spacer 7 is formed only on the non-electrode portion of the glass substrate 1. Therefore, since the spacer 7 does not exist in the display portion of the liquid crystal display element 100 such as characters, the display quality is not deteriorated. It should be noted that there is no special increase in cost for the selective arrangement of the spacers 7. On the other hand, since the spacer 7 fixed to the background portion is colored black and the display mode is a negative display in which the background portion is always in the light-shielded (dark) state, the display quality is not deteriorated by the appearance. Absent. Since the spacer 7 is fixed to the glass substrate 1 with the adhesive 8, it does not move due to vibration or the like and does not deteriorate the display quality. In the liquid crystal display device of the negative display configured as described above, the gap in which the liquid crystal is sealed is uniformly maintained by the spacer without increasing the cost, and the display portion and the background portion both have excellent display quality without the spacer being visible. Will be things.

Contrary to the above-described embodiment, if the display mode is positive display in which the background portion is always transparent (bright), a colorless transparent spacer is used to prevent deterioration of display quality due to their appearance. can do. In this case, as the spacer 7, colorless and transparent spherical silicon particles coated with an acrylic adhesive resin having a diameter of 10 μm and a thickness of about 0.15 μm are used. Then, as in the above-described embodiment, the spacer 7 is arranged only in the non-electrode portion. In addition, the alignment treatment is performed by STN (Super Twist) in which the twist angle of liquid crystal molecules is 180 °.
ed Nematic) type, and polarizing plates (not shown) are arranged on both display surfaces of the liquid crystal display element so that their polarization axes are parallel to each other. In the liquid crystal display device of the positive display configured as described above, the gap in which the liquid crystal is filled is uniformly maintained by the spacer without increasing the cost, and the display portion and the background portion both have excellent display quality without the spacer being visible. Will be things.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a cross-sectional structure of a liquid crystal display element according to a specific example of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic sectional view showing a manufacturing process of the liquid crystal display element according to the example.

3 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the manufacturing process of the liquid crystal display element according to the example, following FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a plan view of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 2 ... Glass substrate (insulating substrate) 3, 4 ... Transparent electrode 5, 6 ... Alignment film 7 ... Spacer 8 ... Adhesive 9 ... Liquid crystal 10 ... Resist 100 ... Liquid crystal display element

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A transparent electrode and an alignment film, which face each other, are sequentially formed on a pair of transparent insulating substrates, and the alignment film is subjected to an alignment treatment and a spacer is interposed between the insulating substrates.
A method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device, wherein a liquid crystal is sealed in the gap, wherein a transparent electrode having a predetermined pattern protected by a resist using a photolithography technique on the insulating substrate having electrodes formed on one side thereof. If the display mode is a negative display in which a display portion such as a character is in a transparent (bright) state and a background portion is in a light-shielded (dark) state with respect to the transparent electrode formation surface side of one of the insulating substrates. In the case of a positive display in which the display portion such as black is colored in a light-shielded (dark) state and the background portion is in a transmissive (bright) state, the colorless and transparent spacers having adhesiveness are sprinkled all over and fixed. In the insulating substrate, the resist and the spacer on the transparent electrode, and on the other insulating substrate, the resist on the transparent electrode is peeled off to form the resist on the insulating substrate. Method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device characterized by forming expose the transparent electrode.