Illuminating optical system and projector
AssigneeSeiko Epson Corporation
InventorKoichi Akiyama
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An illuminating optical system includes a light source device for emitting a substantially parallel light beam, a first lens array for dividing the light beam into a plurality of sub light beams, and a superimposing lens for superimposing the sub light beams on a surface to be illuminated. In the first lens array, the size of each of the small lenses disposed on the outer periphery is set to be smaller than the size of each of the small lenses disposed on the center so that light application areas formed by the plurality of sub light beams emitted from the plurality of small lenses have substantially the same size within a predetermined error range. Therefore, light emitted from a light source can be efficiently utilized.
Claims10
An illuminating optical system comprising:
- a light source device that emits a substantially parallel light beam;
- a first lens array having a plurality of first small lenses that divides said light beam into a plurality of sub light beams;
- and
- a superimposing lens that superimposes and emits said plurality of sub light beams emitted from the first lens array onto a surface to be illuminated,
- a size of each of said first small lenses disposed on an outer periphery of said first lens array being set to be smaller than a size of each of said first small lenses disposed on a center of said first lens array so that light application areas formed on a surface to be illuminated by said plurality of sub light beams emitted from said plurality of first small lenses have substantially a same size within a predetermined error range.
A projector comprising:
- an illuminating optical system having a light source device that emits a substantially parallel light beam, a first lens array having a plurality of first small lenses that divides said light beam into a plurality of sub light beams, and a superimposing lens that superimposes and emits the plurality of sub light beams emitted from the first lens array onto a surface to be illuminated;
- an electrooptical device having a light incident surface serving as a surface to be illuminated that is illuminated by said illuminating optical system and that modulates the light beam incident from said illuminating optical system according to image information;
- and
- a projection optical system that projects said modulated light beam obtained by said electrooptical device,
- a size of each of said first small lenses disposed on an outer periphery of said first lens array being set to be smaller than a size of each of said first small lenses disposed on a center of said first lens array so that light application areas formed on a surface to be illuminated by said plurality of sub light beams emitted from said plurality of first small lenses have substantially a same size within a predetermined error range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.