Patent ID: 7898628

Claim:
A liquid crystal display device comprising: a pair of transparent substrates; a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the pair of transparent substrates; a pair of polarizing plates placed opposite to each other through the pair of transparent substrates; and a pixel electrode and a common electrode placed apart from each other on one of the pair of transparent substrates; wherein the light transmissivity of the liquid crystal layer is controlled by the electric field generated between the pixel electrode and the common electrode; and wherein the liquid crystal display device further satisfies following items (a)-(d) (a) the product (Δn·d) of the thickness d of the liquid crystal layer and the refractive index anisotropy Δn of the liquid crystal layer is within the range of 320 nm±20 nm; (b) each of the pair of polarizing plates is composed of a polarizer and transparent protective films sandwiching the polarizer therebetween, and the polarizing plate and the transparent substrate are directly stuck together without any retardation film or optical compensation layer interposed therebetween; (c) the delay phase axis of one of the transparent protective films that protects the liquid crystal layer side of the polarizing plate is generally parallel with the absorption axis of the polarizer in each of the pair of polarizing plates; and (d) the in-plane retardation Re, which is defined by the equation Re=(nx−ny)×df, is equal to or less than 10 nm, and the retardation in thickness direction Rth, which is defined by the equation Rth={(nx+ny)/2−nz}×df, is no less than 30 nm and no greater than 40 nm, wherein nz is a refractive index in Z axis direction when the Z axis is the thickness direction, nx is a refractive index in X axis direction when the X axis is the direction of the largest refractive index in the plane orthogonal to the Z axis, and ny is a refractive index in Y axis direction when the Y axis is the direction orthogonal to both Z axis and X axis, for the transparent protective films that protects the liquid crystal layer side of the polarizer in each of the pair of polarizing plates.