Public Funding for Digital Projection Limited

Existing light emitting diodes (LEDs) do not emit light directionally, so in many applications not all photons are coupled into the optical system and result in wasted energy. This is notably true in image projection systems (a US$3B annual market) which require bigger, much brighter LEDs to replace inefficient discharge lamps. The aim of this project is to advance the development of new large area, high brightness InGaN LEDs with highly directional emission and capable of operating at high electrical power density to achieve the high on-screen lumens needed for advanced digital projectors. The innovation will involve realising such LEDs on Silicon substrates, the incorporation of novel nanostructures by cost effective methods to direct the light output, and wafer bonding to thermally conducting substrates to address the heat extraction problem. The new LEDs will also be tested in a novel projector design that requires multiple highly directional LEDs, to expand market opportunities.

During the past 15 years massive advances in projection technology have been made, based on the development oflight modulators, such as DLP, LCD and L-COS. Digital Projection Ltd (DPL) has been at the forefront of this revolution. In the next 5 years the disruption in the market will be caused by radical changes to the light sources within the projectors. Currently, the brightest projectors use xenon arc lamps, whilst those in the mid and lower ranges use high pressure mercury discharge. Our strategy is to develop and manufacture a range of products using solid state light sources: at the highest end, lasers; at the mid and lower end, LED's. LED's have the potential to deliver major benefits over conventional lamps in terms of life, efficiency, reliability, image quality, ownership cost and environmental impact. They also enable architectural changes to product design ~will open up new applications and markets. DPL has already embarked on the development of laser-light sources, but needs urgently to address the much wider market potential of LED's to replace mercury lamps. LED's presently offer great colour and life, but they do not couple efficiently into projector optics. The novel techniques described in this proposal overcome this limitation. The Northwest Photonics Strategy document lists in its Executive Summary the key role of High Brightness LED's and notes the pressures facing Photonics SME's. This project should act as a catalyst to help DPL address this.

The multi-billion dollar global market for high brightness light sources for the lighting and display sectors is presently dominated by inherently inefficient and short-lived ultra high pressure bulbs. This project seeks to develop a radically different light source based upon novel ways of frequency-doubling infra-red lasers to generate more than 3W of visible light, and to test the source in a representative demonstrator projection system. The envisaged light source will provide exceptional brightness, reliability and lifetime, and an order of magnitude improvement in energy efficiency. In the initial target market area of high performance light projection equipment the technology developed would be additionally commercially disruptive by virtue of its far superior colour rendering capabilities. A range of large and rapidly-growing related markets would be accessible to the new light source, offering excellent potential returns.

3D-SID is a two-year applied research project to create the modular building blocks for a highly scalable 3D digital display system, which can be applied to a wide range of the most demanding applications in visualisation, simulation, cinema and entertainment. The R&D focuses on the use of multiple digital micro-mirror devices to produced very high-resolution tiled image streams, with very low latency at ultra-high data refresh rates for improved 3D and with significantly increased brightness. It includes research and development designed to produce a novel method of flat-panel 3D display by harnessing the very high refresh rates possible with the Digital Micromirror Device and FPGA-accelerated image warping and tiling. The project is led by the UK''s only manufacturer of high-performance digital projectors (Digital Projection Ltd), working with a company specialising in hardware acceleration for novel image-processing (Pandora International Ltd) and Cambridge University. Results will give the UK new access to markets for visualisation technology and active 3D cinematic display, and scientific applications.