Patent Application
20170082898
This application claims priority to and the benefit of Chinese Patent Application No. 201510594188.1 filed on Sep. 17, 2015, which application is incorporated herein in its entirety.
At least one embodiment of the present disclosure relates to an alignment apparatus, a display panel and a display device.
A mainstream liquid crystal display panel adopts a rectangular design, and a non-rectangular display also has a wide application field. For example, an oval display can be used as a digital frame, automobile and household appliance instruments and the like; a circular display can be used for manufacturing a novel and unique mobile phone panel, a monitoring device, a panel of a game console and the like.
Generally, before an array substrate and a color filter substrate are cell-assembled to form a liquid crystal display panel, a layer of alignment film (for example, PI film) is coated on a surface of each substrate. Grooves in a certain alignment are formed on the alignment films by adopting an alignment apparatus through rubbing. Anchoring energy of the grooves in an ordered direction enables liquid crystal molecules to be slantingly and directionally arranged in a same direction at a certain pre-tilt angle.
At least one embodiment of the disclosure provides an alignment apparatus, a display panel and a display device to form an alignment direction such as an arc alignment direction or a circular alignment direction to obtain better alignment effect.
At least one embodiment of the disclosure provides an alignment apparatus comprises a base and an ultraviolet lamp. The base is provided with a support surface configured to support a substrate with a film capable of being aligned by photo-alignment. The ultraviolet lamp is disposed above the support surface, and the ultraviolet lamp is configured to rotate around a line perpendicular to the support surface in a plane parallel to the support surface of the base, or the base is configured to rotate around the line perpendicular to the support surface of the base.
At least one embodiment of the disclosure provides a display panel comprising an alignment film, wherein the alignment film in the display panel is formed by the alignment apparatus provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure.
At least one embodiment of the disclosure provides a display device comprising the display panel provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure.
In order to clearly illustrate the technical solution of the embodiments of the disclosure, the drawings of the embodiments will be briefly described in the following; it is obvious that the described drawings are only related to some embodiments of the disclosure and thus are not limitative of the disclosure.
01—rubbing roller; 02—substrate; 1—base; 11—support surface; 110—a line perpendicular to the support surface; 2—substrate; 21—photo-alignment film; 211—alignment direction; 3—ulravoilet lamp; 4—alignment chamber; 5—pivoting shaft; 51—axis of a pivoting shaft; 10—polarizer.
In order to make objects, technical details and advantages of the embodiments of the disclosure apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments will be described in a clearly and fully understandable way in connection with the drawings related to the embodiments of the disclosure. Apparently, the described embodiments are just a part but not all of the embodiments of the disclosure. Based on the described embodiments herein, those skilled in the art can obtain other embodiment(s), without any inventive work, which should be within the scope of the disclosure.
Unless otherwise defined, all the technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meanings as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present disclosure belongs. The terms “first,” “second,” etc., which are used in the description and the claims of the present application for disclosure, are not intended to indicate any sequence, amount or importance, but distinguish various components. Also, the terms such as “a,” “an,” etc., are not intended to limit the amount, but indicate the existence of at least one. The terms “comprise,” “comprising,” “include,” “including,” etc., are intended to specify that the components or the objects stated before these terms encompass the components or the objects and equivalents thereof listed after these terms, but do not preclude the other components or objects. The phrases “connect”, “connected”, etc., are not intended to define a physical connection or mechanical connection, but may include an electrical connection, directly or indirectly. “On,” “under,” “right,” “left” and the like are only used to indicate relative position relationship, and when the position of the object which is described is changed, the relative position relationship may be changed accordingly.
With respect to a rectangular liquid crystal display, grooves on a substrate in a non-rectangular (e.g., arc) liquid crystal display panel need to be arranged in an outline (e.g., radian) direction of the non-rectangular (e.g., arc) liquid crystal display panel. However, rubbing alignment is performed on an integral glass substrate by a rubbing roller for once, and all the grooves on a surface of an integral liquid crystal display panel are in the same straight line direction, and thus, the grooves with non-rectangular outlines (e.g., arc) cannot be realized.
An alignment apparatus is provided by one embodiment of the present disclosure. As illustrated in
The alignment apparatus further comprises: an ultraviolet lamp 3 disposed above the support surface 11, wherein the ultraviolet lamp 3 is configured to rotate around (with respect to) a line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11 and in a plane parallel to the support surface 11 of the base 1, or the base 1 is configured to rotate around (with respect to) the line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11 of the base 1.
According to the alignment apparatus provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure, as illustrated in
Generally, in a photo-alignment technology, exposure alignment is performed on an alignment film by ultraviolet light, which belongs to a non-contact alignment mode. The liquid crystal molecules are directionally arranged by utilizing anisotropy generated by a photochemical reaction of an ultraviolet photosensitive polymer monomer material. Firstly, one substrate, such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) glass, needs to be coated with a layer of photosensitive polymeric film (for example, the photo-alignment film, a film capable of being aligned by photo-alignment, such as a photosensitive PI film), then the substrate is irradiated by ultraviolet polarized light, and only photosensitive groups parallel to a polarization direction of the polarized light are performed a photochemical reaction to generate anisotropy on the alignment film so as to induce liquid crystal molecules to be aligned. Molecules in the photosensitive polymeric film, which are not parallel to the polarization direction of the polarized light, are not performed the photochemical reaction, so as to form structures similar with molecule “grooves”, and thus, directional arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules can be induced. Double-sided arrows in
It should be illustrated as follows:
(1) According to embodiments of the present disclosure, for example, the substrate 2 includes an array substrate or an opposed substrate, but are not limited thereto. For example, the opposed substrate and the array substrate are disposed oppositely, the opposed substrate and the array substrate are respectively two substrates, i.e., upper and lower substrates of the display panel, and generally, display structures such as a thin film transistor array etc. are formed on the array substrate and a color resin is formed on the opposed substrate. For example, the opposed substrate is a color filter substrate.
(2) The line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11 can be a random line perpendicular to the support surface. For example, the line 110 perpendicular to the support surface is a perpendicular bisector of the support surface 11.
(3) The ultraviolet lamp can intersect the line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11, or the ultraviolet lamp can don't intersect the line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11.
(4) In order to form a linearly polarized light, the alignment apparatus can further include a polarizer 10. As illustrated in
(5)
Further, in order to improve alignment effect, as illustrated in
In one example, as illustrated in
The ultraviolet lamp 3 is configured to rotate around a line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11 e.g. around a perpendicular bisector of the support surface of the base 1 with respect to the base, which can be achieved by various modes:
In one optional embodiment, the base 1 is fixed with respect to the alignment chamber, and the ultraviolet lamp 3 is configured to rotate around the line perpendicular to the support surface of the base 1. Namely, the ultraviolet lamp 3 can rotate with respect to the base 1, and the substrate(s) 2 on the base 1 is/are fixed, so that alignment directions (similar with arc “grooves”) 211 can be conveniently formed on the photo-alignment film(s) 21 of the substrate(s) 2.
Further, in one example, as illustrated in
Furthermore, in one example, as illustrated in
Further, in one example, as illustrated in
In another optional embodiment, the ultraviolet lamp 3 is fixed with respect to the base 1, and the base 1 is configured to rotate around the line 110 perpendicular to the support surface 11 e.g. around the perpendicular bisector of the support surface. Namely, the ultraviolet lamp 3 is fixed, the base 1 can rotate, and by rotation of the base 1, the substrate 2 is driven to rotate, so that relative motion can be generated between the base 1 and the ultraviolet lamp 3, which is convenient to form arc/round alignment directions (similar with “grooves”) 211 on the photo-alignment film 21 of the substrate 2. In one example, the base 1 is configured to rotate around the perpendicular bisector of the support surface, and a midpoint of the ultraviolet lamp is located at the perpendicular bisector of the support surface.
For example, a distance between a light emitting face of the ultraviolet lamp and the surface away from the support surface of the arc substrate 2 is, but not limited to, 10 μm to 100 μm, such as 10 μm, 11 μm, 12 μm, 16 μm, 18 μm, 30 μm, 40 μm, 60 μm, 80 μm, 90 μm, 100 μm and the like.
For example, a rotating speed of the ultraviolet lamp 3 rotating around the line perpendicular to the support surface of the base 1 with respect to the base 1 or a rotating speed of the base 1 rotating around the line perpendicular to the support surface of the base is, but not limited to, 5 r/min to 50 r/min.
For example, light energy emitted by the ultraviolet lamp 3 is in a range from 3,000 millijoule (mJ) to 10,000 millijoule (mJ), but not limited thereto.
At least one embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a display panel comprising an alignment film. The alignment film in the display panel is formed by any one of the alignment apparatus according to the above-mentioned alignment apparatus, and an alignment direction 211 of the formed alignment film is distributed along an arc or circular shape. Liquid crystal molecules are also distributed according to the arc or circular shape. The display panel provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can improve a display effect of the display panel and has a good view angle.
At least one embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a display device, including any one of the display panel provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure. The display device has a good display effect. For example, the display device can be any one of products or parts with a display function, such as a notebook computer display panel, electronic paper, an organic light emitting diode display, a liquid crystal display, a liquid crystal television, a digital photo frame, a mobile phone, a watch, a tablet personal computer and the like.
What are described above is related to the illustrative embodiments of the disclosure only and not limitative to the protecting scope of the disclosure. The protecting scopes of the disclosure are defined by the accompanying claims.
This application claims the benefit of priority from Chinese patent application No. 201510594188.1, filed on Sep. 17, 2015, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference as a part of the present application.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201510594188.1 | Sep 2015 | CN | national |
