Abnormal behaviour in colour tracking characteristics of the fringe-field switching liquid crystal display

Abstract

Colour tracking behaviour is observed in most liquid crystal displays. In in-plane switching and vertical alignment devices, the colour chromaticity in the normal direction changes linearly from bluish- to yellowish-white as the grey level is increased from the dark to white state. Interestingly, abnormal behaviour in colour tracking is observed in fringe-field switching devices using a liquid crystal with positive dielectric anisotropy, such that the colour chromaticity changes from bluish to yellowish up to a certain grey level, then turns around and becomes bluish-white as the grey level is further increased to the fully white state. According to our theoretical and experimental results, this ‘turn around’ effect in the colour tracking of the fringe-field switching mode is associated with the generation of a tilt angle of the liquid crystal molecules with increasing voltage in the electrode position where the light modulation is associated with the polarisation rotation.

Keywords:

• liquid crystal display
• colour tracking
• fringe-field switching
• dielectric anisotropy

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the World Class University programme through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (R31-2008-000-20029-0).