Method and device for measuring cell gap of liquid crystal display using near-IR radiation

• US 6,636,322 B1
• Filed: 05/04/2000
• Issued: 10/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Terashita, Shinichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Turner, Samuel A.
• Application Number:
  US09/565,075
• Time in Patent Office: 1,265 Days
• Field of Search: 356/505, 356/506, 356/503, 356/504, 356/485, 356/492, 356/496
• US Class Current: 356/492
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/02 for measuring length, width or thickness G01B11/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/0641 with measurement of polarization
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/14 for measuring distance or clearance between spaced objects or spaced apertures G01B11/26 takes precedence; rangefinders G01C3/00
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/1309 Repairing; Testing

Abstract

A method and device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display, the display comprising a pair of substrates with electrodes adhered together forming a predetermined sized cell gap. The device and method includes radiating near-infrared light toward the liquid crystal cell, reflectively interfering the near-infrared light by the cell gap, and analyzing the interference waveform to compute the cell gap size. The device may include an X-Y stage, an FT-NIR spectroscope using near-infrared light as light source, a detector unit for detecting reflected interference light from the liquid crystal cell, and an analyzing computer unit for analyzing and computing cell gap by performing Fourier transformation method or maximum entropy method (MEM) to the interference fringe spectrum.

Claims

1. A method for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display equipped with a liquid crystal cell, including a pair of substrates with electrodes, that is adhered together to form a cell gap with a predetermined size, and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between said pair of substrates with electrodes;

wherein said cell gap is measured by radiating near-infrared light to a liquid crystal cell, reflectively interfering said near-infrared light by said cell gap, and analyzing the obtained interference waveform to compute said cell gap.

2. A device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display comprising:

an X-Y-Z stage to which said liquid crystal display including a liquid crystal cell to be measured is set;

an FT-NIR spectroscope utilizing near-infrared light as light source;

a detector unit for detecting the reflected interference light from said liquid crystal cell; and

an analysis computing unit for analyzing the spectrum of the obtained interference fringe and computing said cell gap based on a peak picking method which measures the interval between a peak and a trough of the spectrum, a Fourier transformation method, or a maximum entropy method (MEM).

3. The device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display according to claim 2, wherein said liquid crystal cell to be measured is either a liquid crystal cell having liquid crystal material injected to said cell gap, or a liquid crystal cell having no liquid crystal material injected thereto.

4. The device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display according to claim 2, wherein said liquid crystal cell to be measured includes a color filter, transparent electrodes and a perpendicular orientation film or a horizontal orientation film laminated on one glass substrate, and liquid crystal driver elements, picture element electrodes and an orientation film laminated on another substrate.

5. The device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display according to claim 2, wherein said liquid crystal display equipped with the liquid crystal cell to be measured is either a transmission-type liquid crystal display or a reflection-type liquid crystal display utilizing driver elements such as TFT or PALC.

6. The device for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display according to claim 2, wherein said liquid crystal cell to be measured comprises liquid crystal molecules having TN, STN, vertical (VA), or hybrid-aligned nematic (HAN) orientation.

7. A method for measuring cell gap of a liquid crystal display, the display including a cell gap defined between at least a pair of substrates of the display, the method comprising:

measuring said cell gap by radiating near-infrared energy toward a liquid crystal cell, reflectively interfering said near-infrared energy by said cell gap, and analyzing an obtained interference waveform to compute said cell gap.

8. A method of making a liquid crystal display, the method comprising:

sandwiching a liquid crystal layer between at least a pair of substrates so as to define a cell gap; and

measuring said cell gap by radiating near-infrared energy toward a liquid crystal cell, reflectively interfering said near-infrared energy by said cell gap, and analyzing an obtained interference waveform to compute said cell gap.