The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 17, 2013
Filed:
May. 19, 2008
Michael F. Weber, Shoreview, MN (US);
Timothy J. Nevitt, Red Wing, MN (US);
John A. Wheatley, Lake Elmo, MN (US);
Rolf W. Biernath, Wyoming, MN (US);
David G. Freier, St. Paul, MN (US);
Gilles J. Benoit, Minneapolis, MN (US);
Charles D. Hoyle, Stillwater, MN (US);
Andrew J. Ouderkirk, Singapore, SG;
Zhachui Yang, North Oaks, MN (US);
Michael F. Weber, Shoreview, MN (US);
Timothy J. Nevitt, Red Wing, MN (US);
John A. Wheatley, Lake Elmo, MN (US);
Rolf W. Biernath, Wyoming, MN (US);
David G. Freier, St. Paul, MN (US);
Gilles J. Benoit, Minneapolis, MN (US);
Charles D. Hoyle, Stillwater, MN (US);
Andrew J. Ouderkirk, Singapore, SG;
Zhachui Yang, North Oaks, MN (US);
3M Innovative Properties Company, St. Paul, MN (US);
Abstract
A hollow light-recycling backlight has a 'semi-specular' component providing a balance of specularly and diffusely reflected light improving the uniformity of the light output. The component may be arranged on the reflectors (), () or inside the cavity (). This balance is achieved by designing the component's 'transport ratio' defined by (F−B)/(F+B), (F and B are the amounts of incident light scattered forwards and backwards respectively by the component in the plane of the cavity) to lie in a certain range. Furthermore, the product of the front and back reflector “hemispherical” reflectivities should also lie in a given range. Alternatively, the “cavity transport value”, a measure of how well the cavity can spread injected light from the injection point to distant points in the cavity should lie in a further range and the “hemispherical” reflectivity of the back reflector should be >0.7.