Fast switching, high contrast and high resolution liquid crystal device for virtual reality display

Virtual reality-head mounted displays require a display with high resolution over 2000 ppi, super-fast response time and high contrast ratio for realizing super image quality at near-eyes. Several liquid crystal devices utilizing fringe-field switching (FFS) mode, having response times less than of half of conventional FFS mode, were proposed for this purpose. However, its contrast ratio is still less than 2000:1 because of intrinsic electro-optic characteristics of homogenous alignment mode and also realizing high resolution like 2000 ppi has some difficulty because twist deformation of liquid crystals can easily affect liquid crystal orientation near pixels. In this paper, we propose a vertically aligned liquid crystal device in which bend deformation occurs in a confined area by an oblique electric field. exhibiting 4 times faster decay response time than that of conventional FFS mode, higher contrast ratio over 5000:1, and pixel pitch less than 4 mu m. The proposed liquid crystal device has a strong potential to be the main display for high-resolution virtual reality over 2000 ppi. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement