Hiroto SATO, Hideo FUJIKAKE, Hiroshi KIKUCHI and Taiichiro KURITA

NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories, 1-10-11 Kinuta, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157-8510, Japan

(Received April 8, 2003; Accepted July 7, 2003)

We developed a rollable polymer-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) display device using thin plastic substrates. In a device using 200-μm-thick substrates which are fastened by polymer walls and networks made by photopolymerization-induced phase separation, disorder of the FLC alignment was caused by exfoliation of these walls in curvature radii of under 30 mm. Otherwise, the uniformity of the FLC alignment was maintained even after a device using 100-μm-thick substrates was bent at a radius of 7 mm. The enhanced bending tolerance does not depend on the FLC alignment direction, and the device could be bent both convexly and concavely without any FLC alignment change. A rollable device with a size of 100 × 100 mm exhibited uniform grayscale display operation between crossed polarizers when bent with a radius of 15 mm.

Key words: rollable display, ferroelectric liquid crystal, plastic substrate, polymer wall, polymer network