Illumination optical system and projector comprising the same
AssigneeSeiko Epson Corporation
InventorsKoichi Akiyama, Toshiaki Hashizume
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The illumination optical system includes a lens array having a plurality of lenses for splitting the light emitted from a light source into a plurality of sub-beams, at least some lenses of the lens array being decentered. The thickness of each of the lenses constituting the lens array is adjusted such that the step difference at the boundaries between the lenses falls within a predetermined step difference.
Claims14
A method for manufacturing a lens array provided with a plurality of lenses, at least some of said lenses of said lens array being decentered, said method comprising the step of
- adjusting a thickness of each of said lenses to obtain a value of d/S therefor equal to or less than 1/350 to prevent rounded edges at boundaries between said lenses caused by a step difference at said boundaries, wherein S is a product of a vertical size and a horizontal size of each of said lenses and d is the step difference at each of the boundaries between said lenses.
An illumination optical system comprising a lens array provided with a plurality of lenses for splitting light emitted from a light source into a plurality of sub-beams, at least some of said lenses of said lens array being decentered, said lenses being arranged in adjacent relation and having adjoining boundary edges, each lens having a lens length in a vertical direction and a lens width in a horizontal direction, and forming a step difference d at a boundary with an adjacent lens, and wherein to prevent rounded edges of the boundaries between said lenses caused by the step difference upon manufacture of said lens array, a value of d/S is equal to or less than 1/350 wherein S is equal to a product of the length and the width of each of the lenses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.