Reduction of gamma distortion in oblique viewing directions in polymer-stabilized vertical alignment liquid crystal mode

In large liquid crystal displays, the image quality in an oblique viewing direction is a crucial issue. From this perspective, 8-domain polymer-stabilized vertical alignment (PS-VA) mode has been developed to suppress the color shift in oblique viewing directions, compared to that in 4-domain PS-VA mode. To realize the 8-domain PS-VA, the four domains in a pixel are each divided into two regions, such that applying different electric potentials result in different tilt angles in these two regions, while keeping four azimuthal directions in each domain. However, applying different voltages in a pixel causes drawbacks, such as requiring additional processes to construct a capacitor and a transistor, which will further reduce the aperture ratio. Here we propose a different approach to form the 8-domain, by controlling surface polar anchoring energy and the width of patterned electrodes in two regions of a pixel. As a result, the gamma-distortion index (GDI), measured at an azimuthal angle of 0°, is reduced by about 23% and 8%, compared to that of a conventional 4-domain at polar angles of 30° and 60° respectively.