Patent ID: 6420000
Filing Date: 2002-07-16
Classification: C09K,G02F

Abstract:
A liquid crystal device, comprising:a chiral smectic liquid crystal, and a pair of substrates having thereon electrodes for applying a voltage to the chiral smectic liquid crystal and disposed to sandwich the chiral smectic liquid crystal to form a plurality of pixels, wherein the chiral smectic liquid crystal has a temperature-dependent tilt angle characteristic satisfying the following relationship: &Hcirc;10âˆ’&Hcirc;1&lE;4.0 degrees, wherein &Hcirc;10 denotes a tilt angle at a temperature which is 10Â° C. lower than an upper limit temperature of chiral smectic C phase and &Hcirc;1 denotes a tilt angle at a temperature which is 1Â° C. lower than the upper limit temperature, andthe liquid crystal has an alignment characteristic such that the liquid crystal is aligned to provide an average molecular axis to be placed in a monostable alignment state under no voltage application, is tilted from the monostable alignment state in one direction when supplied with a voltage of a first polarity at a tilting angle which varies depending on magnitude of the supplied voltage, and is tilted from the monostable alignment state in the other direction when supplied with a voltage of a second polarity opposite to the first polarity at a tilting angle, said tilting angles providing maximum tilting angles formed under application of the voltages of the first and second polarities, respectively, different from each other, and one of said tilting angles continuously changing depending on magnitude of the supplied voltage of the first polarity or the second polarity.