The typical way of creating a light panel with LEDs is to just put some kind of diffusing material in front of the LED. This gets away from having a point light source but has the drawback of blocking a lot of the LED light, up to 40%.
A start-up manufacturer in Israel called Oree Inc. has devised an LED light panel that gets away from the blocking problems of diffusion material. The details of its technique are a bit sketchy, but basically it embeds LED chips in a super-thin plastic that functions as a light guide. Oree claims the "micro-optics" within its plastic panel material enables color mixing within small distances. So when using the material with multiple LEDs, it mixes their light such that the differences in color temperature normally characterizing different LEDs don't matter much. Oree also says its technique is more efficient than beaming LED light through diffusion material.
Oree has shown prototypes of its panels and says it is currently focusing on "supplementing existing luminance applications." From statements company officials have made, it seems Oree has in mind to eventually produce panels for outdoor signage, indoor high-end luminance and illumination, and high-efficiency general lighting uses.Reports are that so-far, Oree has shown lamps measuring 6 mm thick with an output of 40 L/W. A full-white 100 L/W panel is said to be in the works for the middle of 2011.
Oree gets its LEDs from Epistar Corp. in Taiwan. Recently Epistar put some money into Oree as a strategic investment. Oree says it wants to get into volume production of its panels next year.
Oree's Web site is here: http://www.oree-inc.com/
