1. A planar moulded article comprising a front side and a rear side, characterised in that the front side comprises light-guiding structures formed by a lens region and a CPC region.
2. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the light-guiding structures are substantially translation invariant.
3. The planar moulded article according to claim 2, characterised in that the moulded article in the translation invariant direction comprises overmodulated structures which produce an additional scattering effect.
4. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the lens regions are identical and the CPC regions are identical.
5. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the individual lens regions and CPC regions can be described by independent sets of parameters.
6. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the CPC region is determined by:
a) calculating the aperture angles in the medium \u03b81 and \u03b82 from Fresnel’s equations by means of the defined acceptance angles;
b) constructing the parabola branch P1 with the aperture angle in the medium \u03b81 and construction of the parabola branch P2 with the aperture angle in the medium \u03b82 according to the equation
y
1
,
2
=
(
x
\u2213
cos
\u2062
\u2062
\u03b8
1
,
2
)
2
2
\u2062
(
1
\u2213
sin
\u2062
\u2062
\u03b8
1
,
2
)
–
1
\xb1
sin
\u2062
\u2062
\u03b8
1
,
2
2
wherein \u03b81,2 is the aperture angle in the medium of the left (\u03b81) and right (\u03b82) parabola, x is the X co-ordinate, and \u03b31,2 is the Y co-ordinate of the left (y1) and right (y2) parabola;
c) calculating the end points of the parabola branches F1, F2 and E1, E2;
d) rotating the parabola branch P1 about the aperture angle in the medium \u2212\u03b81 and of the parabola branch P2 about the aperture angle in the medium \u03b82 and translation of the parabola branch P2 along the X axis;
e) in the case of an asymmetric variant where \u03b81\u2260\u03b82, determining the inclination of the inclined surface defined by the points E1 and E2;
f) determining the effective acceptance angles in air from the geometry constructed in steps a) to e);
g) comparing the effective acceptance angles with the defined acceptance angles, and if the deviation is greater than 0.001%, repetition of steps a) to f) with corrected acceptance angles instead of the defined acceptance angles in step a), wherein the corrected acceptance angles are not equal to the defined acceptance angles, and wherein the corrected acceptance angles are chosen so that the effective acceptance angles from step f) agree with the defined acceptance angles; and
h) on achieving a deviation of the effective acceptance angles from the defined acceptance angles of 0.001% or less, shortening the parabolas in the y direction to the extent defined by the shortening factor.
7. The planar moulded article according to claim 6, characterised in that the defined acceptance angle \u03b81 is between 5\xb0 and 60\xb0 and that the defined acceptance angle \u03b82 is between 5\xb0 and 60\xb0.
8. The planar moulded article according to claim 6, characterised in that in step h) the shortening is a simple truncation.
9. The planar moulded article according to claim 6, characterised in that in step h) the shortening is a compression of the geometry along the y-axis by a factor determined by the shortening factor.
10. The planar moulded article according to claim 6, characterised in that \u03b81=\u03b82.
11. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the profile of the lens is an ellipse.
12. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the overall period is in a range between 10 \u03bcm and 1 mm.
13. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the structure between the points F1 and F2 of the CPC region is a continuous polynomial function.
14. The planar moulded article according to claim 13, characterised in that the continuous polynomial function is an nth order polynomial.
15. The planar moulded article according to claim 14, characterised in that the structure between the points F1 and F2 of a CPC region is described by a continuous fourth order polynomial, which is continuously differentiable at the Points F1 and F2.
16. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the structure between the Points F1 and F2 of a CPC region is described by a parabola, hyperbola, circular function, sinusoidal function or straight line.
17. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that if the profile of the lens region is a lens, the polynomial is an nth order polynomial, and if the profile of the lens region is a circle, the polynomial is an ellipse, and if the profile of the lens region is a compressed circle, the polynomial is an nth order polynomial.
18. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the regions differ by less than 5% from a geometry as described in one of the claims 3 to 10.
19. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the structures cover at least 80% of the surface of the front side.
20. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the moulded article comprises on the rear side a surface structure with a scattering effect.
21. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the moulded article contains on the rear side a UV-absorbing layer.
22. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the moulded article comprises polycarbonate, polystyrene or modified polystyrene.
23. The planar moulded article according to claim 1, characterised in that the rear side comprises a layer which contains scattering particles.
24. The planar moulded article according to claim 23, characterised in that the scattering particles are organic.
25. The planar moulded article according to claim 23, characterised in that the layer covers the whole of the rear side.
26. A method for producing a moulded article having a front side and a rear side, wherein the front side includes light-guiding structures formed by a lens region and a CPC region, the method comprising:
i) melting material for the moulded article;
ii) extruding the moulded article; and
iii) embossing and cooling the moulded article in a roller gap.
27. The method according to claim 26, wherein the extrusion is a co-extrusion of a middle layer and at least one further layer.
28. The method according to claim 26, additionally comprising coating the embossed and cooled moulded article with a lacquer, wherein the lacquer contains scattering particles.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A printhead assembly comprising:
at least two elongate modules interconnected so as to extend the width of media to be printed on by the printhead assembly, each module having at least one fluid channel extending between connection ports at either end of the module, the connection port at a free end of at least one of the modules being connectable to a source of fluid to be printed by the printhead assembly and the connection port at an interconnected end of each module interconnecting with a connection port of an adjacent module; and
a plurality of printhead integrated circuits arranged on or in each of the modules so as to extend the width of the media and so as to be in fluid communication with a respective channel.
2. An assembly according to claim 1, further comprising at least one closure connected to the connection port at a free end of one of the modules so as to close the connection port.
3. An assembly according to claim 1, wherein the modules have a plurality of the channels, the connection port of each channel at a free end of at least one of the modules being connectable to a respective source of a different fluid to be printed by the printhead assembly and the connection port of each channel at an interconnected end of each module interconnecting with a connection port of a respective channel of an adjacent module.
4. An assembly according to claim 1, wherein the interconnected modules are symmetric in at least one view.