Patent ID: 7787077

Claim:
A liquid crystal display apparatus comprising: a first substrate; a second substrate; a reflective polarizer, mounted on said first substrate and having a first transmission axis and a first reflection axis at right angles to each other, for transmitting linearly polarized light vibrating in a plane parallel to said first transmission axis and for reflecting linearly polarized light vibrating in a plane parallel to said first reflection axis; a polarizer, mounted on said second substrate and having a second transmission axis, for transmitting linearly polarized light vibrating in a plane parallel to said second transmission axis; and a liquid crystal layer provided between said first and second substrates, and having a first mode which causes the direction of polarization of incident light to change by utilizing birefringence and a second mode which does not utilize birefringence and therefore does not cause the direction of polarization of incident light to change, wherein said liquid crystal layer maintains first and second stable states in the absence of an applied voltage, and one of said first and second stable states is set as said second mode, a display state is switched between a bright display state and a dark display state by applying a voltage to said liquid crystal layer, and said bright display state is produced by driving said liquid crystal layer in said second mode.