Patent ID: 7009678

Claim:
A liquid crystal display device, comprising: a liquid crystal display element including a pair of substrates, a liquid crystal layer interposed between the pair of substrates, and an alignment film formed on a surface of at least one of the pair of substrates such that the alignment film faces the liquid crystal layer; a pair of polarizers disposed on both surfaces of the liquid crystal element to sandwich the liquid crystal element; and at least one optical phase element disposed between at least one of the pair of polarizers and the liquid crystal element, wherein an optical refractive ellipsoid of the optical phase element is tilted in a clockwise direction or a counterclockwise direction from the normal of a surface of the optical phase element, wherein conditions of the combination of a length of a mean alkyl chain of a liquid crystal material of the liquid crystal layer, a rate of variation of an ordinary refractive index no of the liquid crystal material with respect to wavelength, and a rate of variation of an extraordinary refractive index ne of the liquid crystal material with respect to a wavelength are set in a range wherein the length m of the mean alkyl chain (C m H 2m+1 —) of the liquid crystal material is set in range of 3.40≦m≦3.90, and the rate of variation among extraordinary light refractive indices ne (450), ne (550) and ne (650) of the liquid crystal material for light with wavelengths of 450 nm, 550 nm, and 650 nm, respectively, and the rate of variation among ordinary light refractive indices no (450), no (550) and no (650) for light with wavelengths of 450 nm 550 nm and 650 nm, respectively, are set in a range of 0.8≦(( no (450)− no (550))/( no (550)− no (650)))/(( ne (450)− ne (550))/( ne (550)− ne (650)))≦1.20.