Iomega Corporation

Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc.

Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation

Environmental Systems Corporation

Bruce E Bernacki

Fred Charles Thomas, Iii

George T Krieger

Arthur C Miller, Jr

Robert J Nuspliger

The present invention relates to a method for servo writing an optical or magneto-optical medium where a data path is defined by transmitting a laser beam onto the medium to change the crystalline structure at preselected portions. These portions can guide an optical head along the data path. Embodiments include using a far-field laser servo writer to transmit a laser beam in combination with a high numerical aperture, using a far-field laser servo writer to transmit a laser beam in combination with a solid immersion lens, using a near-field laser servo writer to emit a laser beam in combination with a solid immersion lens, creating a sub-wavelength aperture for emitting a laser beam onto the medium, lithographic and maskless lithographic techniques. The present invention also relates to a medium for the storage of data which has portions of its substrate with a different crystalline structure than the rest of the substrate of the medium, so that these portions of the substrate can serve as optically created servo fields for a tracking device.

Optical servo writing

An axiconic telescope that receives a collimated input light beams and includes a first axicon and second axicon. Depending on the distance between the two axicons, the input collimated beam is converted to a diverging conical wave front by the first axicon, which is re-collimated by the second axicon having an oppositely signed cone angle. The output of the telescope is a collimated beam having an annular cross section, with the annulus having a width of dependent on the diameter of the telescope. The axiconic telescope may be used to produce an output beam having annulus size that can be optimized to illuminate a portion of a transducer in an solid immersion lens or photon tunning method device that contributes evanescent waves to increase resolution of an optical device.

Method and apparatus for lossless beam shaping to obtain high-contrast

A back scattering collector, comprising: a first spherical reflective surface; a second spherical reflective surface having an annular form defining a central aperture; a refractive element, the first and second reflective surfaces and the refractive element being aligned along an optical axis; a light excitation source for illuminating a volume for analysis; the first and second reflective surfaces having respective diameters which reflect light rays back scattered from the volume at least three times between the first and second reflective surfaces, a last one of the at least three refections directing the light rays through the refractive element; and, a photo detector, the refractive element focusing the light reflected light rays onto the photo detector. The second reflective surface can be formed on the convex side of a plano-convex lens, the refractive element being formed by a central portion of the lens. The distance between the reflective surfaces is adjustable.

Catadioptric zoom scattering collector

An optical non-contact profilometry system and method provided by an optical caliper with matched optical sensors that are arranged conjugate to each other so that the surface profile and thickness of an article can be measured without using a fixed reference surface and while permitting the article to deflect in space within the acquisition range of the optical sensors. The output signals from the two optical sensors are algebraically added to compensate for any such deflection of the article and provide a so compensated signal, the balance and sign of which provides a measurement of the actual thickness of the article at the optical sensors.

Growing community of inventors

Layton, UT, United States of America

Bruce E Bernacki