Eletrophoretic switching device with liquid crystalline dispersion medium and method of producing the same

摘要

An optical switching device (10) includes two parallel substrates (11,12) having at least a pair of electrodes (14,15) on mutually opposing inner surfaces thereof or on one of the inner surfaces. A liquid crystalline material layer (13) is sealed between the substrates. The liquid crystalline material layer (13) contains an insoluble light-control medium (16) having an outer diameter smaller than the thickness of the liquid crystalline material layer. When an electric field is applied between the electrodes (14,15), the light-control medium (16) moves to form a region in which the light-control medium is densely dispersed and a region in which the light-control medium is sparsely dispersed, thereby producing a transmittance difference to effect light control. Because the loss of light transmitting through the optical switching device is extremely small, high-contrast and extremely bright display can be obtained without using a polarizing plate. <IMAGE>