Liquid crystal display having optical compensatory sheet with negative uniaxial property and an optical axis parallel to the plane of the sheet

Claim 1

A liquid crystal display comprising a liquid crystal cell of an in-plane switching mode which comprises a pair of transparent substrates which are arranged parallel to each other and at least one of which is provided with an electrode thereon and liquid crystal sealed there between, a polarizing sheet arranged at least on one side of the cell, the liquid crystal aligning parallel to planes of the substrates and varying its direction of molecular major axis in a plane parallel to the planes of the substrates under variation of voltage applied to the liquid crystal cell; wherein an optical compensatory sheet is provided between at least one side of the liquid crystal cell and the polarizing sheet, and the optical compensatory sheet having an optically negative uniaxial property and an optic axis parallel to a plane of the optical compensatory sheet, and wherein the optical compensatory sheet satisfies the conditions of: 20≦( n x −n y )× d≦ 1000   (1) 0≦|( n x −n z )× d≦ 200   (2) in which n x and n y are main refractive indices within the sheet, n z is a main refractive index in the thickness direction of the sheet, and d is the thickness in terms of nm of the sheet.