Patent ID: 8269915

Claim:
A liquid crystal display apparatus comprising: a liquid crystal display device including a pair of substrates that are arranged so as to face each other through a gap with a plurality of electrodes formed on at least one of surfaces facing each other, a liquid crystal layer sealed into the gap between the substrates, and a pair of polarizing plates arranged so as to sandwich the pair of substrates therebetween; a surface light source to irradiate illumination light toward the liquid crystal display device; and an optical member, having a transmission axis and a reflection axis perpendicular to each other, to reflect linearly polarized light having a plane of vibration of light parallel to the reflection axis, and to transmit linearly polarized light having a plane of vibration of light parallel to the transmission axis, the optical member being arranged between the liquid crystal display device and the surface light source in such a manner that the reflection axis of the optical member faces a direction that crosses an absorption axis of one of the pair of polarizing plates arranged between the liquid crystal display device and the surface light source at an angle falling within the range of 15° to 90°; wherein the surface light source includes: a light guide plate that is formed of a transparent tabular member, has an entrance end face that is composed of an end face of the tabular member and through which light enters and an exit face that is composed of one of two plate faces of the tabular member and through which light that has entered exits, and is arranged so that the exit face faces the liquid crystal display device; a reflection film, provided on an opposite side of the exit face of the light guide plate, to reflect light that has entered the light guide plate through the entrance end face and light that has entered the light guide plate through the exit face toward the exit face; a light-emitting device arranged so as to face the entrance end face of the light guide plate; and at least one prism array arranged on an exit face side of the light guide plate and provided with a plurality of elongated small prisms arranged in parallel to each other and configured to collect light that has exited the light guide plate through the exit face to apply the collected light to the liquid crystal display device; and wherein the optical member is formed of a reflective polarizing film with prisms that is provided with a plurality of elongated small prisms that are arranged in parallel to each other and aligned in a direction perpendicular to the reflection axis on a surface facing the liquid crystal display device, and a prism array that is included in the at least one prism array and adjacent to the reflective polarizing film with prisms is arranged in such a manner that a longitudinal direction of a plurality of small prisms of the prism array adjacent to the reflective polarizing film with prisms is perpendicular to a longitudinal direction of the small prisms of the reflective polarizing film with prisms.