Collimating lamp with well color mixing of
red/green/blue LEDs
Ching-Cherng Sun,1,* Ivan Moreno,1,2 Yi-Chien Lo,1 Bo-Chun Chiu,1
and Wei-Ting Chien1
1
Institute of Lighting and Display Science /Department of Optics and Photonics, National Central University,
Chung-Li, 320, Taiwan
2
Unidad Academica de Fisica, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, 98060, Zacatecas, Mexico
*
ccsun@dop.ncu.edu.tw
Abstract: A novel light luminaire is proposed and experimentally analyzed,
which efficiently mixes and projects the tunable light from red, green and
blue (RGB) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Simultaneous light collimation
and color mixing is a challenging task because most collimators separate
colors, and most color mixers spread the light beam. Our method is simple
and compact; it only uses a short light pipe, a thin diffuser, and a total
internal reflection lens. We performed an experimental study to find a
balance between optical efficiency and color uniformity by changing light
recycling and color mixing.
©2011 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (230.3670) Light-emitting diodes; (330.1690) Color; (080.4295) Nonimaging
optical systems; (350.4600) Optical engineering.
References and links
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We chose a 29 cm diameter because more than 95% of the luminous energy is enclosed within this circle. At
this radial position the view angle of the circle is 20 degrees. From Fig. 5b it can be seen that the intensity is quite
low at this emission angle.
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1. Introduction
The unique controllability of LEDs is adding new dimensions of light utilization [1,2]. In
contrast to conventional light sources, LED lamps can be easily controlled in: emission
spectrum, polarization, temporal modulation, radiation pattern, and color. Multicolor LEDs
offer real-time control of its color emission as never before in lighting history. This
controllability of illumination is maximized by the ability of LED lamps to be easily
integrated by small color LEDs, and to have their light output manipulated without inefficient
color filters.
The color controllability of LEDs is very attractive in applications as down lighting, spot
lighting, entertainment, architectural, floodlight, and show lighting, where a narrow color
beam is projected at a distance. In contrast to electronic control, optical color mixing
addresses color uniformity in three dimensions, i.e., not only uniformity across a plane, but
also along a working distance. Traditionally, optical color mixing is done by wide-angle or
long-distance projection. In a short distance with a limited spreading angle, well color mixing
is difficult to achieve, even not considering the efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel
scheme to make color mixing and light projection of RGB LEDs. We also present an
experimental study of its performance. We measure the color uniformity and optical
efficiency for different conditions. And it is shown how by conveniently controlling light
recycling the light of multiple color LEDs can be mixed and collimated efficiently.
2. New method of color mixing and projection
Light of multicolor LEDs can be directly combined without additional optics (Fig. 1(a)), but
strong color patterns occur if the illumination distance is not long enough [3,4]. Mixing rods,
frosted glass, volume scattering, holographic and deterministic diffusers are used in
illumination systems to provide a uniform output [5–8]. However, in opposite to light
projection, all they significantly increase the width of the beam cone (Fig. 1(b)). In the other
hand, non-imaging elements can reshape the radiation pattern of LEDs to collimate the light
distribution [8–11]. But these projection devices assume that the source is a single
monochromatic LED. When a cluster of RGB LEDs is used instead of a single color source
(Fig. 1(c)), the result is a color fringing light projection [2,8,12]. This is a challenging
problem because the solutions may be sensitive to the position of each LED, the optical
design may be complex, or they may be difficult to fabricate [13,14].
Fig. 1. Typical color mixing of color LEDs. (a) Direct combination, and (b), using a traditional
mixing element. (c) Light projection.
We present a new design that overcomes most of these problems. It generates a uniform
narrow beam whose spot size can be changed; and it requires only compact monotonic
surfaces, which greatly simplifies the design and fabrication of the optics. The design concept
is simple; first, a straight lightpipe is applied to make color mixing. However, the optimal
length of a mixing rod could be too long when using multicolor LEDs [15,16]. In order to
shorten it, we introduce a volume scattering diffuser in the light pipe to enhance the color
mixing as shown in Fig. 2. Note that the appropriate combination of the lightpipe and diffuser
determines light recycling and color mixing [6]. The exit face of the tube is attached at the
entrance of a projecting lens. And then the optical design of the collimating lens becomes easy
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because now its input is a single-color homogenous light source. We designed a special TIR
lens that efficiently projects the light of a Lambertian source [9,10,17]. The light pattern
projected by the TIR lens has high color uniformity because the diffuser significantly
improves the color mixing of the short light pipe. Figure 3 illustrates the difference between
missing and using the diffuser. It is a photo of the projected bright spot over a white surface.
Fig. 2. The optical structure of the proposed lamp for color mixing and light collimation.
Fig. 3. Light pattern produced by the projection lamp shown in Fig. 2, without (a) and with (b)
diffuser.
3. Optical efficiency
Optical efficiency is the percentage of light from the LED transmitted through the optical
system. Since several optical elements interact with light, the optical efficiency becomes an
important factor to evaluate the system performance. We define the optical efficiency as the
ratio of the output luminous flux to the input luminous flux (both in lumens). In other words,
it is the ratio of the luminous flux of the multicolor LED collimating lamp with respect to the
light flux of the multicolor LED. And then to evaluate the efficiency, luminous flux should be
known. Figure 4 shows the experiment setup we used to measure the optical efficiency. The
multicolor LED was attached with a white base inside a large integrating sphere (Fig. 4(a)). It
was a SphereOptics 40-inch diameter integrating sphere photometer. The lamp was attached
to one external port of the integrating sphere (Fig. 4(b)). It must be noted that the light
reflection and transmission through the lightpipe, diffuser and collimating lens are
wavelength-dependent. And then the optical efficiency of the system should be a little
different for different RGB color combinations. Next section discusses the other important
parameter, the color uniformity.
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Fig. 4. Experiment setup with an integrating sphere for measuring the optical efficiency. (a)
LED light flux, and (b) light flux of the projection lamp, which is integrated by LED +
lightpipe + diffuser + lens.
4. Color uniformity
It is typical to display the color variation in the chromaticity coordinate system as a cluster of
points surrounding the reference color point. However, it is practical and more objective to
quantify the uniformity of a color pattern with one single and meaningful value. The
traditional metrics quantify the “non-uniformity” of color distribution. But it has more sense
to assess the uniformity instead of the non-uniformity. And then, based on a recent work [18],
we calculate the color uniformity with
Color Uniformity =
100
[%],
1 + k ⋅ ∆uvrms
(1)
where k is just a constant to set the range of values. We used k = 138.9, which gives a 90%
color uniformity for the most uniform pattern that we produced in the laboratory (see Section
5.4). The non-uniformity Δuvrms is the root-mean square color variation [3]
=
∆uvrms
1
M
∑ ( u ′ − u ′ ) + ( v′ − v′ )
M
2
i
i
avg
i
avg
2

 ,
(2)
where M is simply the number of sampling points of the illuminated surface. And, u´ and v´
are the color coordinates in the CIE 1976 uniform color system. As a reference color point we
use the coordinates of the average color of measured points, i.e. u´avg and v´avg. In all our
measurements (Section 5) we observed a somehow good color mixing for color uniformities
larger than 50%. And, it was hard to observe color features for uniformities larger than 70%.
In order to measure the color coordinates, a colorimeter was positioned 40 cm from the
exit end of the lamp (Fig. 5(a)). We selected this measuring distance because the angular
intensity (normalized) practically is the same for longer distances (see Fig. 5(b)). We used a
chroma meter (Konica Minolta CL-200), whose performance was tested against an integrating
sphere coupled with a spectrophotometer. To increase the spatial resolution, the aperture size
was reduced to 0.7 cm diameter with an iris.
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Fig. 5. (a) Experiment setup for measuring the color uniformity. (b) Radiation pattern of the
projection luminaire for different measuring distances. The normalized cross correlation (NCC)
measures the similarity of radiation pattern [17].
The light pattern is sampled across a circular grid of measurement points by both rotating
the lamp, and linearly moving the colorimeter (see Fig. 5(a)). The colorimeter was moved
with a translational stage along a line over the illuminated plane, and the luminaire was
rotated about the optical axis. As seen in Fig. 6, the result is a circular grid of 29 cm diameter
[19], which should contain as much as possible points. But the measurement time increases
with the number of measurement positions. Therefore we made several tests for choosing a
suitable number. Figure 6 shows five configurations. Configuration (b) has many
measurement positions (73), and then it is the reference scheme. The other configurations
have only 37 and 25 points. We measured the color uniformity of the light pattern shown in
Fig. 6(a). The values of color uniformity, using configurations (b)-(f), are: (b) 39.1%, (c)
37.6%, (d) 39.2%, (e) 44.5%, and (f) 42.6%. Note that configuration (d) has the uniformity
most similar to that of the reference (b), and then we used the configuration (d) in all the
following measurements. In other words, in Section 5 we calculate the color uniformity with
Eq. (1) by using M = 37 with the configuration of Fig. 6(d). Although, it could be easier to
measure a square array than a circular grid of points, we used the circular configuration
because of two reasons. First the square grid gives equal importance to all points of the
illumination pattern, but the points near the center of light pattern have more impact for the
observer’s visual field. The circular approach solves this issue because the density of points is
larger near the central region. The other reason is that a square grid is not compatible with a
circular illumination pattern, and difficulties rise near the corner (points near the perimeter of
the circular light pattern).
In addition, the color distribution was visually recorded with a camera. A translucent
diffuse screen was positioned 40 cm from the light lamp, and then the light transmitted
through the screen was imaged at a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera.
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Fig. 6. Spatial distribution of sampling points for the measurement of color uniformity. (a)
Light pattern under test, (b) 73 measurement positions, (c) 37 points, (d) 37 non-aligned points,
(e) 25 points, and (f) 25 non-aligned points. We used configuration (d) for the experimental
analysis in Section 5.
5. Experimental analysis
In this section the performance of the lamp is experimentally analyzed. For each measurement
the light recycling and color mixing of the lightpipe/diffuser are varied. In particular we show
the relationship between optical efficiency and color uniformity in function of: characteristics
of diffuser, length of light guide, position of diffuser within light guide, and using two
diffusers. We selected a 3-in-1 LED, where one red die, one green, and one blue die are put
together in a single package (Fig. 7(a)). Properly dimming each color die, this RGB LED
produces a plenty of colors. In the experiment we generated white light with different
correlated color temperature (CCT). In particular, we adjusted the individual drive currents to
produce light with CCTs of 3000K, 4500K, and 6500K. However, the color can be freely
changed with appropriate LED die control. And also the light pattern can be changed through
different TIR lens.
Fig. 7. Lamp parts used in the experimental analysis. (a) RGB LED, (b) Circular and square
light guides with diffuser, and (c) TIR collimating lens.
We used a light guide with square cross section in all experiments. A circular cross section
lightpipe was included in Section 5.1 for comparison purposes (Fig. 7(b)). We assembled and
tested a wide variety of lightpipes. Silver scatter sheet was used for the reflective sidewalls
(with an approximately 90% reflectivity). This type of sheet is usually employed in both
lighting and display backlighting. In general, the lightpipe length L was 7 mm, and the crosssection D was 7 mm to facilitate the introduction of the RGB LED inside the light guide. We
used the TIR lens shown in Fig. 7(c), which was designed to efficiently project the light of an
extended Lambertian source [9,10,17]. This lens collimates the light into a narrow beam; its
angular distribution is shown in Fig. 5(b).
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5.1 Dependence upon the type of diffuser
Inherent to the idea of light homogenization is the use of a diffuser plate. As shown in Fig. 3,
the diffuser is a key element to enhance the color mixing. This is why using the correct
diffuser is important. Figure 8 shows the lamp performance for different diffuser types. We
used four commercially available diffusers for this experiment: (D1) DP1309, (D2) TP228,
(D3) PKK0030-300, and (D4) PKK0030-500. Their optical characteristics are shown in the
table attached to Fig. 8(a). By transmittance we mean the single shot measurement of
transmittance [6]. Figure 8(a) includes the measurement of lamps assembled with light guides
of both circular and square cross section. The plot shows that a luminaire using a square
lightpipe has better color uniformity than one using a circular light guide, but has a little less
optical efficiency. This is because a square cross section tube is a better homogenizer than a
circular one [16], but the optical efficiency is a little lower. The graph also shows how a thin
diffuser with wide full width half maximum (FWHM) angle is better for color mixing, and
how a thin diffuser with narrow FWHM angle helps with better optical efficiency.
Fig. 8. Optical performance of the multicolor LED collimating lamp. (a) Relationship between
optical efficiency and color uniformity when using different types of diffuser. This plot also
shows the difference between using a square lightpipe and a circular lightpipe. (b) Image of the
projected light pattern of the lamp with square tube. It is displayed for diffusers D1-D4, and the
three CCTs.
The optical efficiency of the lamp with circular cross section lightpipe is around 5.5%
better than one using a square cross section tube. However, the color uniformity of a lamp
with square lightpipe is about 30.0% higher than one using a circular tube. Therefore we used
in all following experiments square cross section lightpipes. Figure 8(b) shows the image of
the light pattern projected by the lamp with square cross section tube. It can be noted that
color fringes are nearly impossible to observe.
5.2 Dependence upon tube length
Total color mixing is achieved if the light pipe is infinitely long. In the real world, a luminaire
is of finite size, and most of the times it needs to be compact. Hence we analyzed the
influence of length within a range from 2.1 to 10.5 mm. Figure 9(a) shows the relationship
between optical efficiency and color uniformity for several lightpipe lengths. The graph shows
how color uniformity increases with length, and how a short pipe helps with better optical
efficiency. Figure 9(b) shows efficiency and uniformity in function of lightpipe length. From
this figure we can see that when L/D is larger than 0.8 the uniformity is larger than 70%.
Similarly, when L/D is smaller than 1.2, the optical efficiency is larger than 52%. Therefore, a
length-width ratio 0.8<L/D<1.2 assures good color mixing and efficiency.
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Fig. 9. (a) Optical efficiency vs. color uniformity for several lightpipe lengths. Here the length
and cross section of tube are L, and D = 7mm, respectively. The diffuser is D2. The green line
is the average from the three CCTs. (b) Optical efficiency and color uniformity in function of
the lightpipe length.
5.3 Dependence upon diffuser position
The diffuser not only increases color mixing, but also controls light recycling. Light that is
reflected back is recycled by all the reflective walls of the tube. Therefore, the height of the
diffuser influences the overall optical efficiency. Hence we analyzed the effect of the diffuser
position inside the lightpipe of length L = 7 mm. We varied the position within a range from
2.1 to 7 mm. Figure 10(a) shows the relationship between optical efficiency and color
uniformity for different diffuser locations. The graph shows how the diffuser at top is better
for color mixing, and how the diffuser near the RGB LED helps with better optical efficiency.
The light patterns are shown in Fig. 10(b). We observe a somehow good color mixing for
uniformities larger than 50%, and it is nearly impossible to observe color fringes for
uniformities larger than 70%.
Fig. 10. (a) Relationship between optical efficiency and color uniformity in function of relative
position of diffuser. The green line is the average from the three CCTs. Here D = 7mm, L =
7mm, and the diffuser is D2. (b) Images of the projected light pattern for positions L1/L = 0.3,
0.45, 0.7, and 1.0.
5.4 Lightpipe with two diffusers
Using two diffusers instead of one improves color mixing, reduces the length of tube, and
makes the lamp very compact. This increases the versatility in the design to improve the lamp
performance. Many possible combinations of different types of diffusers can be used. We
tested several combinations, and we found that using D3 on the top, and D5 inside the tube
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was the best option. Diffuser D5 is the commercially available diffuser TP292, which has a
75μm thickness, 89.7% one-shot transmittance, and FWHM = 22°. Figure 11(a) shows the
relationship between optical efficiency and color uniformity for different positions of the
inner diffuser. The graph shows how color uniformity significantly increases when the
distance between diffusers increases. And the color uniformity is almost perfect when the
separation between the two diffusers is maximal. This could be because the cavity enclosed by
the diffusers is a better color mixer if it is large. However, the optical efficiency is quite larger
if the diffusers are putted together. Note that using L1/L = 1 in a shorter tube improves
compactness and increases the optical efficiency keeping high color uniformity. It is
interesting to note that the optical efficiency is almost the same for all other diffuser positions,
and even more, the efficiency increases with uniformity. The light patterns are shown in Fig.
11(b). All the patterns show excellent color uniformities, and it is impossible for us to observe
color fringes.
Fig. 11. (a) Optical efficiency and color uniformity for different positions of a 2nd diffuser. The
green line is the average of the three CCTs. Here D = 7mm, and L = 7mm. The top diffuser is
D3 and the inner is D5. (b) Images of the projected light pattern for positions L2/L = 0.3, 0.45,
0.7, 0.85, and 1.
6. Summary
We have proposed a new multicolor LED projection luminaire, which has been constructed,
and experimentally analyzed. This color tunable lamp efficiently mixes and projects the light
from RGB LEDs, which is very useful in many applications for color or CCT changing. The
method is simple, compact and effective, it is composed of only three parts: one short,
straight, and high reflective lightpipe; a thin volume scattering diffuser; and a compact TIR
collimating lens. We performed an experimental study to find a balance between optical
efficiency and color uniformity. In order to objectively assess the optical efficiency and color
uniformity they were defined, and the setup for their measurement was explained. For the
experimental analysis, we varied light recycling and color mixing in the cavity integrated by
the lightpipe and the diffuser. Four conditions were analyzed: (1) the dependence upon the
diffuser type, (2) dependence upon lightpipe length, (3) dependence upon diffuser position,
and (4) the effect of using two diffusers. In the first condition, we found that the diffuser
thickness and FWHM are the key diffuser properties. In the second condition, we found that
there is an optimal range of length-width ratios for the lightpipe. In the third, the diffuser at
top of tube increases color mixing, and at bottom increases the optical efficiency. The fourth
condition shows how the color uniformity is almost perfect when the separation between the
two diffusers is maximal. Depending on the color uniformity tolerances, it is important to
consider how the efficiency-uniformity relation affects the system performance. In general,
we observed a somehow good color mixing for uniformities larger than 50%. And, it was hard
to observe color features for uniformities larger than 70%.
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Acknowledgments
This study was sponsored by the National Science Council of the Republic of China with the
contracts of no. 97-2221-E-008-025-MY3, 99-2623-E-008-002-ET and NSC100-3113-E-008001. The authors would like to thank Breault Research Organization and Howard Huang for
the support of simulation with ASAP.
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