Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.

George Gal

Bruce J Herman

William Walter Anderson

Howard E Morrow

Dean M Shough

Marc A Stiller

A flat panel display incorporates an array of color separation microlenses. Each color separation microlens in the array is a single, micro-optical element which disperses color by orders to distinct color spots and focuses these color spots to related liquid crystal sub-pixels located in a common plane. Substantially all of the areas of the color spots fall directly and only on the liquid crystal sub-pixels. Little, if any, light energy is lost by falling outside areas occupied by the individual liquid crystal sub-pixels. Because the color separation microlenses provide the color separation, no color filter is required in the flat panel display. Eliminating the color filters eliminates light losses which are incurred when transmitting light through a color filter. The flat panel display makes more efficient use of light transmitted through the components of the display than was possible with prior art flat panel displays.

Flat panel display

A micropolarization assembly has a beam-shaping microlens wafer and a polarization wafer assembly. The micropolarization assembly utilizes the full illumination incident on the beam-shaping microlens wafer and aligns all of the light to the same polarization at the outlet of the micropolarization wafer assembly.

Micropolarization apparatus

A color separation microlens is fabricated to be a single micro-optical element made up of a color separation grating integrated with a refractive lens. The color separation microlens separates the spectrum into distinct color spots and focuses these spots to a common plane. The spots fall at the locations of the different diffraction orders of the grating. The color separation is done by the grating, and the focusing is done by the lens. The color separation microlens can be fabricated as a monolithically integrated element (an element in which the grating and the lens are combined to a single surface) and can also be fabricated as a dual-sided thin wafer (a wafer in which the grating is on one side and the lens is on the other).

Color separation microlens

Dispersive microlens apparatus and methods are used in one mode for detecting multiple, different wavelengths from a bandwidth of wavelengths (existing within an image plane blur spot) and are used in another mode for combining a plurality of different, emitted wavelengths into a bandwave of wavelengths (at a blur spot in an image plane).

Dispersive microlens

A microlens of any designed configuration is formed as a replica in a photoresist material, and the photoresist material replica is used to reproduce the replica directly in a substrate material.

Exposure mask for fabricating microlenses

A monolithically integrated, micro-fabricated optical device for use in photonic applications has at least one waveguide surface configuration which cannot be fabricated by binary processing. The optical device comprises a plurality of layers of substrate materials. The material in at least one layer has an index of refraction different from the index of retraction of the material in an adjacent layer. A waveguide surface is formed at an interface between the layers and has a configuration fabricated by use of a gray scale mask.

Gray scale microfabrication for integrated optical devices

Wavefront correction apparatus for correcting a stepped wavefront output produced by certain angles of scan and by certain positions of scan in scanning microlens arrays includes anamorphic transfer optics with diffractive corrections. The transfer optics form the outputs of all of the unit cell trains of the microlens arrays into a unique, separate, linear image at each position of scan of the scanning array. A stepped wavefront corrector is positioned in the path of each linear image, and selected thicknesses of the material in the stepped wavefront corrector are effective to vary the times of optical passage through the stepped wavefront corrector in amounts to restore the wavefront to a continuous, unstepped form at the outlet of the plate.

Wavefront corrector for scanning microlens arrays

A large aperture microlens array assembly has at least two arrays of microlenses with individual unit cell trains optically interconnecting individual microlenses in one array with related individual microlenses in another array. In each unit cell train the light entering an entrance pupil of a microlens in one array is transmitted through the exit surface of a related microlens of the other array to provide a collimated output through the exit. One array may be moved with respect to the other array for scanning a field of regard.

Internally cooled large aperture microlens array with monolithically

Method for fabricating microlenses

An aircraft velocimeter comprises means for projecting three pairs of independently generated ribbon-shaped laser beams to a measurement volume located at a predetermined distance from the aircraft with a predetermined separation being maintained between the two ribbon-shaped laser beams of each pair at the measurement volume. The times of flight of atmospheric aerosol particles between the two ribbon-shaped laser beams of corresponding pairs of laser beams are measured as the aerosol particles pass through the measurement volume. From the predetermined distance between the two ribbon-shaped laser beams of each pair and the measured time of flight of an aerosol particle across that predetermined distance, a component of velocity of the aerosol particle relative to the aircraft is calculated for each pair of ribbon-shaped laser beams. From the three components of velocity corresponding to the three pairs of ribbon-shaped laser beams projected to the measurement volume, a vector measurement of the velocity of the aircraft relative to atmospheric particles in the surrounding atmosphere is obtained using an on-board computer programmed with a conventional algorithm.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

George Gal