3m Innovative Properties Company

Hideaki Shirotori

Kazuhiko Toyooka

Sayaka Kado

Takashi Fujita

Gary Timothy Boyd

Adam D Haag

Matthew B Johnson

Naota Sugiyama

Brianna N Wheeler

Hiroki Hayashi

Taiki Ihara

Chikara Abe

A backlight to a display includes an array of discrete light sources and a plurality of optical films disposed between the display and the light sources. Each film includes a regular array of intersecting ridges defining a plurality of through-holes. Each of the through-holes extends between first and second open ends of the through-hole. A cross-section of the optical film in a plane parallel to a thickness direction of the film includes two adjacent ridges in the array of ridges and a through-hole therebetween. The film has a maximum thickness hand the through-hole includes a side wall with a substantially vertical portion connected to the first open end of the through-hole and a substantially horizontal portion extending from the substantially vertical portion and connected to the second open end. The substantially horizontal portion has a minimum thickness hat a location between the two adjacent ridges, h/h≥2.

Backlight with multiple microreplicated optical films

An optical stack includes a reflective polarizer including a plurality of interference layers and an absorbing polarizer disposed on the reflective polarizer. The plurality of interference layers transmits at least about 85% of an incident light having a first polarization state, reflects at least about 80% of the incident light having a second polarization state, and transmits less than about 0.1% of the incident light having the second polarization state. The absorbing polarizer has a first transmittance for the first polarization state and a second transmittance for the second polarization state. An average of the first and second transmittances is greater than about 0.46. The second transmittance has a first standard deviation. The optical stack has a transmittance for the second polarization state having a second standard deviation which is less than the first standard deviation by at least about 10%. A display includes the optical stack.

Optical stack and display

An optical system includes a display, a backlight configured to emit at least a light in a first wavelength range extending between about 400 nm and about 500 nm, and an optical film disposed adjacent the backlight and configured to absorb a light in a second wavelength range extending between about 415 nm to about 455 nm, wherein a ratio of the light in the second wavelength range transmitted by the optical film to the light in the first wavelength range transmitted by the optical film is less than or equal to 50%.

Optical system with blue light absorbing layer

A backlight includes a plurality of discrete light sources configured to face a display, and an optical film disposed on the light sources and below and proximate a first plane. The optical film includes a plurality of through-holes extending between first and second major surfaces of the optical film. Each through-hole has a first opening at the first major surface, and a second opening at the second major surface with an open area A2. Each through-hole has length, H, such that H/A2 is greater than or equal to about 0.13. The light from the light sources has a first overall peak intensity in the first plane, and a first brightness uniformity across the first plane, and in the absence of the optical film, the light from the light sources has a second overall peak intensity in the first plane, and a second brightness uniformity across the first plane, such that the first and second overall peak intensities are different by less than about 20%, and the first brightness uniformity exhibits an improvement over the second brightness uniformity by at least 2.8%.

Microreplicated optical film

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Hideaki Shirotori