Patent ID: 7784954

Claim:
A light homogenizer for improving the spatial luminance uniformity of incident light comprising: a first polarization dependent anisotropic light scattering region comprising a first continuous phase of a first material and a first dispersed phase of a second material contained as a first plurality of domains in said first continuous phase and one or more of said first plurality of domains are ellipsoidal in shape; a first light redirecting region adapted to receive light within a predetermined first range of input angles from said first polarization dependent anisotropic light scattering region and redirect a first portion of the light back toward said polarization dependent anisotropic light scattering region; wherein the refractive index difference between said first material and said second material along a first and second of three mutually orthogonal axes is greater than 0.01 and the refractive index difference along at least one axis is less than 0.1; wherein transmitted visible light is anisotropically scattered and visible light of all polarization states is partially transmitted anisotropically and partially reflected; a first optical cavity bounded by said first light redirecting region and one or more of said first plurality of domains wherein incident light undergoes multiple redirections and multiple scatterings whereby the spatial uniformity of the light is increased.