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We report control of the haze value in a liquid crystal (LC) cell driven by a fringe electric field. When a fringe field is applied to a vertically aligned (VA) cell, a large spatial phase difference with a short grating period is induced in the LC layer. The average grating period of a VA cell driven by a fringe field is a quarter of the pitch of the interdigitated electrodes, which is half of the grating period of a VA cell driven by an in-plane field. Moreover, a sharper spatial phase profile is built around the edges of the interdigitated electrodes, which led to a high haze of 84.3% in the translucent state. The device was haze-free in the transparent state owing to the use of an LC layer without a polymer structure. To increase the haze value of the LC device while retaining a short response time, we developed an LC cell with crossed interdigitated electrodes where a large spatial phase difference is induced with little dependence on the azimuth angle. By applying a fringe electric field to a 20 μm thick LC cell using crossed interdigitated electrodes, we demonstrated a very high haze of 95.4% and a response time of less than 5 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a diffractive liquid crystal (LC) device capable of rapid switching between the transparent and translucent states for window display applications. In contrast to previously reported LC light shutters based on light scattering, the proposed LC device relies on diffraction of white incident light by an electric field-induced periodic continuous LC profile. It can be switched between the transparent and translucent states without a complicated driving scheme or a polymer structure. This device exhibits outstanding features for window display applications, such as a high transparency and a wide viewing angle in the transparent state, a low operating voltage, and a short response time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we present the effects of curing temperature on switching between the transparent and translucent states in a polymer-stabilized liquid-crystal (PSLC) cell. When cured at a low temperature, polymer structures are formed without disturbing the initial alignment of LCs so that haze in the transparent state is dramatically reduced. Moreover, we can achieve very fast switching between the haze-free transparent and high-haze translucent states because there is a little degradation in the performance of the transparent and translucent states when the polymer concentration is increased. We demonstrated an ON–OFF response time of less than 3 ms and a gray-to-gray response time of less than 6 ms in a PSLC cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]