Optical aligning apparatus and method irradiating multiple substrates at once or having rotatable elements
AssigneeHyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd.
InventorsSi Hyoung Lee, Sang Un Choi
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Abstract
An optical alignment apparatus and method are disclosed, the optical alignment apparatus, comprising the steps of: a light unit for generating a parallel beam; a beam-splitter for beam-splitting the parallel beam; and a beam regulator for changing the beam split from the beam-splitter into a polarized beam and irradiating the polarized beam to the alignment film on the LCD substrate.
Claims25
An optical alignment apparatus for aligning an alignment film formed on a side surface of an LCD substrate by aligning photosensitive molecules contained in the alignment film in a desired orientation, comprising:
- a light unit for generating a parallel beam;
- a beam-splitter for beam-splitting the parallel beam;
- and
- a beam regulator for changing a beam split from the beam-splitter into a polarized beam and irradiating the polarized beam to the alignment film on the LCD substrate such that the photosensitive molecules of the alignment film are aligned in a desired tilt angle, wherein the light unit, the beam-splitter and the beam regulator are rotatable relative to the LCD substrate.
An optical alignment apparatus for aligning alignment films formed on side surfaces of a plurality of LCD substrates by aligning photosensitive molecules contained in the alignment films in a desired orientation, comprising:
- a light unit for generating a parallel beam;
- a plurality of beam-splitters for beam-splitting the parallel beam;
- and
- a plurality of polarizers, each of which is positioned for polarizing a split beam transmitted from a corresponding one of the beam-splitters into a polarized
- beam and for irradiating the polarized beam to a corresponding one of the alignment films, the polarizers being arranged so as to irradiate the polarized beams simultaneously to the alignment films, whereby the alignment films are optically aligned simultaneously.
An optical alignment method, comprising the steps of:
- forming alignment films on a plurality of LCD substrates, the alignment films having photosensitive molecules;
- generating a first parallel beam;
- beam-splitting the first parallel beam into a plurality of split beams;
- polarizing the plurality of split beams into a first plurality of polarized beams;
- and
- aligning the photosensitive molecules of the alignment films by irradiating the first plurality of polarized beams to the alignment films.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.