Stabilization of the liquid crystal director in the patterned vertical alignment mode through formation of pretilt angle by reactive mesogen

In the patterned vertical alignment (PVA) cell in which multidomains are formed from the perfect vertical alignment through an oblique field only, the formation of disclinations between liquid crystal (LC) molecules is inevitable in the presence of an electric field, which lowers transmittance and the response time. In the proposed PVA device, the pretilt angle is formed in four different directions through the polymerization of an UV curable reactive mesogen monomer at the surface. In this way, the reorientation of LC responding to an electric field is well defined, and thus the device shows reduced threshold voltage and much improved response time in all gray scales.