Importance

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Abstract

Distortion optics are used to efficiently couple a spiral color wheel and an orthogonal modulator. Light 602 from a light source enters an aperture in a reflective end of a recycling integrator rod 604. The light travels through the rod and exits the end of the rod adjacent a sequential color filter 606, shown as a spiral color wheel. The shape of the light beam 608 exiting the integrator rod 604 is determined by the shape of the exit aperture of the integrating rod 606. The exit aperture of the integrating rod 606 typically is formed by a reflective exit aperture on the exit face. A cross section of the light beam 608 exiting the sequential color filter includes several bands of filtered light, one for each of the filter segments of the color wheel illuminated by the light beam. The curvature of the color bands makes it difficult for a row addressed spatial light modulator to efficiently use the light. Illumination system 600 eliminates or mitigates this problem by distorting the light from the integrating rod to straighten the curved borders between the adjacent filter segments. The light 608 from the sequential color filter 606 is distorted by distortion optics 610, 612 to make the boundaries between the white or primary colored light segments align with the rows of the spatial light modulator 614.

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First Claim