Patent ID: 6839110

Claim:
A liquid crystal display device, comprising: a liquid crystal display element including: a pair of substrates, a liquid crystal layer sandwiched by said substrates; a pair of polarizers disposed so as to sandwich said liquid crystal display element; and at least one phase difference plate, each of said at least one phase difference plate defining a surface and being disposed between said liquid crystal display element and said pair of polarizers; wherein (i) each of said at least one phase difference plate has three principal refractive indices n a , n b , and n c , (ii) said refractive indices are mutually related by the inequality n a <n b <n c , (iii) the direction of said principal refractive index n a coincides with the direction of a y-coordinate axis among x and y-coordinate axes on said surface, said y-coordinate axis being orthogonal to said normal, and (iv) the direction of said principal refractive index n b inclines relative to the normal to said surface and to the direction of said x-coordinate axis, and wherein the refractive index anisotropy Δn (550) of said liquid crystal material for rays of light having the wavelength of 550 nm is specified to be more than 0.060 and less than 0.120, and wherein the refractive index anisotropy of said liquid crystal material varies with other wavelengths of rays of light within a range that allows substantially no viewing angle dependent coloration to occur in an image displayed by said device.