Fabrication of a nano-wire grid polarizer for brightness enhancement in liquid crystal display

The brightness enhancement of liquid crystal displays (LCD) through polarization recycling was investigated by placing a nano-wire grid polarizer (NWGP) between an LCD panel and a backlight unit. NWGPs with a period of 200 nm were fabricated using laser interference lithography and oblique deposition of aluminium. We optimized the fabrication process and achieved a high transmission of above 90% and a contrast ratio of above 12.5 for the range of wavelengths corresponding to visible light. This condition led to a strong enhancement of the brightness in an LCD with NWGP, which was 1.3 times higher than that without NWGP.