PURPOSE: To lessen the difference in transmittance of respective visual angles from impressed voltage values and to widen a visual field angle by changing the voltage impressed to an electro-optic material layer within one pixel.

CONSTITUTION: A plasma cell 2 is formed with discharge channels 10 by forming plural grooves 26 in correspondence to respective pixel parts on a glass substrate 25 side of a dielectric sheet 3 and sealing an ionizable gas therein. These discharge channels 10 function as sampling switches and the liquid crystal layers 7 of the respective pixels function as sampling capacitors. The electro-chemical threshold changes as well according to a change in the thickness of the dielectric sheet 3 of the effective regions of the respective pixel parts. The rays from lighting parts 31 are limited in optical paths in light shielding parts 22. The rays emitted in the negative visual angle direction increasingly pass the regions of the large electro-chemical threshold of the liquid crystal layers 7. Consequently, the change in the transmittance with the impressed voltage at the respective visual angles in a perpendicular direction is made gentle and the difference in the transmittance at the respective visual angles for the prescribed impressed voltage values is reduced and the visual field angle is widened.