Multibeam diffraction grating-based backlighting
AssigneeLeia Inc.
InventorsDavid A. Fattal, Zhen Peng, Charles M. Santori
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Multibeam diffraction grating-based backlighting includes a light guide and a multibeam diffraction grating at a surface of the light guide. The light guide is configured to guide light from a light source. The multibeam diffraction grating is configured to couple out a portion of the guided light using diffractive coupling and to direct the diffractively coupled out portion away from the light guide as a plurality of light beams with different principal angular directions having directions corresponding to view directions of a multiview display.
Claims20
A multibeam diffraction grating-based backlight comprising:
- a light guide configured to guide light from a light source as guided light;
- and
- a plurality of multibeam diffraction gratings arranged across the light guide, each multibeam diffraction grating of the multibeam diffraction grating plurality being configured to couple out a portion of the guided light using diffractive coupling, the diffractively coupled-out portion of the guided light being directed away from a surface of the light guide as a plurality of light beams, a light beam of the light beam plurality having a different principal angular direction from other light beams of the light beam plurality,
- wherein different principal angular directions of the plurality of light beams correspond to directions of different views of a multiview display.
A multiview electronic display comprising:
- a plate light guide configured to guide light from a light source as guided light;
- a plurality of diffraction gratings distributed across the plate light guide, a multibeam diffraction grating of the diffraction grating plurality being configured to diffractively couple out a portion of the guided light as a plurality of light beams having a corresponding plurality of different principal angular directions associated with different views of the multiview electronic display;
- and
- a light valve array configured to modulate the light beams of the light beam plurality to provide a plurality of modulated light beams,
- wherein the plurality of modulated light beams having different principal angular directions represent pixels of the different views of the multiview electronic display, different ones of the modulated light beams having directions corresponding to different ones of the different views of the multiview electronic display.
A method of operating a multiview display, the method comprising:
- guiding light in a light guide as guided light;
- and
- diffractively coupling out a portion of the guided light using a multibeam diffraction grating at a surface of the light guide to produce a plurality of light beams, each light beam of the light beam plurality propagating away from the light guide surface at a different principal angular direction from other light beams of the light beam plurality,
- wherein different principal angular directions of light beams of the light beam plurality collectively have principal angular directions corresponding to directions of different views of the multiview display.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.