P‐82: Color Flexible Waveguide Display using Polymer Stabilized Liquid Crystal

Abstract

In this paper, we report an advanced color flexible waveguide display which consists of two flexible plastic substrates and a sandwiched layer of liquid crystal/polymer composite. The display is edgelit by white and color (R, G, and B) LEDs. In the absence of applied voltage, the liquid crystal is in a uniform aligned state and is transparent, and the incident light is waveguided through the display and no light comes out of the front plane of the display. When a voltage is applied, the liquid crystal is switched to a poly‐domain state and becomes scattering, and the incident is scattered out of the front plane of the display. The display does not need polarizers and is thus compatible with plastic substrates with non‐uniform birefringence. It has sub‐ms response time and thus color sequential scheme can be used to display full color images. This flexible display has a big advantage in terms of energy efficiency because it does not need color filters and polarizers, and is suitable for transparent display application.