A Practical Laser Projector with New Illumination Optics for Reduction of Speckle Noise

We have developed illumination optics for image projection systems. It realizes uniform illumination and suppression of speckle and diffraction noises by using a diffuser and integrator optics. By optimizing the diffusing angle of the diffuser, optical power loss was less than 10%. A proto type of a laser projector with a red wide-stripe semiconductor laser and green and blue second-harmonic generation lasers was realized by using the developed illumination optics and twisted nematic liquid-crystal panels. Still images from a personal computer and video images from a digital versatile disk (DVD) player were displayed with the system and a wide colour gamut and smooth images without diffraction noise nor speckle noise were confirmed.