Patent ID: 8339538

Claim:
A display device comprising: a planar light source for emitting light in a plane; a light-direction restricting element arranged parallel to said planar light source, including a light-exiting surface for emitting light incident from said planar light source and provided with a plurality of transparent areas and a plurality of light-absorbing areas, wherein said plurality of transparent areas and said plurality of light-absorbing areas are arranged in alternating fashion in a first direction parallel to said light-exiting surface; a transparent/scattering state switching element arranged parallel to said light-direction restricting element and capable of switching between a state for transmitting a light incident from the light-direction restricting element and a state for scattering the light, said transparent/scattering state switching element having an anisotropic scattering property that causes said transparent/scattering state switching element to scatter a transmitted light to different degrees depending on directions parallel to a surface for emitting light when said transparent/scattering state switching element is in said state for transmitting an incident light; and a display panel which is arranged parallel to said transparent/scattering state switching element and displays an image by transmitting the light incident from said transparent/scattering state switching element, and in which a plurality of pixels are arranged in a matrix in a second direction and a third direction orthogonal to said second direction, said second direction and said third direction being different from said first direction; wherein said transparent/scattering state switching element scatters said light to a greatest degree in a fourth direction among said directions parallel to said surface of said transparent/scattering state switching element for emitting said light, the arrangement direction of moiré created by overlap of said display panel and said light-direction restricting element is set substantially to said third direction by arranging said light-direction restricting element and said display panel in such a manner than an angle between said first direction and said second direction is greater than 0 degrees and not exceeding 20 degrees, light is scattered and said moiré is obscured in the arrangement direction of said moiré by arranging said light-direction restricting element and said display panel in such a manner that said fourth direction accords with an arrangement direction of moiré, and said display device has only one of said light-direction restricting element.