Development of wide-band compensation film to improve viewing angle of vertical alignment liquid crystal display

To expand the viewing angle of vertical alignment liquid crystal display (VA-LCD), a wide-band compensation film has been newly developed. VA-LCD needs a retardation film with improved oblique viewing property. The retardation film for VA-LCD has been fabricated by solvent casting and subsequent drawing triacetylcellulose (TAC) containing optical additives. Here, optical birefringence and wavelength dispersion of the retardation film strongly depend on the chemical structures of optical additives. Utilizing quantum mechanical computation, the polarizing anisotropy of retardation film was calculated with respect to additives. It is also realized that the wavelength dispersion of polarizing anisotropy depends on the type and location of substituent to the selected main isomer. When two propionates are substituted to the meta position of the selected main isomer, the wavelength dispersion of polarizing anisotropy shows the most gentle slop, which is well matched with the experimental results. The most gentle slop of wavelength dispersion means that the viewing angle characteristics of LCD are less influenced according to the wavelength of light source of LCD, and it's possible to make better image quality than the present level.