Atsushi NAGASAWA^*, Toshimasa EGUCHI, Yasuyuki SANAI¹, and Katsuya FUJISAWA²

Technology Research Association for Advanced Display Materials (TRADIM), 2-24-16 Nakamachi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-0012, Japan
¹Toagosei Co., Ltd., 1-1 Funamicho, Minatoku, Nagoya 455-0027, Japan
²Kuraray Co., Ltd., 41 Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0841, Japan

(Received October 31, 2007; Accepted November 27, 2007)

Our research group has developed an ultra slim and bendable backlight system, which was manufactured by a continuous roll-to-roll process, with a unified component for liquid crystal display (LCD). This backlight system, which has a thickness of 0.26 mm, is simply composed of a light guide film and an optically patterned film made of photo-curable resin with micro particles, consequently it does not require any additional optical films such as prism sheets or diffuser. In addition, we have developed a new light guide component which is composed of bundled optical fibers in order to collimate light from the light source to the light guide film. We found that the backlight system could be radiated uniformly across the LCD surface whether plane or curved, and we were able to realize an advanced LCD with good flexibility, high efficiency and high productivity.

Key words: backlight system, liquid crystal display (LCD), roll-to-roll, optically patterned film, photo-curable resin, light scattering, flexible

^*E-mail address: a.nagasawa@tradim.or.jp