Electronic devices with light sensor waveguides

US10694607B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Apple Inc. · US

Inventors

• Tingjun Xu · San Jose, US
• Guocheng Shao · DeForest, US
• Lei Yu · Huangguan, CN
• Ove Lyngnes · Carmel Valley, US
• Sunggu Kang · San Jose, US
• Tianbo Sun · Sunnyvale, US
• Xianwei Zhao · Fremont, US
• Xiaoyong Fu · Plano, US
• Xingxing Cai · Santa Clara, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 24, 2019
• Grant date: Jun 23, 2020
• Expiry date: Jun 24, 2039

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02B20/40
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A transparent portion of the housing may serve as a display cover layer and may overlap an array of pixels in the display. The array of pixels may form an active area of the display for displaying images for a user. An ambient light sensor window may be formed in an inactive area of the display that does not overlap pixels. An ambient light sensor may be mounted in an interior region of the housing. A metal-coated light guide may have a first end aligned with the ambient light sensor window to receive ambient light from an exterior region surrounding the device and may have a second end at which the ambient light is provided to the ambient light sensor.