| abstract |
A liquid crystal optical device comprising a pair of substrates provided with electrodes and a layer containing a liquid crystal material sandwiched between the pair of substrates, wherein said layer is formed by irradiating light to a mixture of a liquid crystal material and a photo-curable compound selected so that the refractive index of the resulting cured product agrees to either the ordinary refractive index (n₀) or the extraordinary refractive index (n e ) of the liquid crystal material used, or the refractive index (n x ) of the liquid crystal material when it is randomly oriented, held between the pair of substrates provided with electrodes, to cure the photo-curable compound and fix the resulting phase separation of the liquid crystal material and the cured product, wherein said layer has at least a portion optically oriented by applying a voltage to the portion across the substrates during the irradiation of light to cure the photo-curable compound. |