Patent ID: 7690811

Claim:
An illumination system comprising: a backlight housing; a plurality of light valves coupled to the backlight housing; a plurality of light sources arranged in the backlight housing and optically coupled to the light valves; a light-scattering substrate optically coupled between the plurality of light sources and the light valves; a plurality of supports in contact with the light-scattering substrate to provide support to the light-scattering substrate; and a plurality of light modulating dots patterned on the substrate to modulate transmitted intensity of light from the plurality of light sources to achieve increased luminance uniformity by decreasing banding caused by the separated light sources, wherein a spacing between the light modulating dots increases as a distance of the light modulating dots from the center of at least one of the light sources in the backlight housing increases, and wherein the light modulating dots comprise microspheres or nanospheres having an index of refraction different than an index of refraction of the substrate.