Optical element
AssigneeFUJIFILM Corporation
InventorsHiroshi SATO, Yukito SAITOH, Keisuke KODAMA
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An object is to provide an optical element capable of diffracting incident light with high diffraction efficiency. The object is achieved by an optical element including a first optically anisotropic layer containing a rod-like liquid crystal compound and a second optically anisotropic layer containing a disk-like liquid crystal compound, in which the first optically anisotropic layer and the second optically anisotropic layer have a first liquid crystal alignment pattern in which a direction of an optical axis derived from a liquid crystal compound changes while continuously rotating along at least one direction, and have a region where the direction of the optical axis rotates by 180° at a period of shorter than 0.5 μm.
Claims20
An optical element comprising:
- a first optically anisotropic layer that is a cured layer of a liquid crystal composition containing a rod-like liquid crystal compound;
- and
- a second optically anisotropic layer that is a cured layer of a liquid crystal composition containing a disk-like liquid crystal compound,
- wherein the first optically anisotropic layer has a first liquid crystal alignment pattern in which the rod-like liquid crystal compound is arranged along at least one in-plane direction and in which a direction of an optical axis derived from the rod-like liquid crystal compound changes while continuously rotating, and has, in the first liquid crystal alignment pattern, a region in which the direction of the optical axis of the rod-like liquid crystal compound rotates by 180° with a period shorter than 0.5 μm, and
- the second optically anisotropic layer has a second liquid crystal alignment pattern in which the disk-like liquid crystal compound is arranged along at least one in-plane direction and in which a direction of an optical axis derived from the disk-like liquid crystal compound changes while continuously rotating, and has, in the second liquid crystal alignment pattern, a region in which the direction of the optical axis of the disk-like liquid crystal compound rotates by 180° with a period shorter than 0.5 μm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.