Patent ID: 7532176
Filing Date: 2009-05-12
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A light source apparatus comprising: a lamp for emitting white illumination light; a color wheel for rotating a color filter having a plurality of colors and sequentially switching the color filter on which illumination light emitted by the lamp is incident; a wheel driving unit for rotating the color wheel and also controlling the rotation; an LED light source unit for emitting at least one color of illumination light; an LED driving unit for driving the LED light source unit and also controlling illumination light to be emitted; an optical synthesis unit capable of optically synthesizing and emitting illumination light passed through the color filter of the color wheel and illumination light emitted from the LED light source unit; and a system controlling unit for controlling the wheel driving unit and the LED driving unit so that each color of illumination light synthesized by the optical synthesis unit is rendered the same; wherein the optical synthesis unit is a prism having a first plane on which illumination light passed through the color filter of the color wheel is incident, a second plane on which illumination light emitted by the LED light source unit is incident, and a third plane from which illumination light made incident at least on the first and the second planes is emitted, so that illumination light totally reflected by the second plane of illumination light incident on the first plane and illumination light totally reflected by the first plane of illumination light incident from the second plane are also emitted from the third plane.