A liquid crystal display apparatus, includes: a light-condensing backlight unit; a liquid crystal panel including a first linear polarizer and a second linear polarizer; a light scattering film facing the second linear polarizer; and a third linear polarizer facing the light scattering film. The light scattering film includes a functional layer including an organic polymer compound and light scattering particles. The functional layer includes a particle layer in which a fraction of 60% by volume to 100% by volume of the light scattering particles included in the functional layer expands along a surface of the particle layer at which the light output from the liquid crystal panel is received, and the particle layer is concentrated to a region having a thickness of 1 to 80% of a total thickness of the functional layer, in a direction perpendicular to the contact surface.

Techniques for designing diffractive optical elements (DOEs) such as diffusers and other optical beam shaping elements can include designing a DOE unit cell on a smaller area than the overall area of the DOE, and then distributing the unit cell across the entire surface for the DOE. Height translations are introduced for at least some of the unit cells distributed across the surface, where the height translations correspond to respective phase translations for the intended operational wavelength of the DOE. In some instances, phase wrapping is introduced to translate the height variations among the unit cells into unit cells having sub-unit structures whose heights fall within a range that corresponds to a specified phase range at the operational wavelength.

The present invention addresses the problem of providing a transparent article in which sparkling on an anti-glare surface or other roughened relief surface is suppressed. The transparent article is provided with a transparent substrate, and a roughened relief surface provided to at least one surface of the transparent substrate. The relief surface has a surface roughness Sq of 50 nm or less measured in a spatial period of 20 μm or greater in the transverse direction.

Provided is a solid-state illumination system for use in a microscopy system utilizing a light sensor of a mobile phone camera module. The system includes a bright-field illumination source with an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The array of LEDs is configured to produce transmission light within a range of view of the light sensor of the mobile phone camera module. The system also includes a dark-field illumination source including a ring of LEDs. The ring of LEDs is configured to produce light outside of the range of collection of the camera module lens. The system also includes a diffuser configured to diffuse the transmission light and a diffusive black material coupled to the diffuser. The diffusive black material is configured to pass through at least some of the transmission light while blocking reflections of the scattering light.

The application is directed to a device housing. The device housing includes a first light device, the first light device including a first electrical supply configured to provide an electrical signal to a first light emitting diode (LED), the first LED separated from a first surface of a diffuser film by a space, wherein the diffuser film includes a second surface, opposite the first surface, the second surface configured to contact a first light pipe.

A process of making a diverging-light fiber optics illumination delivery system includes providing a micro-post comprising a glass-ceramic light-scattering element that includes at least one of a ceramic, a glass ceramic, an immiscible glass, a porous glass, opal glass, amorphous glass, an aerated glass, and a nanostructured glass; and fusion-splicing the glass-ceramic micro-post to the optical fiber by pulling an arc between electrodes across a gap formed by the optical fiber and the glass-ceramic micro-post; maintaining the arc for a time sufficiently long to make facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the micro-post one of malleable and molten; and pushing and thereby fusing together the facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the micro-post. Some embodiments can include fusing the glass-ceramic micro-post to the optical fiber by applying a laser beam to heat up at least one of the facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the glass-ceramic micro-post.

An illuminator apparatus can include: an optical source a collimator lens located on an optical axis of the optical source, for receiving emitted light from the optical source to emit collimated light; and a diffusion lens, located on an emitting surface side of the collimator lens, for receiving the collimated light to diffuse the collimated light. The diffusion lens can be provided with a diffusion section for diffusing central light of the collimated light emitted from a central portion of an emitting surface of the collimator lens and a non-diffusion section for transmitting peripheral light of the collimated light emitted from an outside of the central portion of the emitting surface of the collimator lens, without diffusing the peripheral light.

A louver includes a light blocking portion having a first surface and a second surface and a base portion made of a transparent material. The light blocking portion is formed in the base portion, being made of a light blocking material. The second surface is a surface that is in contact with the transparent material and that is located on an outer-edge side of the base portion. The first surface is a surface that is in contact with the transparent material and that is opposite to the second surface. A surface roughness of the first surface is larger than a surface roughness of the second surface.

A process of making a diverging-light fiber optics illumination delivery system includes providing a micro-post comprising a glass-ceramic light-scattering element that includes at least one of a ceramic, a glass ceramic, an immiscible glass, a porous glass, opal glass, amorphous glass, an aerated glass, and a nanostructured glass; and fusion-splicing the glass-ceramic micro-post to the optical fiber by pulling an arc between electrodes across a gap formed by the optical fiber and the glass-ceramic micro-post; maintaining the arc for a time sufficiently long to make facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the micro-post one of malleable and molten; and pushing and thereby fusing together the facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the micro-post. Some embodiments can include fusing the glass-ceramic micro-post to the optical fiber by applying a laser beam to heat up at least one of the facing surfaces of the optical fiber and the glass-ceramic micro-post.

A high-haze anti-glare film is disclosed. The high-haze anti-glare film comprises a transparent substrate and an anti-glare layer on the substrate. The anti-glare layer comprises acrylate binder, amorphous silica microparticles and spherical organic polymer microparticles, wherein the spherical organic polymer microparticles are monodispersity and the average particle size thereof is smaller than that of the amorphous silica microparticles. The total haze (Ht) of the anti-glare film is more than 40%, and the total haze is the sum of the surface haze (Hs) and the inner haze (Hi) of the anti-glare film, and the inner haze (Hi) and the total haze (Ht) satisfy the relation 0.25<Hi/Ht<0.75. The present high-haze anti-glare film provides high anti-glare and anti-sparkling properties.