Designing light-emitting diode arrays for uniform near-field irradiance

We analyze the first-order design of light sources consisting of multiple light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to uniformly illuminate a near target plane by considering each single LED as an imperfect Lambertian emitter. Simple approximate equations and formulas are derived for the optimum LED-to-LED spacing, i.e., the optimum packaging density, of several array configurations to achieve uniform near-field irradiance. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.