Ferroelectric liquid crystal display

Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Display (FLCD) is a display technology based on the ferroelectric properties of chiral smectic liquid crystals as proposed in 1980 by Clark and Lagerwall.[1]

The FLCD did not make many inroads as a direct view display device. Manufacturing of larger FLCDs was problematic making them unable to compete against direct view LCDs based on nematic liquid crystals using the Twisted nematic field effect or In-Plane Switching. Today, the FLCD is used in reflective microdisplays based on Liquid Crystal on Silicon technology. Using ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) in FLCoS technology allows a much smaller display area which eliminates the problems of manufacturing larger area FLC displays. Additionally, the dot pitch or pixel pitch of such displays can be as low as 6 µm giving a very high resolution display in a small area. To produce color and grey-scale, time multiplexing is used, exploiting the sub-millisecond switching time of the ferroelectric liquid crystal. These microdisplays find applications in 3D head mounted displays (HMD), image insertion in surgical microscopes and electronic viewfinders where direct-view LCDs fail to provide more than 600 ppi resolution.

Ferroelectric LCoS also finds commercial uses in Structured illumination for 3D-Metrology and Super-resolution microscopy.

Some commercial products utilize FLCD.[2][3][4]

High switching allows building optical switches and shutters in printer heads.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Noel A. Clark, Sven Torbjörn Lagerwall (1980). "Submicrosecond Bistable Electro-Optic Switching in Liquid Crystals". Applied Physics Letters 36 (11): 899. Bibcode: 1980ApPhL..36..899C. doi:10.1063/1.91359
  2. ↑ MDCA
  3. ↑ Yunam Optics
  4. ↑ Forth Dimension Displays
  5. ↑ WTEC Library
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