The invention provides a liquid crystal display device that can improve
light efficiency by adopting cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) as a black
matrix and as a polarizer. The cholesteric liquid crystal selectively
reflects or transmits the light emitted from the backlight device.
Accordingly, the light from the backlight device is converted into a given
direction of circularly polarized light by the cholesteric liquid crystal
polarizer and enters CLC color filters. Some portion of the circularly
polarized light impinges on, and is reflected by, the CLC back matrix and
reflected again and again by a reflective plate of the backlight device
and by the CLC polarizer. This reflected circularly polarized light
finally passes through the CLC polarizer and through the CLC color
filters. Therefore, a high brightness, a good contrast and a superior
light efficiency are attained.
