Patent ID: 7011870

Claim:
A method for producing a liquid crystal optical element, which comprises: sandwiching a mixture of a liquid crystal with an uncured curable composition between a pair of substrates which are provided with transparent electrodes and of which at least one is transparent, and curing the curable composition to form a liquid crystal/cured composite layer, wherein the curable composition comprises a compound of the formula (1): A 1 -(OR 1 ) n —O-Z-O—(R 2 O) m -A 2 Formula (1) wherein each of A 1 and A 2 independently of each other, is an acryloyl group, a methacryloyl group, a glycidyl group or an allyl group; each of R 1 and R 2 independently of each other, is a C 2-6 alkylene group; Z is a bivalent mesogen structure; and each of n and m independently of each other, is an integer of from 1 to 10, wherein the curable composition comprises a curable compound having a mesogen structural portion and a curable compound having no mesogen structural portion.