Patent ID: 7810935

Claim:
A display unit, comprising: a light modulation unit that includes an effective area and an illumination area, and modulates an illumination light entering the effective area without modulating an illumination light entering the illumination area, a plurality of effective image modulation areas being set in the effective area, with each effective image modulation area being surrounded by a portion of the illumination area; a light-emitting unit that includes a plurality of light-emitting areas that can be made to emit a light or stop emitting a light, the plurality of light emitting areas being substantially similar in outline shape to the plurality of effective image modulation areas set in the effective area; a critical illumination system that guides, as the illumination light, a luminous flux as a result of light emission of the light-emitting unit onto the effective image modulation areas in the effective area of the light modulation unit and their respective illumination areas, wherein: the plurality of effective image modulation areas include a first effective image modulation area, a second effective image modulation area, and a third effective image modulation area, the illumination area includes a plurality of illumination areas, the portion of the illumination area surrounding the first effective image modulation area includes a partial portion of the second effective image modulation area and a partial portion of the third effective image modulation area when modulating only light entering the first effective image modulation area, the first effective image modulation area has a length-to-width ratio of 9:16, and the second effective image modulation area and the third effective image modulation area having dimensions, such that their combination with the first effective image modulation area results in a combined effective area having a length-to-width ratio of 3:4, the plurality of light emitting areas includes a first light-emitting layer, a second light-emitting layer, and a third light-emitting layer, each shaped so as to be substantially similar to the outline shape of the first effective image modulation area, second effective image modulation area and third effective image modulation areas, respectively.