The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
In the drawings:
References will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present invention, example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to
Referring to
The display panel 101 may include a flat display panel such as a liquid crystal display (hereinafter, referred to as “LCD”), a field emission display (hereinafter, referred to as “FED”), a plasma display panel (hereinafter, referred to as “PDP”), and an organic light emitting diode (hereinafter, referred to as “OLED”), etc.
A liquid crystal display panel will be primarily described as an example of the display panel 101. A liquid crystal display panel may include active switching devices including data signal lines DL and scanning signal lines GL with switching data supplied to each sub pixel in response to a scanning signal. The switching devices may include a thin film transistor (hereinafter, referred to as “TFT”) supplying a data signal from the data signal lines DL to a pixel electrode of a liquid crystal cell Clc in response to the scanning signal. A common voltage Vcom may be supplied to a common electrode opposed to a pixel electrode of the liquid crystal cell Clc. A mark “Cst” described within a circle represents a storage capacitor that may constantly maintain a voltage of the liquid crystal cell Clc.
Display panel 101 may display a two-dimensional image in accordance with an image source and a two-dimensional mode selection signal. Display panel 101 may display a three-dimensional stereoscopic image in accordance with an image source in which a left eye image data and a right eye image data are separated from each other and a three-dimensional mode selection signal.
A liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 may include an upper plate 111 and a lower plate 110 arranged in opposition to each other with a liquid crystal layer therebetween. The liquid crystal layer may be electrically controlled. Further, the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 may transmit a light from the display panel 101 in two-dimensional image mode without substantial alteration, and in three-dimensional image mode may refract a light from the display panel 101 to separate a path of a light corresponding to a left eye image and a path of a light corresponding to a right eye image.
An upper plate 111 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 may include a transparent electrode 106, a transparent substrate 105 provided on the transparent electrode 106, and an upper alignment film 107 provided on the transparent substrate 105. A carving pattern 105a may be formed as a plurality of lens surfaces having a curved surface shape on the transparent substrate 105.
An upper alignment film 107 may be formed at the carving pattern 105a and may be formed on the transparent substrate 105 of the upper plate 111. By a process shown in
A lower plate 110 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 may include a transparent electrode 102 provided on a lower transparent substrate, and a lower alignment film 103 coated on the transparent electrode 102. The lower alignment film 103 may include a polyimide alignment film and may be formed by a process of rubbing the polyimide alignment film, or may include a CNT film like the upper alignment film 107 to determine a pre-tilt angle of the liquid crystal molecules 104 at the lower plate 110.
Liquid crystal molecules 104 between the upper plate 111 and the lower plate 110 may be a positive liquid crystal. The positive liquid crystal may be aligned in a substantially horizontal direction by the upper alignment film 107 and the lower alignment film 103.
Referring to
Referring to
Liquid crystal molecules 104 may be uniformly aligned at an interface with the upper plate 111 and at an interface with the lower plate 110 by anchoring energy of the upper alignment film 107 and the lower alignment film 103. Accordingly, a switching speed of the liquid crystal molecules 104 is fast and the liquid crystal molecules become uniform.
The upper transparent electrode 106 and the lower transparent electrode 102 have conductivity, and may be formed of any transparent electrode material having a high transmittance, for example, ITO (Indium tin oxide), IZO (Indium Zinc Oxide), etc to supply a driving voltage supplied from a driving circuit to the liquid crystal molecules 104.
The stereoscopic image display device according to the first embodiment of the present invention may include further a lens driving circuit 53, a display driving circuit 52, and a control circuit 51.
The lens driving circuit 53 may supply a driving voltage to the upper transparent electrode 106 and the lower transparent electrode 102 of a liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 under the control of the control circuit 51. The lens driving circuit 53 may supply a driving voltage having no potential difference to the upper transparent electrode 106 and the lower transparent electrode 102 in the three-dimensional image mode as shown in
The display driving circuit 52 may include a data driving circuit and a scan driving circuit. The data driving circuit may convert a digital video data into an analog data voltage or a data current to supply them to the data signal lines DL, and the scan driving circuit may sequentially supply a scanning signal to the scanning signal lines GL.
The control circuit 51 may be supplied with digital video data from an image source to supply them to a data driving circuit of the display driving circuit 52. Furthermore, the control circuit 51 may be supplied with a timing signal such as a horizontal synchronizing signal H, a vertical synchronizing signal V, and a clock signal CLK, etc to generate timing control signals, thereby controlling the data driving circuit and the scan driving circuit. The timing control signal may control each operation timing of the data driving circuit and the scan driving circuit of the display driving circuit 52.
The control circuit 51 may be supplied with a mode selection signal Smode to control the lens driving circuit 53. The mode selection signal Smode may selectively indicate any one of the two-dimensional image mode and the three-dimensional image mode. The mode selection signal Smode may be supplied from an image source recognizing the two-dimensional image and the three-dimensional image. Further, the mode selection signal Smode may be generated by a user data. In this case, the user data may be inputted from a user interface. The user interface may be supplied with the mode selection signal Smode via a touch panel, an on screen display (hereinafter, referred to as “OSD”), or a user input device such as a mouse and a keyboard, etc to transmit it to the control circuit 51. The touch panel may be arranged at a front of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 and touched by the user. The OSD may be realized by software.
An operation of the stereoscopic image display device according to the first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to
In the three-dimensional image mode, the transparent electrodes 106 and 102 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 according to the embodiment of the present invention are not applied with the driving voltage or may be supplied with the driving voltage having no potential difference as shown in
In the two-dimensional image mode, the transparent electrodes 106 and 102 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 may be supplied with a predetermined driving voltage having a potential difference as shown in
Referring to
The display panel 401 may include of a flat display panel such as a liquid crystal display, a field emission display, a plasma display panel, and an organic light emitting diode, etc.
A liquid crystal display panel will be primarily described as an example of the display panel 401. The liquid crystal display panel may include active switching devices including data signal lines DL and scanning signal lines GL with switching data supplied to each sub pixel in response to a scanning signal. The switching devices include a thin film transistor (hereinafter, referred to as “TFT”) supplying a data signal from the data signal lines DL to a pixel electrode of a liquid crystal cell Clc in response to the scanning signal. A common voltage Vcom may be supplied to a common electrode opposed to a pixel electrode of the liquid crystal cell Clc. A mark “Cst” described within a circle represents a storage capacitor constantly maintaining a voltage of the liquid crystal cell Clc.
Such a display panel 401 may display a two-dimensional image in accordance with an image source and a two-dimensional mode selection signal. Display panel 101 may display a three-dimensional stereoscopic image in accordance with an image source, in which a left eye image data and a right eye image data are separated from each other, and a three dimensional mode selection signal mode selection signal.
A liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 may include an upper plate 311 and a lower plate 310 arranged in opposition to each other with having a liquid crystal layer therebetween. The liquid crystal layer may be electrically controlled. Further, the liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 may transmit a light from the display device 401 in the two-dimensional image mode without substantial alteration, in three dimensional image mode may refract a light from the display device 401 to separate a path of a light corresponding to the left eye image and a path of a light corresponding to the right eye image.
An upper plate 311 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 may include a transparent electrode 306, a transparent substrate 305 provided on the transparent electrode 306, and an upper alignment film 307 provided on the transparent substrate 305. A carving pattern 305a may be formed as a plurality of curved surfaces of concave lens shape on the transparent substrate 305.
The upper alignment film 307 may be formed at the carving pattern 105a and may be formed of amorphous SiOx (hereinafter, referred to as “a-SiOx”) film to uniformly align the liquid crystal molecules 304 in a substantially vertical direction. The a-SiOx film of the upper alignment film 307 may have a constant thickness on the carving pattern 305a of the transparent substrate 305 and may be formed by a sputtering method. Next, the disposed a-SiOx film may be exposed at the ion-beam to generate an anchoring energy which binds the liquid crystal molecules 304 at a surface thereof. A pre-tilt angle of the liquid crystal molecules 304 adjacent to such an upper alignment film 307 may be controlled in accordance with an irradiating direction 70 of the ion-beam. In other words, the liquid crystal molecules 304 may be pre-tilted in the irradiating direction 70 of the ion-beam. Thus, if the irradiating direction 70 of the ion-beam and a tilt angle of the a-SiOx film exposing at the ion-beam are adjusted, a pre-tilt angle of the liquid crystal molecules 305 may be adjusted.
The lower plate 110 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 may include a transparent electrode 302 provided on a lower transparent substrate, and a lower alignment film 303 coated on the transparent electrode 302. The lower alignment film 303 may include a polyimide alignment film or the a-SiOx film, and a pre-tilt of the liquid crystal molecules may be determined 304 by a rubbing process or an ion-beam exposing process. The lower alignment film 303 may be formed on the lower plate 110 by a process which uniformly forms the polyimide alignment film, and a process which rubs a surface of the polyimide alignment film like the related art. Furthermore, the lower alignment film 303 may be formed on the lower plate 110 by a process which forms the upper alignment film 307, such as, a process which disposes the a-SiOx film, and a process which exposes the a-SiOx film at the ion-beam.
The liquid crystal molecules 304 between the upper plate 111 and the lower plate 110 may be a negative liquid crystal. In the negative liquid crystal, a minor axis direction dielectric constant (ε⊥) of the liquid crystal molecules may be more than a major axis direction dielectric constant (ε∥), that is, Δε<0, and may be aligned in a substantially vertical direction by the upper alignment film 307 and the lower alignment film 303. Further, the minor axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules may be aligned substantially in parallel in a direction of an applying electric field.
The liquid crystal molecules 304 may be uniformly aligned at an interface with the upper plate and at an interface with the lower plate by anchoring energy of the upper alignment film 307 and the lower alignment film 303. Accordingly, a switching speed of the liquid crystal molecules 304 is fast and the liquid crystal molecules become uniform.
The upper transparent electrode 306 and the lower transparent electrode 302 have conductivity and may be formed of any transparent material having a high transmittance, for example, ITO (Indium tin oxide), IZO (Indium Zinc Oxide), etc to supply a driving voltage supplied from a driving circuit to the liquid crystal molecules 304.
The stereoscopic image display device according to the second embodiment of the present invention may include a lens driving circuit 63, a display driving circuit 62, and a control circuit 61.
The lens driving circuit 63 may supply a driving voltage to the upper transparent electrode 306 and the lower transparent electrode 302 of a liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 under the control of the control circuit 61. The lens driving circuit 63 may supply a driving voltage having a potential difference to the upper transparent electrode 306 and the lower transparent electrode 302 in the three-dimensional image mode as shown in
The display driving circuit 62 may include a data driving circuit and a scan driving circuit. In this case, the data driving circuit may convert a digital video data into an analog data voltage or a data current to supply them to the data signal lines DL, and the scan driving circuit may sequentially supply a scanning signal to the scanning signal lines GL.
The control circuit 61 may be supplied with digital video data from an image source to supply them to a data driving circuit of the display driving circuit 62. The control circuit 61 may be supplied with a timing signal such as a horizontal synchronizing signal H, a vertical synchronizing signal V, and a clock signal CLK, etc to generate timing control signals, thereby controlling the data driving circuit and the scan driving circuit. The timing control signal may control each operation timing of the data driving circuit and the scan driving circuit of the display driving circuit 62.
The control circuit 61 may be supplied with a mode selection signal Smode to control the lens driving circuit 63. The mode selection signal Smode may selectively indicate any one of the two-dimensional image mode and the three-dimensional image mode. The mode selection signal Smode may be supplied from an image source recognizing the two-dimensional image and the three-dimensional image. Further, the mode selection signal Smode may be generated by a user data. In this case, the user data is inputted from a user interface. The user interface may be supplied with the mode selection signal Smode via a touch panel, an on screen display (hereinafter, referred to as “OSD”), or a user input device such as a mouse and a keyboard, etc to transmit it to the control circuit 61. The touch panel may be arranged at a front of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 200 and may be touched by the user. The on screen display is realized by software.
An operation of the stereoscopic image display device according to the second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to
In the two-dimensional image mode, the transparent electrodes 306 and 302 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens 300 according to the embodiment of the present invention are not applied with the driving voltage or may be supplied with the driving voltage having no potential difference as shown in
In the three-dimensional image mode, the transparent electrodes 302 and 306 of the liquid crystal lenticular lens may be supplied with a predetermined driving voltage having a voltage difference as shown in
As described above, the lenticular lens according to the embodiments of the present invention may absorb the CNT on the upper plate having the lens surface, or a a-SiOx film may be formed on the upper plate having the lens surface. The lenticular lens may be exposed to the a-SiOx film at the ion-beam to uniformly provide the alignment film on the lens surface of curved surface type. The method of fabricating the lenticular lens according to the present invention can improve a switching characteristics of the liquid crystal molecules using the alignment film of the upper plate and the alignment film of the lower plate.
Although the present invention has been explained by the embodiments shown in the drawings described above, it should be understood to the ordinary skilled person in the art that the invention is not limited to the embodiments, but rather that various changes or modifications thereof are possible without departing from the spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention shall be determined only by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
P2006-059286 | Jun 2006 | KR | national |
P2006-059335 | Jun 2006 | KR | national |