Patent ID: 7557881

Claim:
A method for increasing the viewing angle of a liquid crystal display, consisting essentially of the steps of: providing a first substrate with alignment film having a first polarizer laminated on an outside surface, wherein the first polarizer faces a light source; providing a second substrate with alignment film having a second polarizer laminated on an outside surface, wherein the second polarizer faces an observer; sandwiching a liquid crystal layer between the first substrate and the second substrate; applying a positive birefringence uniaxial A-film, having its optical axis parallel to the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film surface plane and having a retardation value dΔn/λ between approximately 0.05 and approximately 0.25, where λ is the wavelength of incident light, d is the thickness of the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film and Δn=n e −n o is birefringence of the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film, between the liquid crystal layer and one of the first polarizer and the second polarizer; and applying a negative birefringence uniaxial A-film having its optical axis parallel to the negative birefringence uniaxial A-film surfaee plane, directly adjacent to the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film, wherein the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film and the negative birefringence uniaxial A-film are located between the first polarizer and the second polarizer laminated on one of the first and second substrates within the liquid crystal display without a polarizer beam splitter, and wherein the optical axis of the positive birefringence uniaxial A-film is approximately perpendicular to the optical axis of the negative birefringence uniaxial A-film.