Patent ID: 7038750

Claim:
A liquid crystal display element comprising a liquid crystal sandwiched between two substrates each having an orientation film, wherein at least one of the orientation films comprises molecules having a photosensitive group and has at least two regions with different orientation anisotropies having been irradiated with polarized light of differing irradiation intensities, and wherein liquid crystal molecules have different pretilt angles such as to correspond to the orientation anisotropies of the regions of the orientation film, wherein: the liquid crystal element comprises a liquid crystal layer oriented in splay alignment provided between a pair of substrates with electrodes, each substrate having an orientation film; at least one of the orientation films comprises thin film component molecules each having a photosensitive group and high pretilt regions for orienting liquid crystal molecules to a higher pretilt angle than do other regions; and the liquid crystal layer has transition seed generation regions wherein a transition from splay alignment to bend alignment is accelerated by application of a voltage to the electrodes, the transition seed generation regions being formed by the high pretilt angle regions.