Course Objectives Helping students to understand the liquid crystal optoelectronic materials and their applications, and to provide the basic knowledge of liquid crystal researches in academic and industrial fields, is the main course objective. In addition to the introduction of the electro-optical properties of liquid crystals from the theoretical point of view, the contents of the course also include the basic knowledge about the display in people's daily life. Also, the latest research results worldwide will be given in this course. Personal seminar, used to improve student's ability of oral presentation and to present the newly published journal papers, is another key point for the student.  

Prerequisite

Textbook "Optics of Liquid Crystal Displays”, Pochi Yeh and Claire Gu, ISBN 0-471-18201-X; WILEY; "Reflective Liquid Crystal Displays”, Shin-Tson Wu and Deng-Ke Yang, ISBN 0-471-49611-1; WILEY; “Liquid Crystal Displays”, Ernst Lueder, ISBN 0-471-49029-6; WILEY; "Fundamentals of Liquid Crystal Devices”, Deng-Ke Yang and Shin-Tson Wu, ISBN 10 0-470-01542-X; WILEY

Topical Outline 1. Electromagnetic Waves;
2. Introduction to Liquid Crystals (LCs);
3. Survey of LCDs: Electro-Optical Properties of LCs;
4. Jones Calculus: Matrix Representation of Polarization;
5. Brightness Enhancement of LCDs;
6. Alignments of LCs;
7. Fast Response LCs;
8. Wide-Viewing Angle;
9. TFT-LCDs, Color Filters, and Cell Assembly.