Patent ID: 7253859

Claim:
A process for producing a retardation element for use in a display element comprising pixels, each of the pixels comprising a red display section, a green display section and a blue display section, the process comprising: forming a liquid crystal layer on a substrate having aligning power, the liquid crystal layer comprising a polymerizable liquid crystalline material; curing the liquid crystal layer formed on the substrate by applying first radiation to the liquid crystal layer, a quantity of the first radiation applied to the liquid crystal layer being varied over a group of fine areas in the liquid crystal layer, each of the fine areas of the liquid crystal layer corresponding to a respective one of the red display section, the green display section and the blue display section; bringing the cured liquid crystal layer into contact with an organic solvent to develop an uncured component of the liquid crystal layer; and further curing the cured liquid crystal layer subsequent to bringing the cured liquid crystal layer into contact with the organic solvent, wherein each of the fine areas of the resulting retardation element has a thickness corresponding to the quantity of the first radiation applied to the respective one of the tine areas; and further curing the cured liquid crystal layer comprises applying second radiation to fully cure the semi-cured and uncured portions of the previously cured liquid crystal layer.