Lighting apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9518708-B2
Application number	US-201414250882-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2014
Priority date	Apr 12, 2013
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

A lighting apparatus includes a plurality of LEDs arranged in a row; an elongated wiring board on which the LEDs are mounted; and an optical lens covering all the LEDs and controlling distribution of light emitted from each LED. The light emitted from each LED has an optical axis orthogonal to the wiring board. The optical lens is a converging lens and includes a first light incident surface on which the light emitted from the LED is incident, a medium that guides the light incident from the light incident surface, a light emitting surface, and a diffusion section that contains diffusing particles for causing the light incident from the LED to diffuse. The concentration of the diffusing particles in the diffusion section is high in the vicinity of the optical axis of the light emitted from the LED and gradually decreases as a distance from the optical axis increases.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A lighting apparatus comprising:
a plurality of LED structures having a plurality of LEDs arranged in a row;
a wiring board having an elongated shape, on which the LEDs are mounted; and
an optical lens that covers the LED structures, and controls distribution of light emitted from each of the LEDs, wherein
each of the plurality of LED structures includes a plurality of LED types that each emit light of a different color from each other and are mounted on the wiring board in a row, and
the light emitted from each LED has an optical axis orthogonal to the wiring board,
the optical lens is a converging lens which has an elongated shape that covers all of the LEDs included in at least one of the LED structures, and includes a light incident surface on which the light emitted from the LED is incident, a medium that guides the light incident from the light incident surface, a light emitting surface that emits the light guided through the medium, and a diffuser that contains diffusing particles for causing the light incident from the LED to diffuse, and
the concentration of the diffusing particles in the diffuser is high in the vicinity of the optical axis of the light emitted from the LED and gradually decreases as a distance from the optical axis increases,
wherein the medium contains the diffusing particles to provide the diffuser.

2. The lighting apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the optical lens is configured to have a Fresnel structure at the light emitting surface.

3. The lighting apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the optical lens is configured to have a Fresnel structure at the light incident surface.

4. The lighting apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein
the optical lens further includes a translucent coating that coats the light emitting surface, and
the translucent coating has a refractive index higher than a refractive index of the medium.

Assignees

• Panasonic Corp
• Panasonic Ip Man Co Ltd

Inventors

• Ohta Takashi
• Motoya Atsushi

Classifications

• G02B5/0242

  by means of dispersed particles · CPC title

• G02B19/0061

  the light source comprising a LED · CPC title

• B60Q3/43

  General lighting · CPC title

• F21Y2103/10

  comprising a linear array of point-like light-generating elements · CPC title

• F21Y2115/10

  Light-emitting diodes [LED] · CPC title