Patent ID: 8368838

Claim:
A planar light-emitting device comprising: a plurality of adjacently disposed light-emitting units, each light-emitting unit including: a plurality of light sources, and a lightguide plate being solid and having an upper surface as a light-exiting surface divided into light-exiting areas, a lower surface opposite to the upper surface, and a peripheral side surface extending between respective peripheral edges of the upper and lower surfaces, the peripheral side surface having a front-side surface as a light-entrance surface, a rear-side surface opposite to the front-side surface, and right and left side surfaces extending between respective ends of the front-side and rear-side surfaces, the light sources being divided into a plurality of groups and successively aligned along a width direction of the light-entrance surface of the lightguide plate and facing the light-entrance surface of the lightguide plate such that each group of light sources is arranged to output light to a respective light-exiting area, and the lightguide plates of the light-emitting units being mutually adjacently disposed with their light-exiting surfaces flush with each other to form an integrated light-exiting surface; and a light source output control unit that controls output of the light sources of the light source groups for the respective light-exiting areas of the light-exiting surface of the lightguide plate in each light-emitting unit.