| 摘要 |
PURPOSE: To improve its conversion efficiency ranging to a wide visible ray region and to reduce a manufacturing cost also when unpolarized light is converted to a prescribed polarization. CONSTITUTION: A unit element 10C constituting a polarization direction alignment element is constituted of a polarizing beam splitter 11, a first total reflection prism 12 and a second total reflection prism 13. A light beam 3C is made incident on the polarizing beam splitter 11 to be split to two polarization components orthogonally intersecting with each other. The first polarized component 14A is emitted from the front surface 11B of the polarizing beam splitter 11, and the second polarized component 14B is reflected sidewards by an action surface 11A, and is reflected upward by the reflection surface 12A of the first total reflection prism 12, and is reflected forward by the reflection surface 13A of the second total reflection prism 13 to be emitted from the front 13B of the second total reflection prism 13. Two polarization components 14A, 14B emitted from the element become parallel to each other in the beam advance direction and the polarizing direction. |
