LED luminance-augmentation via specular retroreflection, including collimators that escape the etendue limit
First Claim
1. A collimating luminaire comprising a light-source with a diffuse reflectivity exceeding one half, a collimating luminaire intercepting the emitted light of said source, said luminaire producing a substantially uniform beamwidth across its exit aperture, and a system of retroreflectors that returns part of said emitted light to said source, said retroreflectors allowing the removal of the outer part of said exit aperture, so that said exit aperture is smaller than the é
- tendue-limited aperture for said beamwidth.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The diffuse reflectivity of an LED source is utilized to recycle some of its emission, thereby enabling a luminaire to escape the étendue limit. Retroreflectors intercept the rays destined for the outer part of the luminaire aperture, which can then be truncated. The resulting smaller aperture has the same beam-width as the full original, albeit with lesser flux due to recycling losses. A reduction to half the original area is possible.
40 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A collimating luminaire comprising a light-source with a diffuse reflectivity exceeding one half, a collimating luminaire intercepting the emitted light of said source, said luminaire producing a substantially uniform beamwidth across its exit aperture, and a system of retroreflectors that returns part of said emitted light to said source, said retroreflectors allowing the removal of the outer part of said exit aperture, so that said exit aperture is smaller than the é
- tendue-limited aperture for said beamwidth.
- View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
- 2. A collimating luminaire comprising a light-source with a diffuse reflectivity exceeding one half, said luminaire defining an exit aperture and intercepting the emitted light of said source in directions outside the exit aperture, said luminaire comprising at least one at least approximately elliptically concave retroreflector that returns part of said emitted light to said source.
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13. A collimating luminaire comprising a light-source with a diffuse reflectivity exceeding one half, a collimating luminaire intercepting the emitted light of said source, said luminaire producing a substantially uniform beamwidth across its exit aperture, and a system of forward reflectors that directs part of said emitted light to said exit aperture, said system of reflectors allowing the removal of the outer part of said exit aperture, so that said exit aperture is smaller than the é
- tendue-limited aperture for said beamwidth.
Specification