Patent ID: 8334937

Claim:
A liquid crystal projector comprising: a light source unit having first, second, and third lasers that emit a red laser light beam, a green laser light beam, and a blue laser light beam, respectively, each of the first, second, and third lasers being a semiconductor laser or a solid-state laser; a liquid crystal display panel having a liquid crystal layer, including a red pixel, a green pixel, and a blue pixel, between an incidence side substrate and an emission side substrate, and a microlens array made of microlenses on the incidence side substrate; a light beam diffusing and shaping optical element that diffuses and shapes the red, green, and blue laser light beams emitted from the light source unit by light diffraction or refraction such that the red, green, and blue laser light beams are each spread over an entire display area of the liquid crystal display panel and are incident on corresponding pixels of the liquid crystal layer of the liquid crystal display panel; a lens system that converts the red, green, and blue laser light beams diffused and shaped by the light beam diffusing and shaping optical element into beams of substantially collimated light, and making the substantially collimated beams incident on the microlenses of the liquid crystal display panel; and a projection lens that projects image light passed through the liquid crystal display panel, wherein, an angle of divergence of each of the red, green, and blue laser light beams diffused and shaped by the light beam diffusing and shaping optical element is one degree or smaller, and a diameter of each of the red, blue, and green laser light beams incident on the light beam diffusing and shaping optical element is set such as to obtain the angle of divergence of one degree or smaller.