The present invention describes a liquid crystal composite tunable device for fast polarisation-independent modulation of an incident light beam comprising: (a) two supporting and functional panels, at least one of them coated with a transparent conductive electrode layer and with optionally at least one additional layer selected from an alignment layer, antireflective coating layer, thermochromic or electrochromic layer, photoconductive or photosensitive layer, and (b) a composite structure sandwiched between said two panels and made of a liquid crystal and porous microparticles infiltrated with said liquid crystal. The porous microparticles have an average refractive index approximately equals to one of the liquid crystal principal refractive indices, matching that of the liquid crystal at one orientational state (for example, parallel n.sub.∥), and exhibiting large mismatch at another orientational state (for example, perpendicular n.sub.⊥). This refractive index mismatch between said microparticles and said liquid crystal is tuned by applying an external electric or magnetic field, thermally or optically.

A waveplate is provided. The waveplate includes a first liquid crystal (“LC”) layer including LC molecules that are in-plane switchable by an external field to switch the waveplate between states of different phase retardances. The waveplate includes a second LC layer and a third LC layer sandwiching the first LC layer. Azimuthal angles of effective refractive index ellipsoids of the second LC layer and the third LC layer are different.

The invention relates to a light modulation device having pixels. Essentially, the one half of the pixels are reflective and the other half of the pixels are transmissive. The reflective pixels are arranged in alternation with the transmissive pixels in the same substrate plane. The light modulation device also has a backplane, which has transistors and data lines for conducting signals to the pixels. Each pixel is assigned at least one transistor and at least two data lines. The transistors and the data lines of each adjacent pair of a reflective pixel and a transmissive pixel are arranged under the reflective pixel.

Provide are an optical element that can improve a utilization efficiency of light while increasing an optical path length, an image display unit, and a head-mounted display. The optical element includes, in the following order: a first absorptive linearly polarizing plate; a first reflective linearly polarizing plate; a first retardation plate; a partially reflecting mirror that allows transmission of a part of incident light and reflects a part of the incident light; a second retardation plate; and a second reflective linearly polarizing plate, in which a turning direction of circularly polarized light that is reflected from the first reflective linearly polarizing plate in a case where light transmits through the first retardation plate and is incident into the first reflective linearly polarizing plate is opposite to a turning direction of circularly polarized light that is reflected from the second reflective linearly polarizing plate in a case where light transmits through the second retardation plate and is incident into the second reflective linearly polarizing plate.

An optical element is provided. The optical element includes a positive-C film including a liquid crystal (“LC”) layer. The optical element also includes a positive-A film. The optical element also includes a negative biaxial retardation film disposed between the positive-A film and the positive-C film.

Techniques are described for operating an optical system. In some embodiments, light associated with a world object is received at the optical system. Virtual image light is projected onto an eyepiece of the optical system. A portion of a system field of view of the optical system to be at least partially dimmed is determined based on information detected by the optical system. A plurality of spatially-resolved dimming values for the portion of the system field of view may be determined based on the detected information. The detected information may include light information, gaze information, and/or image information. A dimmer of the optical system may be adjusted to reduce an intensity of light associated with the world object in the portion of the system field of view according to the plurality of dimming values.

Polarization-based optical angle-filters disclosed herein can be engineered to transmit a prescribed amount of light as a function of incidence angle and azimuth. Such filters can transmit light without introducing artifacts, making them suitable for the image-path of an optical system. One example may include an angle-filter having an input circular polarizer, an analyzing circular polarizer, and a retarder positioned between the circular polarizers, the retarder having a thickness-direction retardation. The thickness-direction retardation of the retarder (R.sub.th) is selected to produce a prescribed angle-of-incidence dependent transmission function, and the circular polarizers reduce the amount of azimuth-dependence in the transmission function.

According to one embodiment, a display device includes a display panel configured to modulate a first polarization component, a first viewing angle control panel including a first liquid crystal layer containing twisted liquid crystal molecules, a second viewing angle control panel including a second liquid crystal layer containing twisted liquid crystal molecules, and a polarization axis rotation element provided between the first viewing angle control panel and the display panel. A second polarization axis of a second polarization component which passed through the first viewing angle control panel is different from a first polarization axis of the first polarization component. The polarization axis rotation element is configured to rotate the second polarization axis.

A display panel includes a second substrate. The second substrate includes a second base substrate and a shielding layer, an array structure layer, an insulating layer and a reflective layer which are sequentially disposed on a second base substrate, the array structure layer includes gate lines; the shielding layer includes a plurality of groups of light shielding units sequentially arranged along a first direction, each group of the light shielding units includes a plurality of independent sub-light shielding units sequentially arranged along a second direction, the reflective layer includes a plurality of reflective units arranged in an array, the plurality of reflective units form a plurality of reflective rows and a plurality of reflective columns, a first space area is formed between adjacent reflective columns, and a second space area is formed between adjacent reflective rows forms.

A touch display module includes a touch device and a polarizing element. The polarizing element includes a polarizer and a retardation film assembly. The retardation film assembly has a polarization ellipticity value (e-value), and the absolute value of the e-value is greater than 0.8. A reflection rate of the polarizing element is less than 6%, and a total reflection rate of the touch device and the polarizing element is less than 7%.