Patent ID: 8201946

Claim:
A projection image display apparatus, comprising: a light source; and illumination optics configured to form an image on a liquid crystal panel with light emitted from the light source, the illumination optics comprising: a polarization converter comprising a first half-wave plate and a second half-wave plate, the polarization converter configured to separate the light emitted from the light source into light of a first polarization and light of a second polarization, and align a direction of polarization of outgoing light by allowing at least a first portion of the light of the first polarization to pass through the first half-wave plate and allowing at least a second portion of the light of the first polarization to pass through the second half-wave plate, wherein the first polarization is orthogonal to the second polarization; wherein the first half-wave plate and the second half-wave plate are disposed in a plane; and wherein a first optical axis of the first half-wave plate is aligned to be point symmetric in the plane with a second optical axis of the second half-wave plate; wherein the first half-wave plate and the second half-wave plate are each divided into either top and bottom halves or left and right halves, the two halves of the first half-wave plate arranged to be point symmetric with each other and the two halves of the second half-wave plate arranged to be point symmetric with each other.