Patent ID: 7354162

Claim:
A projector, comprising: a light source device that emits substantially parallel illumination light; a first lens array having a plurality of first small lenses each of which divides the illumination light coming from the light source device into a plurality of partial light fluxes; a second lens array having a plurality of second small lenses corresponding to the first small lenses; a superposing optical system that superposes the partial light fluxes coming from the second lens array on regions to be illuminated; a color-separating and guiding optical system that separates the lights coming from the second lens array into lights in a plurality of different colors and guides the separated lights to the regions to be illuminated; a plurality of electro-optical modulation devices each of which modulates the light in the corresponding color of the lights in the plural colors separated by the color-separating and guiding optical system in accordance with image information; a color synthesizing optical system that synthesizes the lights in the respective colors modulated by the plural electro-optical modulation devices; and a projecting optical system that projects image light synthesized by the color synthesizing optical system, wherein: the superposing optical system has a first superposing lens disposed between the second lens array and the color-separating and guiding optical system and a second superposing lens having a convex lens included in the color-separating and guiding optical system; the color-separating and guiding optical system including a first dichroic mirror that separates a first color light from second and third color lights in the light coming from the second lens array and a second dichroic mirror that separates the second color light from the third color light in the light coming from the first dichroic mirror; first through third electro-optical modulation devices provided as the plural electro-optical modulation devices, the first through third electro-optical modulation devices modulate the respective first through third color lights; and a first convex lens and a second convex lens provided as the second superposing lens, the first convex lens being disposed between the first dichroic mirror and the second dichroic mirror and the second convex lens being disposed between the first dichroic mirror and the first electro-optical modulation device, wherein a first polarization plate is interposed between the color separating and guiding optical system and each of the electro-optical modulation devices and a second polarization plate is interposed between each of the electro-optical modulation devices and the color synthesizing optical system such that the first polarization elate and second polarization plate are provided at opposing sides of each of the electro-optical devices.