The present invention relates to a flat panel display device, and more particularly to a structure of a columnar spacer for providing a predetermined gap between a pair of substrates, and a method for manufacturing the same.
A flat panel display device, particularly, a liquid crystal display device, has a liquid crystal material interposed between an array substrate and a counter substrate, each having an electrode. To keep the distance between the substrates constant, plastic beads of a uniform particle size, serving as spacers, are distributed between the substrates.
When the liquid crystal display device as described above is formed, spacers distributed on a substrate may form particles contaminating the manufacturing line, resulting in defect of the line or the products. In addition, spacers existing in a pixel area may cause alignment defect. Further, an agglomeration of spacers or ununiformity in distribution density may cause a problem that the gap between the substrate is non-uniform.
To overcome the above drawbacks, it is proposed to form columnar spacers in predetermined portions of an array substrate by a photolithography process.
Since a columnar spacer is liable to form an alignment defect region therearound, it may lower the image quality. Therefore, the columnar spacers are generally formed in a shield area of the display area. In order to prevent the aperture ratio from lowering or to achieve high definition, the shield area of the display area is restricted as small as possible. Therefore, it is preferable that the columnar spacer be as small as possible; however, if the columnar spacer is small, the process margin will be lowered. Thus, it is difficult both to prevent the manufacture yield from lowering and to improve the display performance.
The present invention has been developed to eliminate the above drawbacks, and its object is to provide a flat panel display device and a method for manufacturing the same, in which the display performance is high and the manufacturing yield is prevented from lowering.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a flat panel display device comprising:
a pair of substrates facing each other;
a spacer, made of photosensitive material, for providing a gap between the pair of substrates; and
a display medium arranged in the gap,
at least one of the pair of substrates having a lightproof region including a linear portion, and the spacer being arranged in the linear portion and having a shape a longitudinal axis of which extends along the linear portion and which has a recessed portion narrower than the linear portion.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a flat panel display device comprising:
a pair of substrates facing each other;
a spacer, made of photosensitive material, for providing a gap between the pair of substrates; and
a display medium arranged in the gap,
the spacer having a recessed portion in a plan view.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for manufacturing a flat panel display device comprising the steps of:
forming a photosensitive spacer material on a first substrate;
exposing the spacer material using a mask having a predetermined pattern and developing the exposed spacer material; and
adhering the first substrate to a second substrate,
the mask having the predetermined pattern for exposing the spacer material to a shape having a recessed portion in a plan view.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.