Display device
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsYutaka Nakai, Tsuyoshi Hioki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A display device includes a light source, an optical waveguide, a light-extracting portion, a liquid crystal dispersion layer and a drive circuit. The optical waveguide has two ends to guide light from one of the two ends to the other end. The light is emitted by the light source. The light-extracting portion is provided to a side face of the optical waveguide. The liquid crystal dispersion layer is included in the light-extracting portion and includes liquid crystal droplets whose mean diameter is 100 nm or less. The drive circuit applies a voltage to the light-extracting portion to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal dispersion layer so that the light transmitting through the optical waveguide is scattered to be extracted.
Claims9
A display device comprising:
- a light source;
- an optical waveguide having two ends to guide light from one of the two ends to the other end, the light being emitted by the light source;
- a light-extracting portion which is provided to a side face of the optical waveguide;
- a liquid crystal dispersion layer which is included in the light-extracting portion and includes liquid crystal droplets whose mean diameter is 100 nm or less;
- and
- a drive circuit which applies a voltage to the light-extracting portion to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal dispersion layer so that the light transmitting through the optical waveguide is scattered to be extracted;
- wherein
- the liquid crystal dispersion layer includes a first portion and a second portion in a section parallel to the side face of the optical waveguide;
- the first portion includes a first material whose mean diameter is 300 nm or more;
- the second portion includes a second material which is different from the first material and is positioned around the first portion;
- either one of the first material and the second material includes the liquid crystal droplets;
- and
- a refractive index of the first material is equal to the refractive index of the second material when no electric field is generated therein.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.