Abstract: A transmissive, backlit color twisted-nematic or super-twisted-nematic liquid crystal display employing a front fiber-optic faceplate or optical equivalent as a front retaining element of a liquid crystal cell that increases viewing angle between the display and a viewer while minimizing or eliminating undesirable variations in luminance, contrast ratio and chromaticity is described. The fiber-optic faceplate or optical equivalent includes cylindrical optical features and interstitial cladding material of greater optical index than the cylindrical optical features. The interstitial cladding material may include an opaque mask blocking layer to prevent the interstitial apertures from diffracting off-axis light into an observer's viewing cone.

Abstract: Methods for making plates which have columnar features approximately in the direction of light propagation which are capable of total internal reflection, a controllable numeric aperture (NA) at input and output surfaces, rotational azimuthal averaging and translation of the object plane from a back surface of the plate to a front surface of the plate and are optical equivalent of a FOFP. These plates are made from a range of materials including a variety of monomer or polymer networks.The resultant plates contain adjacent areas with differing refractive indices which result in a substrate containing a plurality of cylindrical features whose boundaries are defined by a discontinuity of refractive indices wherein the index of refraction within the cylindrical features is greater than the index of refraction at the boundaries and external to the cylindrical features.

Abstract: An array of light control units has an area large enough to present images for direct viewing. The array also has light control units sufficiently dense that ordinary acuity artifacts are not noticeable in presented images when the array is directly viewed at usual viewing distances by a human with normal vision. Signal circuitry can provide signals to the light control units. The array can present an image that includes M colors, where M is more than three, even though each light control unit can only cause presentation of one of a segment with one of a set of N colors, where N is less than M. Data defining an input image with M colors are used to obtain data defining an output image that is a version of the input image but includes, for each light control unit, a color data item indicating one of its set of N colors. The signal circuitry provides signals to the light control units so that each light control unit presents a segment with the color indicated by its color data item.

Abstract: A full color electronic display device using two liquid crystal light valve image forming sources and having two optical paths is suitable for use in projection or direct view display applications. The two-path LCLV device generates two separate, spatially coherent color images which are combined by additive spatial superposition to produce a single, full-spectrum, composite color image. One image is composed from a spectral band of light from the long (red) and medium (green) wavelength regions of the visible light spectrum, and is formed by a liquid crystal image forming source having a high resolution which determines the effective spatial resolution of the final image. The second image is composed from a spectral band of light from the short (blue) wavelength region of the visible light spectrum, and is formed by a liquid crystal image forming source having a resolution less than that of the red and green image, thereby producing a brighter blue light image.

Abstract: A full color display is disclosed having a high efficiency light source optically coupled by a light coupling lens array to the active matrix of pixel elements of an image forming means such as a transmissive liquid crystal light valve. The light source is comprised of a patterned matrix of individual, primary colored visible radiation emitters, such as individual phosphor elements, arranged in a manner suitable for the human eye to integrate the individual primary colored lights into a single mixture color. The light coupling lens array collects substantially all of the light rays emitted from each primary colored light emitter and focuses them on a respective one of the transparent electrodes in the active matrix, as a real image smaller than the size of the electrode. A suitable light coupling lens array is a gradient index lens array, a multiple layer, two dimensional array of microlenses functionally analogous to an array of strip lenses, or a microlens array.

Abstract: A full color display is disclosed having a high efficiency light source optically coupled by a light coupling lens array to the active matrix of pixel elements of an image forming means such as a transmissive liquid crystal light valve. The light source is comprised of a patterned matrix of individual, primary colored visible radiation emitters, such as individual phosphor elements, arranged in a manner suitable for the human eye to integrate the individual primary colored lights into a single mixture color. The light coupling lens array collects substantially all of the light rays emitted from each primary colored light emitter and focuses them on a respective one of the transparent electrodes in the active matrix, as a real image smaller than the size of the electrode. A suitable light coupling lens array is a gradient index lens array, a multiple layer, two dimensional array of microlenses functionally analogous to an array of strip lenses, or a microlens array.

Abstract: A full color display is disclosed having a high efficiency light source optically coupled by a light coupling lens array to the active matrix of pixel elements of an image forming means such as a transmissive liquid crystal light valve. The light source is comprised of a patterned matrix of individual, primary colored visible radiation emitters, such as individual phosphor elements, arranged in a manner suitable for the human eye to integrate the individual primary colored lights into a single mixture color. The light coupling lens array collects substantially all of the light rays emitted from each primary colored light emitter and focuses them on a respective one of the transparent electrodes in the active matrix, as a real image smaller than the size of the electrode. A suitable light coupling lens array is a gradient index lens array, a multiple layer, two dimensional array of microlenses functionally analogous to an array of strip lenses, or a microlens array.

Abstract: A thin-film structure on an insulating substrate includes an array of binary control units with an area of at least 90 cm.sup.2 and a density of at least 60 binary control units per cm. One implementation has an area of approximately 510 cm.sup.2, a diagonal of approximately 33 cm, and a total of approximately 6.3 million binary control units. Each binary control unit has a lead for receiving a unit drive signal, to which it responds by causing presentation of a segment of images presented by the array. Each binary control unit can present a segment with either a first color having a maximum intensity or a second color having a minimum intensity. Each binary control unit's unit drive signal causes the binary control unit to present its first and second colors. The substrate can be glass. Each binary control unit can include an amorphous silicon thin-film transistor (TFT) and a storage capacitor. Each binary control unit can be square.

Abstract: A transmissive, backlit color twisted-nematic or super-twisted-nematic liquid crystal display employing a front fiber-optic faceplate as a front retaining element of a liquid crystal cell that increases viewing angle between the display and a viewer while minimizing or eliminating undesirable variations in luminance, contrast ratio and chromaticity is described. This novel configuration effectively decouples the liquid crystal cell and other optical elements behind the front fiber optic faceplate from the angular orientation of the viewer with respect to the display. The liquid crystal display described in this invention further provides a high quality color display, without viewing parallax, using a color selection filter mosaic outside of the liquid crystal cell.

Abstract: A full color, liquid crystal display device is disclosed having two optical paths, the first for long (red) and medium (green) wavelength regions of the visible light spectrum, and the second for the short (blue) wavelength region of the visible light spectrum. The two optical paths and their properties are nominally matched to the characteristics of the chromatic and luminance processing channels of the human visual system. The two-path device generates two separate, spatially coherent color images using two liquid crystal light valve image forming sources, without the use of color filters typically found in full color displays. The two images are combined by additive spatial superposition to produce a single, full-spectrum, composite color image. In one embodiment, individual red and green light components from an efficient, patterned backlight of individual red and green light emitters are coupled by a light coupling lens array to respective display pixels in the liquid crystal light valve.

Abstract: An electronic color filter system for controlling a picture element color signal includes three filter regions which selectively control spectral components of light transmitted sequentially therethrough. Each filter region has a liquid crystal host material and a dye guest component. The orientation of the liquid crystal host, determined by an electric field applied to the filter material, determines the absorption coefficient of the dye guest component to polarized light. By appropriate selection of the guest dye component and control of the electric fields applied to the host liquid crystal, the transmitted light can have a selected radiation spectrum. The transmitted light of a multiplicity of picture elements can be used to provide a full-color visual image display.

Abstract: A four color repetitive sequence matrix array for flat panel displays is formed by establishing a repetitive sequence with pixels of four different colors arranged in the rows of the matrix. The sequence commences with a different color in each row, thereby establishing a second repetitive sequence in the matrix columns. These row and column sequences establish a pattern of 16 pixels with sets of four rows and four columns that is repetitive throughout the array.