Homeotropic liquid crystal cell with one or more compensator plates with a small birefringence

A liquid crystal display comprising a liquid crystal cell of a vertical alignment mode, an optical compensatory sheets arranged on one side of the liquid crystal cell and two polarizing elements arranged on the liquid crystal cell and the optical compensatory sheet, said liquid crystal cell containing liquid crystal molecules, which are essentially vertically aligned while not applying voltage to the cell, and are essentially horizontally aligned while applying voltage to the cell,

• wherein the optical compensatory sheet comprises a transparent substrate and an optically anisotropic layer containing a discotic compound, said optically anisotropic layer having an optical anisotropy to optically compensate an optical anisotropy of the liquid crystal cell while applying voltage to the cell, and said optical compensatory sheet having a retardation value in plane in the range of -10 to 10 nm.

An optical compensatory sheet comprising a transparent substrate and an optically anisotropic layer containing a discotic compound,

• wherein the optically anisotropic layer and the transparent substrate are so arranged that a slow axis of the optically anisotropic layer is essentially perpendicular to a slow axis of the transparent substrate, and each of the optically anisotropic layer and the transparent substrate has retardation in plane satisfying the following formula:
• .vertline.Re.sup.1 -Re.sup.2 .vertline..ltoreq.10 nm
• in which Re.sup.1 is an absolute retardation value in plane of the optically anisotropic layer and Re.sup.2 is an absolute retardation value in plane of the transparent substrate.