Liquid crystal devices with a plurality of domains of different threshold voltages for switching liquid crystals

摘要

A liquid crystal device comprising a pair of substrates, each having a transparent electrode and an alignment film thereon in this order, provided at a given space therebetween so that the alignment films of the respective substrates are in face-to-face relation, and a ferroelectric liquid crystal provided in the space between the paired substrates, domains whose threshold voltages are different from one another being finely distributed throughout the liquid crystal. The fine distribution is such that when a transmittance through inverted domains is 25%, the number of domains (microdomains) having a size of larger than 2 mu m phi in a field of 1 mm2 is not smaller than 300, preferably not smaller than 600, and the width of the threshold voltage within the domains is not smaller than 2 volts within a transmittance range of from 10 to 90%. The microdomains can be formed, for example, by dispersing ultrafine particles (10) in the liquid crystal or by forming a charge transfer complex thin film (6) on a SiO vacuum deposited alignment film (3a,3b). The liquid crystal device, particularly the display device, keeps a high contrast and can easily, reliably realize an analog gray-scale display at low costs.