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Abstract

A compact optical system 10 for use with a single light valve full color system. The compact optical system 10 includes a prepolarizing beamsplitter 12 which extracts a beam of horizontally polarized light form an unpolarized/analyzer 14. The polarizer/analyzer 14 transmits the beam to a first dichroic separator 16 which transmits the red and green components and reflects the blue component toward a first fold mirror 18. The mirror 18 reflects the beam of blue light to a first fold prism 22 and to a first region 21 of a liquid crystal layer 19 of a light valve 23. A second dichroic separator 20 reflects the red beam component toward a second fold prism 24 and transmits the green component to a third fold prism 26. The prisms 24 and 26 direct the red and green beams toward second and third regions 25 and 27, respectively. The blue, red and green beams of horizontally polarized light incident on the first, second and third regions 21, 25 and 27 of the surface 19 are then polarization modulated by first, second and third CRTs 30a,b,c, focused on the photosensitive layer 29. The polarization modulated beams of vertically polarized light returned from the light valve are recombined into a single beam that is converted into a brightness modulated beam which is projected by projection optics 40 comprising a single optical lens providing a high brightness, full color image on a viewing screen.

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First Claim