1. Laser Illumination Systems
for
2D and 3D Digital Cinema
Bill Beck
Co‐founder | EVP Business Development
Laser Light Engines, Inc.
Salem, New Hampshire

2. What is a laser?
A device or system that converts electricity to visible
light with three desirable attributes:
1. Ultra‐high spatial BRIGHTNESS
2. Very LONG LIFETIME at full power
3. High EFFICIENCY electrical‐to‐RGB lumen conversion

3. Why use lasers for D‐Cinema?
•
•
•
•
•
Studios want BRIGHT 3D
Exhibitors want to SAVE MONEY
Creatives want BETTER IMAGE QUALITY
OEMs want the NEXT BIG PRODUCT
Architects want to go BOOTHLESS

4. How does a laser light source differ
from a Xenon lamp?
Attribute
UoM
High pressure ‐ gas discharge
short arc creates bright “spot”
Collimated to
moderately divergent
Isotropic = all directions
must be focused to small spot
mm2 ‐ SR
Very small ‐ 0.001‐1
High relative to laser 4‐20
nm
“Narrow” ‐ 0.01‐2
“Wide” ‐ 40‐80/primary
Hours to
end of life
5,000‐100,000 to 80% output
25,000 ‐50,000 target
200‐2000 to 50% output
500‐1000 typical
lm/wp‐watt
5‐10
2‐6
Output pattern
Spectral bandwidth
Lifetime
Efficiency
Xenon
Stimulated emission
very high spatial brightness
E to O Conversion
Étendue
Laser

5. RGB Laser Hierarchy
• Device – individual (single) emitter
• Array or bar – multiple emitters per device
• Module
– Aggregation – multiple devices or arrays
– Beamline – single, high power beam
• Engine – combination of R+G+B modules
• System – one or more engines per projector
200mW – 3W
3 ‐ 10 W
10 – 50 W
10 ‐ 40 W
20 ‐ 50 W
50 ‐ 100 W
50 – 600+ W

6. Candidate Projection Lasers
Laser Type
Color
Center Spectral Power/d
étendue
λ
BW
evice
Device
efficiency
Life
RGB
nm
nm
W optical
mm2 ‐ sr
E to O %
khrs
Diode
(1 emitter)
R
B
635‐645
445‐465
0.2‐2
0.5‐2
1‐2
1‐3
small
10 ‐ 25
10 ‐ 30
5 ‐ 10
10 ‐ 25
Diode array
(or bar)
R
635‐654
2‐3
3‐5
small
15‐23
7‐10
Doubled Diode
or array
G
B
531‐535
460‐464
0.1‐0.2
3‐6
0.001
5‐6
20‐38
Diode‐Pumped Solid‐
State (frequency
doubled or tunable)
R
G
B
607‐642
515‐555
445‐460
0.2 ‐ 10
0.1 ‐ 10
0.1 ‐ 6
10‐20
20‐120
10
0.0001
‐ 0.01
5‐8
8‐15
3‐5
20 – 50
20 – 50
20 ‐ 50
Unit of measure

7. Lumens vs. laser watts
544 nm, 666 lm/W
532 nm, 603 lm/W
615 nm, 301 lm/W
462 nm, 45 lm/W
446 nm, 21 lm/W
640 nm, 120 lm/W
*
7

8. Critical Requirements
•
•
•
•
•
First, do no harm – despeckle the image
Full brightness 3D
Better image quality
Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
New Builds and Retrofit

9. First, do no harm !
•
•
•
•
•
Speckle contrast equivalent to Xenon
All Projectors
All Screens
All content
All 3D systems

10. What is speckle?
You know it when you see it…
•
Interference pattern artifact that occurs when a coherent,
narrow band light source is used to illuminate projector chips
•
Figure of merit is “Speckle Contrast Ratio”
SCR% = Std deviation of pixel intensity ÷ mean pixel intensity
•
Measureable; level of offensiveness is subjective
Observer, content, position, screen type visual acuity, all play a role
•
GREEN is most difficult to acceptably despeckle ‐ human vision
has highest sensitivity, acuity at GREEN wavelengths
•
RED speckle can also be offensive in certain content
10

11. How to despeckle?
• Increase illumination angle
and…
• Scramble polarization
and…
• Spectrally broaden the laser output (a lot)
THIS IS THE KEY TO A FULLY DESPECKLED LASER LIGHT SOURCE
11

12. Full Brightness 3D
• Constant >11 fL to meet DCI … or more?
• 2‐3 times current brightness … pre‐3D cut
• Acceptable speckle reduction on silver or
white, high gain screens
• For all types of content
• In future, 3D should be designed in

13. Image Quality Improvement
• Higher Contrast Ratio ‐ blacker blacks; whiter whites
– Lower étendue system; higher f# launch
– Laser sync
• Greater bit depth
• Better brightness uniformity
• Wider Color Gamut (WCG)

14. Lower TCO Drivers
•
•
•
•
Laser lifetimes of 25-50,000 hours
Eliminate lamp cost
Eliminate lamp change cost
30-50% lower direct power
consumption
• Reduced HVAC make up air out
the vent stack

15. New Build or Retrofit? Both!
• Lasers will enable more efficient, higher performance
next generation projectors
–
–
–
–
Direct to chip RGB – no splitting prism
Lower étendue optical system
Smaller chips
Smaller, simpler projection lenses
• Fiber delivery enables universal laser engine retrofit

16. Slides to be added here to explain technology demo and clips

17. Remaining Challenges
• Standards for Speckle level and measurement
– Test conditions, procedures and acceptance levels
• Rationalize regulatory environment (LIPA)
• Commercialization
• Manufacturing scale‐up and cost reduction

18. Summary and Conclusions
 The technology is in hand to meet or exceed all the current
requirements for Laser Digital Cinema
 Laser has been adapted to all types of D‐Cinema projectors
 Laser works for bright 3D, HFR and WCG
We need to gather stakeholder inputs and move
this promising capability forward
18

19. bbeck@laserlightengines.com +1 617.290.3861
THANK YOU!