3D application area

LCMO technology in 3D LCD production
As well as aligning liquid crystal layers within an LCD, LCMO technology also offers the option of creating optical retardation layers. This entails applying a cross-linkable liquid crystal material to an already aligned photoalignment layer and linking it with ultraviolet irradiation. Thanks to the birefringent properties of liquid crystals, this creates a retardation layer whose optical delay can be adjusted by means of the thickness of the layer. For instance, an optical delay of λ/4 converts linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light and vice versa.

In the 3D converter layers used in 3D LCDs manufactured using Rolic® LCMO technology, the liquid crystals are aligned perpendicularly to each other in strips. As a result, the image information is converted to left and right circularly polarized light for both eyes. In this way, the 3D image can be viewed using simple polarizing glasses of the type routinely used in 3D cinemas for years.