Abstract: There is disclosed a liquid crystal display device which utilizes an elliptical mirror to present a magnified image of a light trap across the surface of a liquid crystal display element which is positioned with respect to the mirror and the light trap so as to simultaneously receive both ambient and auxiliary illumination on the surface of the display element from the mirror at angles where liquid crystal scattering is most effective. The auxiliary light source may be positioned adjacent to the light trap. The display element is positioned such that the viewing angle for the observer is below the horizontal line from the observer to the plane of the display element.

Abstract: A liquid crystal device biased by an alternating current having a predetermined frequency higher than the dispersion frequency of the liquid crystal material. The liquid crystal device exhibits inherent capacitance across its input terminals which is resonated by an inductor to result in a higher bias current and reduction of image smear of images displayed by such device.