ILLUMINATION DEVICE, LIGHT EMITTING ELEMENT, AND LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY DEVICE

摘要

Provided is a backlight (or an illumination device) including a plurality of light sources (5, 5, 5 and so on) and an optical conductor (7) for surface-emitting the lights from the light sources. The light sources (5) are disposed in the optical conductor (7). Moreover, the emanating directions of the lights from the light sources are generally parallel to the light emitting face (7a) of the optical conductor (7), and the emanating directions of the lights from at least two of the light sources are different from each other. More specifically, at least two of the light sources are arranged to confront each other, and the emanating directions of the lights of those two light sources are set such that the light from one light source is emitted toward the other light source.