Liquid crystal display including a diffusion layer for improving gray level inversion

1. A liquid crystal display of a single-domain TN mode, comprising an array substrate with electrodes provided independently for individual pixels, an counter substrate that is disposed to be opposed to the array substrate, a liquid crystal layer that is held between the array substrate and the counter substrate and includes liquid crystal molecules, polarizer plates that are disposed on outer surfaces of the array substrate and the counter substrate respectively, and a diffusion layer that is disposed between a surface of the counter substrate and a surface of the polarizer plate,

wherein inversion of luminance at respective gray levels occurs within four levels of 64 gray levels in a case where an off-axis angle toward a major-axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules relative to a normal of the counter substrate is within 50°.

2. The liquid crystal display according to claim 1 , wherein the inversion of luminance at respective gray levels occurs within four levels of 64 gray levels in a case where an off-axis angle toward all azimuth directions relative to the normal is within 40°.

3. The liquid crystal display according to claim 1 , wherein the diffusion layer is configured such that the degree of diffusion of transmission light, which passes in one direction, has a maximum value at a predetermined off-axis angle toward a predetermined axial direction relative to the normal of the diffusion layer.

4. The liquid crystal display according to claim 3 , wherein the diffusion layer is disposed such that said predetermined axial direction coincides with the major-axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules.

5. The liquid crystal display according to claim 3 , wherein the predetermined off-axis angle is in a range between 15° and 55°.

6. The liquid crystal display according to claim 3 , wherein the maximum value of the degree of diffusion is between 85% and 99%.

7. The liquid crystal display according to claim 3 , wherein the diffusion layer has a degree of diffusion of 75% or less in the normal direction of the diffusion layer.

8. The liquid crystal display according to claim 1 , wherein the polarizer plate includes the diffusion layer.

9. The liquid crystal display according to claim 1 , further comprising a viewing-angle compensation layer that is disposed between the surface of the counter substrate and the surface of the polarizer plate.

10. A liquid crystal display of a single-domain TN mode, comprising an array substrate with electrodes provided independently for individual pixels, an counter substrate that is disposed to be opposed to the array substrate, a liquid crystal layer that is held between the array substrate and the counter substrate and includes liquid crystal molecules, polarizer plates that are disposed on outer surfaces of the array substrate and the counter substrate respectively, and a diffusion layer that is disposed between a surface of the counter substrate and a surface of the polarizer plate,

wherein the diffusion layer is configured such that the degree of diffusion of transmission light, which passes in one direction, has a maximum value at a predetermined off-axis angle toward a predetermined axial direction relative to the normal of the diffusion layer, and the diffusion layer is disposed such that said predetermined axial direction coincides with the major-axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules.

11. A liquid crystal display of a single-domain TN mode, comprising an array substrate with electrodes provided independently for individual pixels, an counter substrate that is disposed to be opposed to the array substrate, a liquid crystal layer that is held between the array substrate and the counter substrate and includes liquid crystal molecules, polarizer plates that are disposed on outer surfaces of the array substrate and the counter substrate respectively, and a diffusion layer that is disposed between a surface of the counter substrate and a surface of the polarizer plate,

wherein the degree of diffusion of the diffusion layer is 80% or more in a case where an off-axis angle toward a major-axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules relative to a normal of the counter substrate is in a range between 30° and 50°, and the degree of diffusion of the diffusion layer is less than 80% in a case where the off-axis angle toward the major-axis direction of the liquid crystal molecules relative to the normal of the counter substrate is in a range between 0° and 30° and in a range over 50°.