Enhanced off-axis viewing performance of liquid crystal display employing a fiberoptic faceplate in conjunction with dual negative retarders and a brightness enhancing film on the illumination source

摘要

A transmissive, backlit color twisted-nematic or super-twisted- nematic liquid crystal display employing a front fiber-optic faceplate or optical equivalent as a front retaining element of a liquid crystal cell that increases viewing angle between the display and a viewer while minimizing or eliminating undesirable variations in luminance, contrast ratio and chromaticity is described. The fiber-optic faceplate or optical equivalent includes cylindrical optical features and interstitial cladding material of greater optical index than the cylindrical optical features. The interstitial cladding material may include an opaque mask blocking layer to prevent the interstitial apertures from diffracting off- axis light into an observer's viewing cone. In particular the liquid crystal display includes dual negative retarders, and a light shaping element such as a brightness enhancing film on the illumination source that increase the effective viewing angle between the display and a viewer while minimizing undesirable variations in display chromaticity, luminance, and contrast ratio. The front fiber-optic faceplate or optical equivalent works in conjunction with the dual negative retarders and the light shaping element to provide an improved contrast ratio with a perfectly symmetric viewing angle and to eliminate grey scale inversions.