Optical elements with saddle shaped structures for diffusing or shaping light

Abstract

Optical elements for efficiently diffusing or shaping light have substrates with saddle shaped structures on their surfaces which provide substantially uniform light along a predefined angular range. Each saddle shaped structure defines an aperture of a lens, where the outer boundary of such aperture, when viewed normal to surface, may be of one of more different shapes, such as square or rectangular, circular, hexagonal, oval, or other geometric or arbitrary shape which may represent a full saddle shape or a subset region thereof. A plurality of saddle shaped structures may be arranged periodically or randomly along the surface. An optical element with a saddle shaped structure is referred to as a saddle lens, and optical elements with different shaped saddle shaped structures provide different types of saddle lenses.

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