A primer for forming a primer layer on the surface of a substrate having surface free energy of 50 mN/m or higher, the primer including a liquid crystalline epoxy compound and a curing agent.

An object of the invention is to provide conjugate fibers with an encapsulated liquid crystal, which can be used for forming a flexible liquid crystal display device, and the conjugate fibers without disturbance of arrangement of liquid crystal molecules within the fibers. The conjugate fibers according to the invention are sheath-core conjugate fibers having a liquid crystal composition as a core component, and the conjugate fibers with the encapsulated liquid crystal, in which the liquid crystal composition contains a halogen-containing liquid crystal compound.

There is provided a liquid crystal composition which enables a significant reduction in crystallization temperature as compared with addition of a homolog while having a similar skeleton structure, which has an excellent compatibility, and which enables an increase in the absolute value of negative dielectric anisotropy (Δ∈). The liquid crystal composition contains two or more compounds which each have two to four ring structures between two side chains. At least one of the ring structures is a 2,3-difluorobenzene skeleton. The two side chains are bonded to different ring structures. The positions of the 2,3-difluorobenzene skeletons are different from each other, and the number of the ring structures are the same as each other.

The present invention relates to the technical field of liquid crystal displays, and particularly relates to a liquid crystal composition containing a 2-methyl-3,4,5-trifluorobenzene liquid crystal compound and use thereof, wherein the liquid crystal composition of the present invention comprises, in percentages by weight, 1-50% of one or more compounds represented by general formula I and 10-70% of one or more compounds represented by general formula II, and may further comprise 0-30% of compounds represented by general formula III and/or 6-45% of one or more compounds represented by general formulas IV to XIII The liquid crystal composition provided by the present invention has a low rotational viscosity and a large elastic constant, is presented as having a shorter response time, and can significantly improve the display effect of a liquid crystal display when applied to TN, IPS and FFS mode displays.

The invention relates to a liquid-crystalline medium, in particular based on a mixture of polar compounds, and to the use thereof for an active-matrix display, in particular based on the VA, PSA, PS-VA, PA-VA, PALC, FFS, PS-FFS, IPS or PS-IPS effect.

A liquid-crystalline medium, in particular based on a mixture of polar compounds, having compounds of formulae Y, CY, PY and/or LY, and compounds of formula S1 and/or S2:

##STR00001##

The present invention provides a compound represented by general formula (1) as well as a liquid crystal composition containing this compound and a liquid crystal display using this liquid crystal composition. Using the compound represented by general formula (1) as a component of a liquid crystal composition makes it possible to obtain a liquid crystal composition having a low viscosity (η), a high Δn, suitable T.sub.-i, high miscibility with other liquid crystal compounds, and presenting a liquid crystal phase over a wide temperature range. This is therefore extremely useful as a structural component of a liquid crystal composition for a liquid crystal display requiring a high speed response.

The compounds of the formula I, and a liquid-crystalline medium, preferably having a nematic phase and negative dielectric anisotropy, which comprises a) one or more compounds of the formula I ##STR00001## and b) one or more compounds of the formulae II-1 to II-4, ##STR00002##
in which the parameters have the meanings defined herein, are suitable for use in an electro-optical display, particularly in an active-matrix display based on the VA, ECB, PALC, FFS or IPS effect.

There is provided a liquid crystal composition that exhibits a sufficiently low viscosity (η), a sufficiently low rotational viscosity (γ1), and a large elastic modulus (K.sub.33) without decreasing the refractive index anisotropy (Δn) and the nematic phase-isotropic liquid phase transition temperature (T.sub.ni) and without increasing the solid phase-nematic phase transition temperature (T.sub.cn). The liquid crystal display element that uses this liquid crystal composition satisfactorily obtains a pretilt angle and has a high voltage holding ratio (VHR) and high-speed response. Thus, a liquid crystal display element that has no or less alignment defects and display defects such as image sticking, and has high display quality and high response speed is obtained.

An object of the present invention is to provide an optical film having excellent alignment, and a polarizing plate and an image display device using the same. The optical film of the present invention is an optical film having at least an optically anisotropic layer, and the optically anisotropic layer contains a smectic liquid crystal compound not including a fluorine atom and a compound partially having a cyclohexane ring in which the hydrogen atom is substituted with a linear alkyl group.