Patent ID: 8662670

Claim:
An ophthalmic illuminator, comprising: a white light source; a plurality of combining stages comprising a red combining stage and a cyan combining stage, each combining stage comprising a colored light source and a light combining member comprising a dichroic mirror, the combining stages comprising: a first combining stage comprising a first dichroic mirror configured to combine a white light from the white light source with a first colored light from a first colored light source; one or more intermediate combining stages, each intermediate combining stage configured to combine light from a previous combining stage with an intermediate colored light from an intermediate colored light source; and a final combining stage configured to produce a final combined light beam having a contribution from the white light source and from each colored light source; and a spectral controller configured to control the colored light sources, but not the white light source, such that the cyan combining stage is driven at a greater percentage of its power capacity than that of the red combining stage to produce a white chromaticity with a higher total luminous flux and a lower aphakic hazard than that of the white light.