Patent ID: 7514722

Claim:
A white LED illumination device, comprising: a white LED configured to emit light along an LED optical axis in a light emitting direction and including an LED chip; and an optical lens having a lens optical axis that is substantially aligned with the LED optical axis, wherein the LED chip is configured to emit light having a peak wavelength in a predetermined wavelength range associated with a particular color and includes a wavelength conversion material which is excitable by the light emitted from the LED chip, and when the wavelength conversion material is excited by the light emitted from the LED chip the wavelength conversion material emits light which has a complementary color to the particular color of the light emitted from the LED chip, and the optical lens has a light incident surface configured to receive the light emitted from the white LED and a light emitting surface configured to emit light to the outside, the light incident surface having a convex portion with a convex surface facing towards the white LED, the light emitting surface facing away from the LED chip and in the light emitting direction and having a convex portion with a center portion having a first shape and a periphery portion having a second shape, the first shape being different from the second shape, wherein the white LED includes a light emitting surface that has a center area and a peripheral area, the white LED is configured to emit white light that has a color that is near the particular color of light associated with the LED chip from the center area of the light emitting surface of the white LED, the white LED is also configured to emit white light that has a color that is near the complementary color from the peripheral area of the light emitting surface of the white LED, the white LED and optical lens are configured such that light emitted from the center area of the white LED is introduced into the optical lens through the convex surface of the light incident surface of the optical lens, transmits through the optical lens, and is emitted to the outside from the center portion of the convex portion of the light emitting surface, the white LED and optical lens are configured such that light emitted from the peripheral area of the white LED is introduced into the optical lens through the convex surface of the light incident surface of the optical lens, transmits through the optical lens, and is emitted to the outside from the periphery portion of the convex portion of the light emitting surface, and the white LED and optical lens are configured such that the white light that has a color that is near the particular color of light associated with the LED chip and the white light that has a color that is near the complementary color are emitted from the convex portion of the light emitting surface of the optical lens and are mixed.