Optical film and optical elements

Abstract

An optical film is disclosed which is reduced in diffuse reflection while retaining anisotropy in the scattering of a linearly polarized light and is practically usable in a light diffuser film or viewing-side polarizing film for liquid crystal displays and the like. The optical film comprises a light-transmitting resin and dispersedly contained therein minute regions differing from the light-transmitting resin in birefringent characteristics, wherein the difference in refractive index between the minute regions and the light-transmitting resin in a direction perpendicular to the axis direction in which a linearly polarized light has a maximum transmittance, &Dgr;n , is from 0.03 to 0.5 and that in the maximum-transmittance axis direction, &Dgr;n , is smaller than 0.03, and the diffuse reflectance of linearly polarized light in the &Dgr;n direction is lower than 30%. Also disclosed are: an optical element comprising two or more layers of the optical film, wherein the layers are superposed such that the &Dgr;n directions for any of the layers are parallel to those for the adjacent layers; and an optical element comprising a multilayer structure which comprises at least one of a polarizing film, retardation film, transparent resin plate, and reflecting layer and one or more layers of the optical film.