Optical configuration of a horizontal-switching liquid-crystal cell for improvement of the viewing angle

We propose an optical configuration of a horizontal-switching liquid-crystal cell, consisting of a splayed liquid-crystal cell and uniaxial films, to improve the viewing angle characteristics by compensating for the phase dispersion in a diagonal direction. The optical design of the proposed configuration was performed on a Poincaré sphere with geometric calculations. By fabricating in-plane switching cells with the introduced configuration, we demonstrated their optical performances. As a result, we found that the diagonal viewing angle of the proposed horizontal-switching cell could be increased by 80% compared to a symmetrical viewing cone.