High-brightness liquid-crystal light-valve projector using a new polarization converter

A high-brightness liquid crystal light valve (LCLV) projector, in which three amorphous Si TFT-addressed LCLVs are used, has been developed for laroe screen displays. By using a newly developed polarization converter, about twice the brightness has been realized compared to using a conventional sheet polarizer. The polarization converter principle is to efficiently convert an unpolarized light from a light source into a linearly polarized light, used to illuminate a twisted nematic LCLV. The LCLV has 240 x 756 pixels in the 4.3 inch diagonal area. High-brightness full-color images with 120 ft-L brightness have been obtained, when projected onto a 5.0 gain 80 inch diagonal screen using a 300W Xenon arc lamp.© (1990) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.