–a leading manufacturer for thin film optical components used for digital projectors’ color management systems–is marketing a zero-shift UV blocking filter, the UV Guard™, which will increase lifetime and color stability of microdisplay-based projectors.
The recently developed UV Guard™ filter helps to increase the lifetime of UV sensitive components in a light engine by a steep, zero temperature/humidity shift cut-on slope. The zero-shift property is crucial, because the emission spectra of lamps have peaks in the UV/blue region. Therefore, a small shift of the spectral curve could increase the UV load by such a large amount that the lifetime of UV-sensitive components would be limited. These spectral changes also influence the color balance of the projector system.
To eliminate these effects Unaxis Optics utilized their patented sputtering technology (US pat. 5,292,417) and developed the UV Guard. UV Guard is available with different rear side coating combinations: like UV/AR with an antireflection coating, and UV/IR with an infrared blocker on rear side. These combinations can be tailored to precise specifications for custom applications.
As projectors move from business usage to consumer markets, their brightness-levels are expected to increase in response to the requirements for TV applications. At the same time, the small front- and rear-projection TVs suitable for home environments require a reduction in light engine size, which increases the radiation and temperature demands on the components. Further miniaturization is expected to put an even higher radiation load on the optical components, especially to the UV sensitive light valves. These factors make it necessary to have components with longer lifetimes and stability. UV Guard is Unaxis Optics answer to these demands on microdisplay-based projectors.