Light valve projector assembly including fiber optic plate with fiber bundle perimeter less than twice as reflective as elsewhere

In a liquid crystal light valve projector assembly including a multi-layered liquid crystal light valve having a light-writing side and a light-projecting side, light writing means for producing modulated writing light representative of a given image, which light when written onto the light-writing side of said light valve causes the latter to modulate in a corresponding manner, and light projecting means cooperating with the light-projecting side of said light valve for projecting a correspondingly modulated projection light beam onto a projection plane for visually displaying said given image, the improvement comprising:

• means for coupling said light-writing means to the light-writing side of said light valve for causing said write light to write onto said light-writing side, said coupling means including a fiber optic plate arrangement which itself includes:
• (a) a first fiber optic plate of lengthwise adjacent optical fibers for receiving write light from said light-writing means, said lengthwise adjacent optical fibers being grouped into a plurality of optical fiber bundles;
• (b) a second fiber optic plate of lengthwise adjacent optical fibers for directing write light from said first fiber optic plate onto the light-writing side of said valve, said lengthwise adjacent optical fibers being grouped into a plurality of optical fiber bundles;
• (c) optical coupling means disposed between and optically joining said first and second fiber optic plates;
• and
• (d) each of said first and second fiber optic plates having opposing end faces, each of said end faces including a smooth surface wherein the reflectance at the outer perimeter of said optical fiber bundles is less than twice the reflectance at any other position within a corresponding optical fiber bundle, said smooth surface preventing said modulated writing light from projecting onto said projection plane any visually observable regular boundary patterns corresponding to said optical fiber bundles.

In a liquid crystal light valve projector assembly including a multi-layered liquid crystal light valve having a light-writing side and a light-projecting side, light writing means for producing modulated writing light representative of a given image that is impinged upon said light-writing side and is projected through said light-projecting side to visually display an image on a projection plane, wherein the light-writing side of the multi-layered liquid crystal light valve forms a portion of a fiber optic plate arrangement having a light entering end face of lengthwise adjacent optical fibers for receiving write light from said light-writing means and a light exiting end face of lengthwise adjacent optical fibers for directing said write light onto the light-writing side of said valve, the method comprising the steps of:

• (a) polishing said light exiting end face of said fiber optic plate arrangement to form a polished light exiting end face;
• (b) examining said polished light exiting end face with a polarizing microscope to obtain a relative reflectance value corresponding to the reflectance at the outer perimeter of said lengthwise adjacent optical fibers compared to the reflectance at another position within the lengthwise adjacent optical fibers;
• and
• (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) until the relative reflectance value is less than two.