Patent ID: 8031310

Claim:
A liquid crystal display comprising: a pair of substrates facing each other with a predetermined gap therebetween; a liquid crystal in said gap, the liquid crystal including liquid crystal molecules; an orientation layer, comprising at least one layer, carried on at least one of said substrates and which orients said liquid crystal molecules; and an electrode carried on at least one of said substrates and effective to impart a voltage to said liquid crystal, wherein, said orientation layer includes a base layer which comprises a principal surface with a plurality of grooves in parallel, and a coating film covering said principal surface, said coating film configured to orient an axis of each of said liquid crystal molecules parallel to at least one of said substrates in the condition where no voltage is impressed on said principal surface, said grooves each extend along a predetermined direction, and are arrayed repeatedly at a given pitch and depth along a direction which is orthogonal to said predetermined direction, a portion of said base layer along said orthogonal direction has a recess-and-protuberance structure in which recessed parts each corresponding to the bottom of each said groove and protuberant parts each corresponding to the boundary of the adjacent grooves appear alternately and repeatedly, and the width of said protuberant part is smaller than the width of said recessed part.