A method to improve the reflection efficiency of holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal (HPDLC) is proposed and its effectiveness is confirmed. Controlling the alignment of liquid crystal (LC) in tiny droplets of HPDLC can increase the refractive-index difference between the LC droplet layer and the polymer layer, causing the peak reflectance and reflective spectral width to expand. We observed experimentally that 96% of the light components excluding the scattering loss can be diffracted in a transmission HPDLC device by ordering the LC. In a reflection HPDLC, we found that reflection could be improved by ordering through an applied shear force. Our findings should lead to an improvement in the quality of reflective display devices.

Memory type polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) can be applied to a thermal addressing display device cell. Making use of its easy fabrication of large area display using flexible film substrate, the PDLC film can be used as reusable paper for direct-view mode display. In this study, memory type PDLC cells are prepared with an aluminum reflector deposited onto one side of the substrate and the reflection property in the PDLC cell with the reflector is clarified and compared to that without the reflector in the off-, on- and memory-states. The increase of contrast ratio and the decrease of driving voltage can be concurrently realized by decreasing the cell thickness by attaching the reflector. In addition, the reflected light in the off-state is bright and colorless due to the reflector, as compared with the weak, bluish reflected light in the cell without the reflector. Reflected light in the on-state and the memory-state are tinged with blue.