Patent ID: 8395714

Claim:
An imaging system, comprising: one or more laser sources configured to produce one or more light beams; a light modulator configured to produce images with the one or more light beams; and a polymerized liquid crystal layer that is one of: disposed between at least one of the one or more laser sources and the light modulator and configured to receive light from the at least one of the one or more laser sources and deliver two angularly separated light beams to the light modulator so as to reduce speckle appearing when the images are displayed on a display surface; or disposed between the light modulator and the display surface so as to reduce the speckle appearing when the images are displayed on the display surface, wherein the polymerized liquid crystal layer comprises a plurality of mesogens, each mesogen oriented in accordance with a function that varies monotonically along a dimension across a major face of the polymerized liquid crystal layer such that an index of refraction of the polymerized liquid crystal layer changes monotonically along the dimension.