Teijin taking advantage of 3D craze

Teijin Chemicals Ltd. reports its goal is to double sales of its polycarbonate (PC) retardation film in the current fiscal year ending in March 2011, compared with the previous fiscal year. The supplier, based in Tokyo, began full-scale supply of PC retardation film for circular polarizer 3D glasses in mid-2009 and quickly became market leader. 

A spokesperson at the supplier, in response to questions from MPW, said the company does not release figures for the total market demand for these films, nor Teijin's own production capacity for specific types of films, but did say that of Teijin's total sales volume of PC retardation film, approximately 25% is currently from circular polarizer 3D glasses.

The circular polarizing system is the main method for screening 3D movies and Teijin expects it also to be adopted for 3D television. 3D systems deliver different images to the left and right eyes, which are reconstructed in the brain as a single stereoscopic image. In the circular polarizing system, left- and right-eye images are generated with the polarized light at different rotation direction. Circular polarizer 3D glasses made with retardation film and polarizer ensure that left and right images are transmitted only to the intended eye, with unwanted images being absorbed.

Teijin is a PC supplier but, for these films, is completely integrated with its own extrusion and converting operations, and says it is expanding these downstream operations to handle the expected demand increase. The company's PC retardation film has already been used for liquid crystal displays and demand is increasing demand for these films in organic electroluminescent displays in mobile phones. —Matt Defosse