Alignment control of liquid crystals in a 1.0-μm-pitch spatial light modulator by lattice-shaped dielectric wall structure

We achieved uniform liquid crystal (LC) alignment in lattice-shaped dielectric walls 1 μm in pitch; this is a prerequisite when driving the individual pixels of spatial light modulators, facilitating the development of practical electronic holographic displays with a wide field of view. In lattice-shaped dielectric walls, LC alignment becomes unstable, particularly on the bottom and the walls; the LC directors tend to align parallel to the walls. To overcome this problem, we created lattice-shaped walls featuring partition plates that allow uniform LC alignment. When the plates confine LCs to small regions exhibiting spatial anisotropy, the LC elastic effect and wall anchoring forces align the LC directors parallel to the long anisotropic axis. We found that pixels 0.5 μm × 1.0 μm in pitch formed if the partition plates were sufficiently thick to allow shielding of electric field leakage.