The degradation of less than all of the pixels of a polymer display may be monitored and the uniformity of the display may be adjusted by either overdriving a given pixel or reducing the light output of other pixels in the display. In this way, the display's lifetime may be maximized without incurring pixel non-uniformity. In addition, the characteristics of the display may be monitored over time in order to provide the user with an early warning of imminent display failure.

Numerous embodiments of a method of adjusting the color balance of a display are disclosed. in one embodiment, the color balance of a display is adjusted by modulating two selected colors so that at some point during the modulation the two colors appear substantially the same an the display, and the modulation is adjusted to change the point at which the colors appear substantially the same. The color balance of the display is modified based, at least in part, on a measurement of the modulation adjustment. In another embodiment of a method of adjusting the color balance of a display, the luminance and/or chromaticity of a color from the color space of the display is modified, and luminance and/or chromaticity of a color from a reference color space is modulated, where the applied modulation over time of the two colors are mirror images with respect to each other. The modulation is adjusted so that the colors appear substantially the same at a selected point during the modulation of both colors, and the color balance of the display is modified based, at least in part, on a measurement of the modulation adjustment.

A liquid crystal display device comprises two substrates facing and spaced from each other, at least one of the substrates being transparent; an electro-optical material filling a first portion of the space between the substrates, the electro-optical material comprising molecules whose spatial orientation can be altered by application of an electric field across the two substrates; and a polymeric material filling a second portion of the space between the substrates, the polymeric material having been polymerized in situ between the plates, wherein the polymeric material forms a multiplicity of microscopic polymer columns extending between the two substrates, and the columns provide both a structural bond between the two substrates for maintaining the spacing between the substrates and alignment of the molecules of the electro-optical material, with the alignment resulting from the close spacing of the microscopic columns. A method to fabricate electro-optical displays having two facing substrates, electro-optical material in the space between the substrates, and in-situ polymerized microscopic columns extending between the substrates is also disclosed.