It is an object of the present invention to miniaturize a reflective liquid crystal projector to such a degree that it can be built in a small-sized apparatus such as a portable telephone terminal.
Laser light beams (1R), (1G), (1B) are diffused and shaped by diffractive optical devices (21R), (21G), (21B) such that they are introduced to corresponding pixels of a liquid crystal layer (41) over an overall area of a display region of a reflective liquid crystal panel (40).
The diffused and shaped laser light beams (2R), 2(G), 2(B) are introduced to the reflective liquid crystal panel (40) through a field lens (31) and a polarizing beam splitter (33). Red, green and blue pixels are formed on the reflective liquid crystal panel (40), and a microlens array is formed on an incoming and outgoing side substrate (50) while reflecting layers corresponding to the pixels are formed on a reflection side substrate (60). The laser light fluxes of the colors are distributed and condensed by the microlenses and introduced to the corresponding pixels and then reflected by the corresponding reflecting layers.
Also it is possible to use refractive optical devices in place of the diffractive optical devices.