Patent ID: 7121693

Claim:
A lamp assembly comprising: a lamp housing having a light-emitting opening turned in a direction toward a surface to be illuminated; at least one lamp in said housing for producing light emitted in a light cone toward said surface; and a lens plate disposed across said opening between the lamp and the surface and comprised of a multiplicity of microlenses directly adjacent one another for rendering the light cone as it passes through said lens plate substantially homogeneous and sharp-edged where said light cone meets said surface, said microlenses being formed as structuring of at least one surface of said lens plate, said lens plate having an inner surface turned toward said lamp and an outer surface turned away from said lamp and outwardly away from the housing, said inner surface turned toward said lamp being formed with contiguous generally spherical recesses, the outer surface turned away from the lamp being formed with contiguous generally spherical convexities, said convexities and said recesses forming said microlenses, a spacing ΔS between midpoints of adjacent recesses or adjacent convexities being less than 5 mm and greater than 1 mm.