Two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) switchable display backlight and electronic display
AssigneeLeia Inc.
InventorDavid A. Fattal
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) switchable display backlight and a 2D/3D switchable electronic display employ a switchable diffuser to support 2D/3D switching. The 2D/3D switchable display backlight includes a plate light guide, a multibeam diffraction grating to couple light out of the plate light guide and the switchable diffuser to intercept and selectably either pass or scatter light beams of the coupled-out light. The 2D/3D switchable electronic display includes the backlight and further includes a light valve array to modulate the coupled-out light. The switchable diffuser facilitates selectability between a three-dimensional pixel and a two-dimensional pixel of the 2D/3D switchable electronic display.
Claims21
A two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) switchable display backlight comprising:
- a plate light guide configured to guide light from a light source as a guided light beam;
- an array of multibeam diffraction gratings spaced apart from one another along the plate light guide, each multibeam diffraction grating of the multibeam diffraction grating array comprising a plurality of diffractive features and being configured to diffractively couple out a portion of the guided light beam and to direct the coupled-out portion away from the plate light guide, the diffractively coupled-out portion comprising a plurality of light beams having different principal angular directions;
- and
- a switchable diffuser located to intercept the plurality of light beams, the switchable diffuser being configured to selectably either pass light of a light beam of the plurality or scatter the light beam,
- wherein the plurality of light beams that is diffractively coupled-out of the multibeam diffraction gratings is configured to support presentation of an autostereoscopic image in a three-dimensional (3-D) mode.
A two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) switchable electronic display, comprising:
- a plate light guide configured to guide light from a light source as a guided light beam;
- an array of multibeam diffraction gratings spaced apart from one another at a surface of the plate light guide, each multibeam diffraction grating of the multibeam diffraction grating array comprising a plurality of diffractive features and being configured to diffractively couple out a portion of the guided light beam as a plurality of light beams having a corresponding plurality of different principal angular directions;
- a light valve array configured to modulate light corresponding to light beams of the light beam plurality to provide a plurality of simultaneous views of a multiview image in a three-dimensional (3-D) mode;
- and
- a switchable diffuser configured to selectably either pass a light beam of the light beam plurality to provide a 3-D pixel or scatter the light beam to provide a two-dimensional (2-D) pixel of the 2D/3D switchable electronic display.
A method of 2D/3D switchable electronic display operation, the method comprising:
- guiding light in a plate light guide as a beam of light at a non-zero propagation angle;
- diffractively coupling out a portion of the guided light beam to produce a plurality of light beams directed away from the plate light guide in a corresponding plurality of different principal angular directions using an array of multibeam diffraction gratings spaced apart from one another along the plate light guide, each multibeam diffraction grating of the multibeam diffraction grating array diffractively coupling out a separate portion of the guided light to produce a corresponding separate plurality of the light beams;
- and
- selectably either passing or scattering light beams of the light beam plurality using a switchable diffuser,
- wherein selectably passed light beams of the light beam plurality represent three-dimensional (3-D) pixels of the 2D/3D switchable electronic display and selectably scattered light beams of the light beam plurality represent two-dimensional (2-D) pixels of the 2D/3D switchable electronic display, the 3-D pixel forming a portion of an autostereoscopic image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.