ZONAL ILLUMINATION WITH PHOTONIC CIRCUITS FOR DISPLAYS

Organization Name

Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC

Inventor(s)

Guohua Wei of Redmond WA US

Peter Topalian of Seattle WA US

Min Chul Shin of Bellevue WA US

Risheng Cheng of Redmond WA US

Zhujun Shi of Redmond WA US

Zhaoning Yu of Redmond WA US

Jonathan Robert Peterson of Woodinville WA US

Zhimin Shi of Bellevue WA US

Giuseppe Calafiore of Woodinville WA US

Heqing Huang of Bronx NY US

ZONAL ILLUMINATION WITH PHOTONIC CIRCUITS FOR DISPLAYS

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 18405521 titled 'ZONAL ILLUMINATION WITH PHOTONIC CIRCUITS FOR DISPLAYS

Original Abstract Submitted

In some examples, a device may include a backlight unit configured to illuminate a display. In some examples, a light source may direct light into an active photonic circuit. The active photonic circuit may include optical switches controllable to distribute the light to illuminate display zones. An active photonic circuit may include an arrangement of optical switches configured to allow particular zones to be raster scanned, for example, using light distribution and outcoupling further using a passive photonic circuit. The illumination intensity for each zone may be controlled using the optical switches and/or with variation of the light source intensity. In some examples, the illumination intensity for each zone can be varied based on the displayed content, allowing improved contrast ratios. In some examples, all zones may be illuminated simultaneously with a zonal illumination intensity based on displayed content. Other devices, methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.