Most monitors sold today use a Twisted Nematic (TN) LCD panel. Thanks to the combination of low cost and rapid response time, TN displays are by far the most popular today.
Most monitors sold today use a Twisted Nematic (TN) LCD panel. The advantage of this LCD technology is that it is cheap to produce and that TN panels can change state quickly, giving them the best response time of all available LCD technologies. This makes the panels more appropriate for games that render fast image transitions. Thanks to the combination of low cost and rapid response time, TN displays are by far the most popular today.
How Does a TN LCD Work?
The discovery of the TN effect was a revolution in flat screen technology and for all intents and purposes is it what brought LCD technology into the mainstream. The effect means that the liquid crystals are controlled and restructured into different molecular configurations under the influence of an electrical field. It requires that the liquid crystals can be turned between “on” and “off” states. This is achieved by letting the current pass through layers of film (hence the name Thin Film Transistor, or TFT). Twisting it 90 degrees lets no light through, whereas another state lets though the specific sub-pixel colors red, green or blue (RGB). If the red, green and blue sub-pixels are all fully lit, the pixel turns white.
