Multi-domain vertical alignment of liquid crystals through control of the anchoring energy

We propose a method for multi-domain vertical alignment of liquid crystals without additional transistors. By irradiating UV light to the polyimide through a patterned photomask, we can obtain different threshold voltage in a VA cell. There is no light leakage in the initial dark state so that the contrast ratio is not reduced in the proposed structure. We expect that the proposed method can be used to realize an eight-domain structure for reduction of the off-axis gamma shift