Patent ID: 7868977

Claim:
A transmissive optically compensated bend (OCB) liquid crystal display device comprising: a liquid crystal panel including red, green and blue color pixels, each of which is configured to include a liquid crystal layer held between a pair of substrates, the liquid crystal layer including liquid crystal molecules which in a display state are bend-oriented between the pair of substrate, a voltage adjusting mechanism to supply driving voltages to the red, green and blue color pixels, a pair of polarizer plates disposed at outer surfaces of the liquid crystal panel respectively, each having respective transmission axes which intersect at right angles with respect to each other; and a pair of optical compensation elements that optically compensate retardation of the liquid crystal layer in a predetermined display state in which a voltage is applied to the liquid crystal layer, each of the optical compensation elements disposed at outer surfaces of the liquid crystal panel respectively, wherein an image is displayed by varying a birefringence amount due to liquid crystal molecules included in the liquid crystal layer by the voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer, at least one of the optical compensation elements includes at least a first phase plate and a second phase plate, which have retardation in a front-plane direction and which respectively have an optical axis in a direction perpendicular to a direction of an orientation of the liquid crystal molecules, and when a value Δn/Δnλ is set by normalizing a retardation amount Δn·d relating to light of each of wavelengths (Δn=ne−no (ne: extraordinary-ray refractive index, no: ordinary-ray refractive index), and d is thickness) by a retardation amount Δnλ·d relating to light of a predetermined wavelength λ, a normalized value Δn/Δnλ in the first phase plate is greater than a normalized value Δn/Δnλ in the liquid crystal layer, and a normalized value Δn/Δnλ in the second phase plate is less than the normalized value Δn/Δnλ in the liquid crystal layer, with respect to light of wavelengths other than the predetermined wavelength and, wherein the voltage adjusting mechanism is configured to individually adjust the driving voltages in each color pixels in order to display a black image.