Patent ID: 8289475

Claim:
A liquid crystal display apparatus comprising: a liquid crystal display device including a pair of substrates that are arranged so as to face to each other through a space with a plurality of electrodes formed on at least one of opposite surfaces, a liquid crystal layer sealed into the space between the substrates, and a pair of polarizing plates arranged sandwiching the pair of substrates therebetween; a surface light source to irradiate illumination light toward the liquid crystal display device; an optical film made of a transparent film-like member and having two mutually faced film surfaces, a first one of the two film surfaces being formed into a planar shape, and a second one of the two film surfaces being formed into a convexo-concave structure in which a plurality of elongate microprisms are arranged in parallel to each other, the optical film being disposed between the liquid crystal display device and the surface light source so that the first one of the two film surfaces is directed toward the liquid crystal display device; and a diffusion member disposed between the optical film and the liquid crystal display device, wherein the surface light source includes: a light guide plate which is made of a transparent plate-like member provided with an entrance end face where light enters and which has two plate surfaces, a first one of the two plate surfaces being formed as an exit face for the light that has entered through the entrance end face, and the light guide plate being disposed so that the exit face is directed toward the liquid crystal display device; a plurality of light emitting elements arranged to face the entrance end face of the light guide plate; and a first prism array disposed between the light guide plate and the optical film, wherein the first prism array is provided independently of the optical film and is provided with a plurality of elongate microprisms arranged in parallel to each other and configured to collect the light that has exited from the exit face of the light guide plate to apply the collected light to the liquid crystal display device, the first prism array being disposed so that a longitudinal direction of the microprisms of the first prism array is parallel to a normal direction of the entrance end face of the light guide plate, and wherein the first prism array is made of a transparent member whose surface facing the light guide plate is formed into a planar surface and whose opposite surface is formed into a prism surface provided with the plurality of microprisms, and the first prism array is disposed so that the longitudinal direction of the microprisms of the first prism array is parallel to a longitudinal direction of the microprisms of the optical film.