Homeotropic liquid crystal display device

Claim 1

A homeotropic liquid crystal display device comprising: a homeotropic liquid crystal cell including a pair of parallel substrates provided with electrodes and a nematic liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the pair of substrates, wherein liquid crystal molecules of said liquid crystal cell have a negative dielectric anisotropy, are oriented substantially orthogonal to the substrate in the absence of an electric field exhibiting a positive optical anisotropy, and are deviated from the orthogonal direction when a voltage is applied between the electrodes thereby exhibiting birefringence; a pair of crossed polarizers disposed to sandwich the homeotropic liquid crystal cell, said polarizers having polarization axes mutually crossing orthogonally; and anisotropy compensating means disposed between the liquid crystal cell and at least one of the polarizers, said compensating means including at least two sheets of anisotropic film, the optic axes of said two sheets of film being relatively rotated to make an angle of about 90 degrees in a plane parallel to the substrate, and exhibiting, in total, a negative optical anisotropy with an axis along the normal of the substrate which compensates the positive optical anisotropy of the liquid crystal layer when oriented homeotropically.