Patent ID: 7289177

Claim:
A reflective liquid crystal projection apparatus comprising: a light source; means for polarizing incident light from the light source; a reflective liquid crystal element optically modulating the first polarized light passed through the means for polarizing incident light into second polarized light and reflecting the second polarized light; means for polarizing the second polarized light reflected by the reflective liquid crystal element; and a phase difference compensating plate disposed between the reflective liquid crystal element and the means for polarizing incident light and reflected light in a light path of the light emitted from the light source, the reflective liquid crystal projection apparatus projecting a picture image formed in the reflective liquid crystal element by the second polarized light passing through the means for polarizing reflected light, and wherein the phase difference compensating plate has no anisotropy in a plane parallel direction and has a refractive index in the plane parallel direction larger than another refractive index in the thickness direction, and is slightly tilted with respect to the reflective liquid crystal element, and wherein the phase difference compensating plate is slightly tilted by an angle of θ degrees with respect to the reflective liquid crystal element, and further wherein the angle θ is approximately equal to another angle θ 1 that is an angle of a major axis of a liquid crystal molecule of the reflective liquid crystal element with respect to a line normal to the surface of the reflective liquid crystal element.