Illuminator and display panel employing the illuminator
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHirofumi Iwamoto, Takashi Yamamoto, Yoshihiro Onitsuka, Tadashi Mihara
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An illuminator comprises a light-transmitting member formed of a plurality of transparent sheet-like members laminated to each other, a light source disposed on the light-incoming side of the light-transmitting member, a light-reflecting member disposed on the light-outgoing side of the light-transmitting member at an oblique angle to the transparent sheet-like members, and a sheet-like member having a scattering area at which a light ray reflected from the light-reflecting member is converted into scattered light and coming into surface contact with the light-transmitting member.
Claims11
An illuminator comprising:
- a light-transmitting member formed of a plurality of transparent sheet-like members laminated to each other;
- light source means disposed on a light-incoming side of said light-transmitting member;
- a light-reflecting member disposed on a light-outgoing side of said light-transmitting member at an oblique angle to said transparent sheet-like members;
- and
- a sheet-like member having a scattering area at which a light ray reflected from said light-reflecting member is converted into scattered light and coming into surface contact with said light-transmitting member, wherein
- said light-transmitting member, said light source, said light-reflecting member and said sheet-like member are supported by a housing, and an undersurface of said housing is formed in the form of a taper or convex shape and provided with a plurality of projections.
An illuminator comprising:
- light source means and a light-scattering member for illuminating an object to be illuminated from its back surface, and
- a light-transmitting member having space therein for disposing said light source, with said light-scattering member being disposed between said light source and said object to be illuminated, said light-transmitting member being formed of a solid material capable of propagating a light ray outgoing from said light source toward said light-scattering member, and said space being provided within an effective illumination region of said object to be illuminated, wherein said light-transmitting member and said light-scattering member are independently disposed, and a light screen having opaque portions is closely fixed between said light-transmitting member and said light-scattering member.
A display apparatus comprising:
- an illuminator comprising a set of first and second light-transmitting members each formed of a plurality of transparent sheet-like members having light-outgoing ends and being laminated to each other, with said light-transmitting members being disposed so that said ends of said first and second light-transmitting members face each other;
- a light source disposed on a light-incoming side of each of said light-transmitting members;
- a light-reflecting member disposed at said light-outgoing ends of said light-transmitting members;
- and
- a sheet-like member having a scattering area at which a light ray reflected from said light-reflecting member is converted into scattered light and coming into surface contact with said light-transmitting members;
- and
- a chiral smectic liquid crystal display panel fixed to said illuminator and disposed so as to come into contact with said sheet-like member.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.