LENSLET ARRAY WITH POLARIZATION CONVERSION

摘要

A light source for a Liquid Crystal Display ("LCD") device uses a conventional light source (42) to create a parallel beam which is directed to a first lenslet array (46), producing a plurality of beams, each of which is directed to a polarizing beam splitter (56) of an array generally having a pair of associated beam splitters for each lenslet of the first array. One beam splitter of each pair receives a converging beam from the corresponding first array lenslet. Each of these beam splitters has an associated second lenslet (50) and a half wave retarder plate (60)which directs half of the illumination towerd an LCD device (58), oriented in the polarization plane required by the LCD device. The second beam splitter of each pair, directs the light received from the first beam splitter, which is already in the desired polarization plane, through the associated second lenslet and then toward the LCD device.