Transparent luminous window

Abstract

The invention relates to a luminous window which can function both as a broad area light source and as a transparent window. The broad area light source is achieved by coupling light into a plate-shaped light guide, e.g. via the edges of the light guide, and extracting light from the light guide using geometric protrusions or diffraction gratings into a scattering layer which outputs the broad area light. The transparent window is achieved by switching the scattering layer into a non-scattering state, and possibly switching off the light source, so that light can propagate freely through the light guide and the scattering layer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.