JP2005148095A - Optical sheet, and backlight unit and display using optical sheet using the same - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an optical sheet capable of properly extending an observable visual angle and reducing the occurrence of a light and dark pattern/moire/mechanical damage without causing difficulty in manufacturing technique or cost rise in an optical member applied to display represented by a transmission type liquid crystal display device equipped with a backlight unit, which irradiates a liquid crystal panel from a back side, and capable of suitably controlling the optical path of display video light. <P>SOLUTION: The optical sheet is constituted so that the group of spherical or aspherical convex cylindrical lenses are arranged in parallel (or two-dimensional array of unit lenses) on either surface of light transmissive resin base material, and is used to emit diffused light made incident on nearly all the surface after changing light distribution. Focal positions by the respective unit lenses do not reach the flat surface on the opposite lens group side of the optical sheet but are positioned inside the optical sheet. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

The present invention relates to an improvement in an optical sheet that controls the luminance and viewing angle of display light by a display in combination with a light source.

A display typified by a liquid crystal display device is remarkably widespread in a type incorporating a light source necessary for recognizing provided information. In a battery-powered device such as a laptop computer, the power consumed by the light source occupies a substantial portion of the power consumed by the entire battery-powered device. Thus, reducing the total power required to provide a given brightness increases battery life, which is particularly desirable for battery powered devices.
Brightness Enhancement Film (BEF), a trademark of 3M Corporation of the United States, is used to solve this problem and has become widespread.
BEF is a film that contains a repetitive array of prisms. The prism is large compared to the wavelength of light. BEF collects light from “off-axis” and redirects this light “on-axis” or “recycle” towards the viewer. To do.
When using the display (when observing), the BEF increases the on-axis brightness by reducing the off-axis brightness. Here, “on-axis” refers to a direction that matches the visual direction of the viewer, and is generally the normal direction (front) to the display screen.
When the repetitive array structure of prisms is arranged in only one direction, only the direction change or recycling in the parallel direction is possible. In order to control the luminance of display light in the horizontal and vertical directions, the parallel direction of the prism groups Are stacked and used in combination so that they are substantially orthogonal to each other.
Adopting BEF helps display designers achieve the desired on-axis brightness while reducing power consumption.
There are many patent documents disclosing that a brightness control member having a repetitive array structure of prisms typified by BEF is adopted for a display, and are exemplified in Patent Documents 1 to 3.
However, when the brightness control member as described above is used, the brightness rapidly decreases when the display is viewed off-axis. This sharp decrease in brightness for off-axis viewers is known to reduce the observable viewing angle and is undesirable in some applications.
In addition, a light and dark pattern that is different from the display image on the display is likely to occur, and when applied to a liquid crystal display, it is much more than the pixel arrangement period so that moire does not occur with the pixel arrangement of the liquid crystal panel. It is necessary to use a prism array with a fine period, which causes difficulty in manufacturing technology and increases costs.
As a cause of the above-mentioned bright / dark pattern, a dot pattern formed by printing or the like may be formed on the light guide plate arranged below the brightness control member as described later. It is also considered that this is because a pattern composed of parts (dark) is difficult to conceal.

Furthermore, since the apex angle of the unit prism is a sharp shape, mechanical damage is likely to occur at the time of manufacturing, transporting, transporting and using the member.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of a brightness control member having a repetitive array structure of prisms.
The member 10 has a periodic structure in which unit prisms 1 having a triangular cross section are arranged in one direction.

On the other hand, there is also a proposal for a transmissive liquid crystal display device including a backlight unit using a luminance control member having a repetitive array structure of unit lenses instead of a prism (see, for example, Patent Document 4). It is shown in FIG.
The display device shown in FIG.
A liquid crystal panel and a light source means for irradiating the liquid crystal panel with light from the back side are provided. The light source means is provided with a lens layer for guiding the light from the light source to the liquid crystal panel, and is opened near the focal plane of the lens layer. It has the light-shielding part which has.
A liquid crystal panel 12 sandwiched between polarizing plates 11 and 13 is provided on the upper side, and a light guide plate 79 made of a substantially rectangular plate-like PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) or the like is disposed on the lower surface side thereof. A scattering reflection pattern portion 82 for efficiently scattering and reflecting the light introduced into the light guide plate 79 so as to be uniform in the direction of the liquid crystal panel 12 is provided on the lower surface of 79 by printing or the like. A reflective film (reflective layer) 77 is provided below the portion 82.
A light source lamp 76 is attached to the light guide plate 79 along the side end portion. Further, the light source lamp 76 covers the back side of the light source lamp 76 so that the light from the light source lamp 76 is efficiently incident on the light guide plate 79. A high-reflectance lamp reflector 81 is provided.
The scattering reflection pattern part 82 is formed by printing a mixture of white titanium dioxide (TiO2) powder in a solution such as a transparent adhesive in a predetermined pattern, for example, a dot pattern. Light scattered by the scattering pattern portion 82 and the like is emitted from the upper surface of the light guide plate 79. A lens layer 15 composed of a plurality of lenses is disposed on the light emission side, and a light shielding layer 18 having an opening corresponding to each lens is disposed in the vicinity of the focal plane of the lens constituting the lens layer 15. The light emitted from the light guide plate 79 passes only through the opening of the light shielding layer 18 and enters the lens layer 15. Since the light shielding layer is disposed in the vicinity of the focal point, the light emitted from one point of the light shielding layer 18 is emitted from the lens layer 15 as light in a certain direction by the lens. Therefore, the direction of light emitted from the lens layer can be determined by the size of the opening of the light shielding layer 18.

In the proposal according to Patent Document 4, when a light shielding layer having an opening corresponding to each lens is arranged in the vicinity of the focal plane of the unit lens, the size of the opening and the position of the opening are appropriately set to display the light. The light emission range (that is, the viewing angle) is limitedly controlled.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-37801 JP-A-6-102506 Japanese National Patent Publication No. 10-506500 JP 2000-284268 A

  The present invention is applicable to a display typified by a transmissive liquid crystal display device having a backlight unit that irradiates a liquid crystal panel from the back side, and is observable in an optical member that can suitably control the optical path of display image light. An object of the present invention is to provide an optical sheet capable of appropriately widening the viewing angle and reducing the occurrence of bright and dark patterns, moire, and mechanical damage without causing difficulty in manufacturing techniques and increasing costs.

The optical sheet of the present invention is
An optical system that is used to emit diffused light incident on almost the entire surface of the translucent resin base material by changing the distribution of light distribution, with a spherical or aspherical convex cylindrical lens group arranged in parallel on one side. A sheet,
The focal position of each cylindrical lens is located within the optical sheet, not reaching the flat surface on the side opposite to the lens group of the optical sheet.

  As for each cylindrical lens, it is preferable that the side end surface in the boundary with an adjacent unit lens makes an angle of 0-45 degrees with the perpendicular to the main surface of the optical sheet.

The optical sheet of this invention is good also as a structure by which the convex cylindrical lens group which consists of a hardened | cured material of a radiation curable resin is superposed | polymerized on the single side | surface of a translucent resin base material sheet.
Alternatively, an integrated structure in which a lens portion is formed on a resin material such as a thermoplastic resin by press molding (or extrusion molding) may be used.

  Further, instead of the convex cylindrical lens group, a lens sheet having a configuration in which spherical or aspherical unit lenses are two-dimensionally arranged may be used.

The backlight unit to which the optical sheet of the present invention is applied,
A planar light source that illuminates illumination light from the back surface of a panel having a transmissive light valve that defines a display image, and a flat surface on the side opposite to the lens group of the optical sheet is a planar light source. It is the structure which arrange | positions toward the side, It is characterized by the above-mentioned.

  Depending on the application, the two optical sheets may be stacked and combined so that the parallel directions of the convex cylindrical lens groups are substantially orthogonal to each other.

  In the backlight unit according to the present invention, a light diffusion sheet is also disposed between the optical sheet and the planar light source.

  As the planar light source, a light source lamp such as a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFT) is roughly installed along the side end portion of a flat light guide plate made of acrylic resin or the like having excellent light transmittance. There are a light guide plate light guide method (so-called edge light method) that makes multiple reflections in the light guide plate and a direct type method that does not use the light guide plate, and the present invention is applicable to both.

  The display video light can be made visible to the viewer in a state in which the visual field range is slightly widened around the front direction without emitting display light excessively only in the front direction of the display screen of the display.

  In addition, since the periodic concavo-convex structure is not a triangular cross section, and the peak is a convex cylindrical lens with a curved surface, the occurrence of mechanical damage is reduced and the occurrence of bright and dark patterns is also suppressed.

  Furthermore, since the emission range (viewing angle) of the display light is controlled not by the opening defined by the light-shielding pattern on the anti-lens part side but by the characteristics of the lens part, the formation of the light-shielding pattern is unnecessary. It does not narrow the viewing angle.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail.
<Optical sheet>
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an optical sheet.

  The optical sheet 20 has a convex cylindrical lens juxtaposed in one direction (the vertical direction in the figure) on one side (left side in the figure) of the translucent resin base material, and the other side (right side in the figure) is flat. In this configuration, the focal position of each unit lens does not reach the flat surface on the side opposite to the lens group of the optical sheet, but is positioned inside the optical sheet.

  The unit lens is enlarged and shown on the right side of FIG.

  As an example of the optical sheet 20, a lenticular sheet made of unit convex cylindrical lenses having a pitch of 174 μm and a curvature radius of 90 μm was produced on a resin plate having a thickness of 300 μm and a refractive index of 1.5 by vacuum hot pressing.

  In the above manufacturing example, the focal position when parallel light is incident from the cylindrical lens group side substantially perpendicular to the main surface of the sheet is located 30 μm in the sheet from the flat surface on the side opposite to the lens.

  In the present invention, in each cylindrical lens, it is preferable that the side end surface at the boundary with the adjacent unit lens forms an angle of 0 to 45 ° with the perpendicular to the main surface of the optical sheet.

  In the case of the figure, the angle is 15 °, and the unit lens has a sharp shape. However, as will be described later, in the case where the unit lens has a sharp shape, the light beam that passes through the inside of the lens is separated from the lens layer and the air. Total reflection tends to occur at the interface with the layer.

In the present invention, the lens portion is not limited to an integrated structure in which the lens portion is formed on one side of the translucent resin base material, but the lens portion is polymerized on one side of the sheet-like translucent resin base material by a cured product of a radiation curable resin. Even in the case of a structure formed by bonding (a so-called molded product by the 2P method), the unit lenses are two-dimensionally arranged in a substantially matrix instead of the convex cylindrical lens group (hereinafter referred to as a microlens). Various optical sheets are produced according to the application.
<Backlight unit>
Two optical sheets shown in FIG. 3 are combined such that the back surface (flat surface) of the upper sheet faces the front surface (lens surface) of the lower sheet so that the parallel direction of the unit lenses is approximately 90 °. (See Figure 4)
With the above configuration, it is possible to control the luminance of display light in the horizontal and vertical directions.

  It is not essential to combine two optical sheets. If the luminance control only in a specific direction is necessary, there may be a usage form of one optical sheet.

  In the case of an optical sheet on which a microlens is formed, brightness control is possible not only in the horizontal / vertical direction but also in a direction over 360 °, and only one optical sheet is sufficient.

  As shown in FIG. 5, the optical sheet 20 is placed between the planar light source 30 that irradiates illumination light and a panel (not shown; left side of the figure) that defines a display image. Are arranged toward the planar light source 30 side to constitute a backlight unit.

  In the planar light source 30 illustrated in FIG. 5, a cold cathode ray tube 31 is disposed in a case 32 having an inner wall serving as a diffuse reflection surface, and no light is emitted between the cold cathode ray tube 31 and the optical sheet 20. The diffusion sheet 40 is arranged.

  The light diffusion sheet 40 is a sheet formed by dispersing and mixing a filler having a refractive index different from that of the resin in a translucent resin binder. For example, fine silica spheres are dispersed in an acrylic resin layer. It is the composition which becomes.

  Moreover, as a light-diffusion sheet, the thing of the type formed by forming a micro unevenness | corrugation on the surface of a sheet-like translucent resin base material may be used.

  The planar light source 30 is not limited to the “direct type” shown in FIG. 5 but may be the “edge light method” having the configuration according to FIG. 2 described in the background art.

  In the latter case, the optical sheet 20 is disposed on the upper surface of the light guide plate 79 instead of the lens layer 15 of FIG.

  The optical characteristics of the above backlight unit will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an optical path emitted from the backlight unit in an enlarged manner for a specific unit lens.

Of the light rays from the cold cathode ray tube 31 that pass through the light diffusion sheet 40 and enter the optical sheet 20, the component light A that enters the main surface of the light diffusion sheet 40 from the center of the unit lens, the end of the unit lens The light component B incident on the main surface of the light diffusion sheet 40 from the vertical direction and the light component C incident non-perpendicularly on the main surface of the light diffusion sheet 40 will be described below.
Light A
The light A passes through the unit lens, is refracted by the lens surface (curved surface), and exits.

At this time, since the focal position of the unit lens is inside the optical sheet 20 and the light diffusion sheet 40 is located outside the focal position of the unit lens, an enlarged real image of the light diffusion sheet 40 is distant by the lens function. The left side of the image. (When the light diffusion sheet 40 coincides with the focal position, the image is formed at infinity at the same magnification.)
Light B
When the light B passes through the unit lens and hits the lens surface (curved surface), it is refracted and does not exit, and is totally reflected. (In the figure, vertically downward)
In the present invention, the angle formed by the lens surface (curved surface) is such that the side end surface at the boundary between the unit lenses is perpendicular to the main surface of the optical sheet and is 0 to 45 °, so that the light B Will hit the lens surface (curved surface) at an angle exceeding the critical angle and will be totally reflected.

  When the totally reflected light B again hits the lens surface (lower side in the figure), it is totally reflected (to the right side in the figure) and returns to the light diffusion sheet 40.

The light B returning to the light diffusing sheet 40 repeats various behaviors such as changing the components and re-entering the optical sheet 20.
Light C
The light C is totally reflected by the side wall of the unit lens and then refracted by the lens surface (curved surface) to be emitted.

  The refracted outgoing light does not form an enlarged image like the light A.

  Further, the light C incident at an angle closer to the flat surface of the optical sheet 20 than the angle as shown in the figure is totally reflected by the flat surface, returns to the light diffusion sheet 40, changes its components, and changes to the inside of the optical sheet 20 Various behaviors are repeated, such as re-incidence.

  In the brightness control member having the prism structure, the behavior of the light A and B is mostly, and most of the light is emitted in the front direction like the light A, but the enlarged image is not formed as in the present invention. At the same time, since there are few components of the emitted light described for the light C, it does not have a function of expanding the viewing angle.

  FIG. 7 is a graph showing a luminance distribution of display light by the backlight unit.

  Compared to the case where the optical sheet that constitutes the backlight unit is excluded, it is expressed as “light from the optical sheet” / “light from the diffuser”. The brightness decreases as you go to the periphery.

  A luminance distribution (not shown) when a luminance control member having a prism structure is used exhibits extremely high luminance without a width in the front direction.

Explanatory drawing which shows the structural example of the brightness | luminance control member which has a repetitive array structure of a prism. Explanatory drawing which shows the structural example of a transmissive liquid crystal display device provided with the backlight unit using the brightness control member which has a repetitive array structure of a unit lens. Explanatory drawing which shows an example of the optical sheet of this invention. Explanatory drawing which shows the form which uses two optical sheets in combination. Explanatory drawing which shows an example of the backlight unit of this invention. Explanatory drawing which expands and shows the optical path radiate | emitted from a backlight unit about a specific unit lens. 4 is a graph showing a luminance distribution of display light by a backlight unit according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 ... Unit prism
10 ... Brightness control member
11,13 ... Polarizing plate
12 ... LCD panel
15 ... Lens layer
18… Light shielding layer
20 ... Optical sheet
30 ... Surface light source
31 ... Cold cathode ray tube
32 ... Case
40 ... Light diffusion sheet
76 ... Light source lamp
77 ... Reflective film (reflective layer)
79 ... Light guide plate
81 ... Lamp reflector
82 ... scattered reflection pattern

Claims (10)

An optical system that is used to emit diffused light incident on almost the entire surface of the translucent resin base material by changing the distribution of light distribution, with a spherical or aspherical convex cylindrical lens group arranged in parallel on one side. A sheet,
An optical sheet characterized in that the focal position of each cylindrical lens does not reach the flat surface on the side opposite to the lens group of the optical sheet but is positioned inside the optical sheet.   2. The optical sheet according to claim 1, wherein each cylindrical lens has a side end face at a boundary with an adjacent unit lens forming an angle of 0 to 45 ° with a perpendicular to the main surface of the optical sheet.   The optical sheet according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a convex cylindrical lens group made of a cured product of a radiation curable resin is polymerized and bonded to one side of the translucent resin base sheet.   The optical sheet according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a spherical or aspherical unit lens group is two-dimensionally arranged in place of the convex cylindrical lens group. In a backlight unit for generating display light by irradiating illumination light from the back to a panel including a transmissive light valve that defines a display image,
The optical sheet according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
A planar light source that irradiates illumination light from the back of the panel and a flat surface on the side opposite to the lens group of the optical sheet is disposed between the panel and the planar light source. The backlight unit.   6. The backlight unit according to claim 5, wherein the two optical sheets according to any one of claims 1 to 3 are overlapped and combined so that the parallel directions of the convex cylindrical lens groups are substantially orthogonal to each other. .   The backlight unit according to claim 5 or 6, wherein a light diffusion sheet is disposed between the optical sheet and the planar light source.   The planar light source has a configuration in which light emitted from a linear or point light source arranged at the side end is converted into planar illumination light by a light guide having substantially the same area as the panel. The backlight unit according to claim 4.   The backlight unit according to any one of claims 4 to 7, wherein the planar light source is configured using a plurality of linear or dotted light sources arranged on the back surface of the panel.   A display having a configuration in which a panel including a transmissive light valve for defining a display image is arranged on the front surface of the backlight unit according to any one of claims 4 to 9.

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