A novel concept LCD which can be operated by two functions in one LCD has been proposed. One of the operating modes is a permanent memory mode without any applied voltage; images are rewritten by applying the vertical and horizontal electric field. The other one is a high‐speed switching mode which is operated by applying the horizontal electric field.

The electrowetting display has good performances, however, it is difficult to provide a display memory. It is one of the important functions for the electronic paper. A novel pixel structure with the barrier structure was proposed. And the memory switching by the applied voltage was attempted in the novel pixel.

We report on how to determine asymmetrical director distribution throughout a liquid crystal layer such as a bistable hybrid-twisted nematic (BHTN) liquid crystal device by means of renormalized transmission spectroscopic ellipsometry. The advantage of the plural oblique incidence spectroscopic ellipsometry (POISE) is that the azimuthal angle as well as the tilt angle with a relatively high zenithal angle can be determined simultaneously without using a special cell with a coupling prizm. It was demonstrated that five device parameters, namely, cell gap, pretilt angles of upper and lower surfaces, twist angle of the director alignment, and azimuthal angle of the entrance liquid crystal director, can be determined uniquely. It is experimentally confirmed that each bistable state has an opposite twist sense and the twist angle difference between two stable states is approximately 180°.

The bistable LCD in which the twisted directions (between phi and phi-pi) were switched by the applied voltage has been proposed in our previous study. This mode was required the high pretilt angle in some conditions. Then, a novel method to obtain the high pretilt angle by the combination of periodic micro prism-shaped structure and PI film was proposed for a good reproducibility, and our bistable LCD was attempted to fabricate by using this new high pretilt surface. Good performances such a good contrast ratio and the improvement of viewing angle characteristic were obtained.

A Reversed-Twisted Nematic (R-TN) mode shows two stable states of splayed twist state and reversed twist state. These two states are switchable by applying the electric field of perpendicular or horizontal direction. The contrast ratio of the bistable R-TN-LCD is drastically improved by the optimization of the R-TN LC cell.

The Reversed-TN LCD has a low threshold voltage and a steep sharpness characteristic is known when the d/p(0) is increased. However, the reversed state is unstable for operating. In this study, polymer walls are formed in the cell to stabilize the reversed state and the improvement of sharpness characteristic is attempted.

We present a newly developed reverse twisted nematic liquid crystal display (RTN-LCD) endowed with low pretilt angles whose performance is quite different from one we have presented so far. We found that the electro-optical characteristics of the present low pretilt angle RTN-LCD is much steep enough to achieve the maximum duty ratio of 1/480 for multiplex drive.

A reflective type of Reversed (R) TN-LCD with the bistable switching was developed. The switching between the R-TN state and the splay-twist state is done by changing the direction of applied electric field. Optimizations of cell parameters are done to achieve the high contrast reflection type of the bistable R-TN-LCD.

The LC material showing fast response characteristics at a low temperature is needed in the current LCDs. LCDs embedded with metal nanoparticles of Ag/Pd show a short response time by 3 to 5 times compared to those without nanoparticles.This phenomenon is shown to be attributed to the reduction of rotational viscosity be 70% at room temperature and be 30% at a low temperature (-20 degrees C) and also to the alteration of elastic constants by doping nanoparticles.

Abstract— STN‐LCDs embedded with special metal nanoparticles of Ag/Pd are shown to be useful for a direct‐multiplexed dot‐matrix STN‐LCD with 320 × 240 pixels and show a fast response time by 3–5 times compared to those without nanoparticles. This phenomenon is shown to be attributed to the reduction of rotational viscosity by 70% at room temperature and by 30% at a low temperature (−20°C). The alteration of elastic constants by doping nanoparticles could be also essential.

This paper reports for the first time that the metal nanoparticle doping technology in STN‐LCDs is effective for realizing their fast response speed particularly at low temperature. The ratio of Ag and Pd of the metal nanoparticle doped in the liquid crystal is changed, and the condition suitable for the direct multiplexed dot matrix driving is found. It is demonstrated that the switching speed of STN‐LCD is improved particularly at the low temperature, say, −30°C over three times.

An STN-LCD doped with a special metal nanoparticles of Ag/Pd is shown to be useful for a direct dot matrix LCD with 320 x 240 pixels and show a faster response time by 3 to 5 times compared to those without nanoparticles. This phenomenon is shown to be attributed to the reduction of rotational viscosity by 70% at room temperature and by 30% at a low temperature (-20 degrees C).

We proposed a display called Mobile Fine Particle Display (MFPD) with liquid crystal (LC). In MFPD cell, fine particles are doped and dispersed within nematic LCs and the display changes because of the horizontal movement of the fine particles. It is found that the fine particle migration of MFPD is different depending on the type of fine particle. In addition, the influence of doping a charge transfer complex (CTC) on the performance of MFPD cells has been experimentally investigated.

We proposed a new type of display called Mobile Fine Particle Display (MFPD) with liquid crystal (LC). In MFPD cell, fine particles are doped and dispersed within nematic LCs and the display changes because of the horizontal movement of the fine particles. It is found that the fine particle migration of MFPD is different depending on the type of fine particle. In addition, the influence of doping a charge transfer complex (CTC) on the performance of MFPD cells has been experimentally investigated.

A Mobile Fine Particle Display (MFPD) which was proposed in a first place by our group is based on the electrophoresis effect of fine particles in nematic liquid crystal that used as an anisotropic solvent. In the MFPD cell, the images are displayed due to control the amount of fine particles in a pixel area by an applied voltage. Since the displayed images are permanently memorized, the MFPD has a possibility to be utilized as an electronic paper.In the present stage, the contrast ratio obtained in MFPD is not sufficiently high enough, since MFPD needs an accumulation space of fine particles in a pixel. In this study, a three-layered structure is newly proposed to improve the contrast ratio of MFPD cells.

In our previous paper, we proposed a novel type of electrophoretic display named as an MFPD (Mobile Fine Particle Display) in which a nematic liquid crystal is used as a solvent for fine particles. In this report, a model for the mechanism of migration of particles in the MFPD cell is proposed. Based on the model, a theoretical expression for the velocity of fine particles is derived. Furthermore, a new type of MFPD cell with layered structure is proposed to improve the contrast ratio of MFPDs.