A directly addressed monolithic LED array as a projection source

Light‐emitting‐diode arrays have been fabricated and demonstrated by several groups in a variety of applications in which structured illumination is desired, such as direct‐view displays and fluorescence detection. State‐of‐the‐art LEDs can achieve a high optical power density, exceeding 40 W/cm 2 . This allows the use of such LEDs, if patterned into an array, as a light and pattern source for projection displays. As a proof of principle, a projection source using a monolithically integrated patterned LED array at a power density of 0.69 W/cm 2 , a source brightness of 21,000,000 cd/m 2 , and a projected brightness of 100,000 cd/m 2 is reported. It is shown that an improved version of such a display would allow significantly better power consumption and overall system efficiency than permitted by current projection‐display concepts.