Polarizing illumination device and projection display device

摘要

A technique for preventing a decrease in the amount of effective polarized light that emerges from a polarizing conversion element array is provided. To this end, a polarizing illumination device includes a polarizing conversion element array that converts light emitted from a light source into one type of linearly polarized light, and a plurality of light-shielding portions for blocking a part of light that is incident on the polarizing conversion element array. The polarizing conversion element array is divided into effective incident areas for emitting effective polarized light, and ineffective incident areas for emitting ineffective polarized light. The widths of the plurality of light-shielding portions are set to be smaller than the width of the ineffective incident areas of the polarizing conversion element array, so that light to be incident on the effective incident areas is not blocked. This makes it possible to prevent a decrease in the amount of effective polarized light that emerges from the polarizing conversion element array.