Patent ID: 7499134

Claim:
A liquid crystal display apparatus comprising: a liquid crystal display panel which includes a first substrate, a second substrate arranged opposite to the first substrate with a gap, a liquid crystal layer held between the first and second substrates and made of liquid crystal having negative anisotropic dielectric constant, a plurality of pixel electrodes arranged on the first substrate in the form of a matrix, in a first direction and a second direction intersecting with the first direction at right angles, each pixel electrode having a major axis extending in the first direction, and a plurality of projections provided on the second substrate, overlapping the pixel electrodes, spaced from side of the pixel electrode as measured in the first direction, projecting toward the first substrate and configured to control a direction in which liquid crystal molecules align; and an optical unit which includes a first optical unit provided outside the first substrate and configured to receive light and emits the light, as circularly polarized light, to the liquid crystal display panel, and a second optical unit provided outside the second substrate and configured to emit the circularly polarized light coming through the liquid crystal display panel and emits the light as linearly polarized light, the major axis of each pixel electrode being 160 μm or less long, value obtained by dividing a height of the projections by a gap d between the first and second substrates being 0.14 to 0.6, the projections being 15 μm or less wide as measured in the first direction, and MIN (la, lb)/d<10, where 1a is the shortest distance between a position coordinate of a pixel electrode of the pixel electrodes and one of the projections, which overlaps the pixel electrode, lb is the shortest distance between the position coordinate and an end of the pixel electrode that is closer to the position coordinate than any other pixel electrode, and MIN (la, lb) is the shorter of the these distances la and lb.