Seiko Instruments Inc

Sumitomo Metal Mining Company, Ltd.

Seiko Instruments R & D Center Inc.

Other

Kenji Kato

Takashi Niwa

Yasuyuki Mitsuoka

Nobuyuki Kasama

Manabu Oumi

Norio Chiba

Susumu Ichihara

Hidetaka Maeda

Yoko Shinohara

Masaya Yukinobu

Kunio Nakajima

Masataka Shinogi

Yutaka Saitoh

Mitsuo Yarita

Minoru Sudou

Atsushi Tofuku

Norihiro Dejima

Midori Fujisaki

Kazuo Sato

Yutaka Saito

Hiroyuki Tanaka

Minoru Sudo

Kennichi Fujita

Yoshihiro Ohtsuka

Mitsuhiro Shikita

Yukiko Suekane

Haruhiko Tanaka

Toshiya Kubo

Hiromitsu Nakayama

Terunao Hirota

Toshifumi Ohkubo

Kiyoshi Itao

Hiroshi Hosaka

Mamabu Oumi

Yasayuki Mitsuoka

A near-field optical head for recording and reading-out information on and from a recording medium by utilizing near-field light produced from a very small aperture. The very small aperture is formed at an apex of a taper formed by an optical propagation member having a tip pointed toward a recording medium. A light introducing part is connected directly to the optical propagation member for propagating light along an optical path extending in a direction generally parallel to the recording medium. The optical propagation member is formed of a uniform dielectric layer in the light introducing part and inside of the taper. A light reflection layer reflects light propagated through the light introducing part toward the very small aperture.

Near-field optical head having tapered hole for guiding light beam

A process for producing a fine silver particle colloidal dispersion which can simply form conductive silver layers and antimicrobial coatings by screen printing or the like. The process is characterized by having a reaction step of allowing an aqueous silver nitrate solution to react with a mixed solution of an aqueous iron(II) sulfate solution and an aqueous sodium citrate solution to form an agglomerate of fine silver particles, a filtration step of filtering the resultant agglomerate of fine silver particles to obtain a cake of the agglomerate of fine silver particles, a dispersion step of adding pure water to the cake to obtain a first fine silver particle colloidal dispersion of a water system in which dispersion the fine silver particles have been dispersed in the pure water, and a concentration and washing step of concentrating and washing the first fine silver particle colloidal dispersion of a water system.

Process for producing fine silver particle colloidal dispersion, fine silver particle colloidal dispersion, and conductive silver film

A translucent conductive film-forming coating liquid that can form a translucent conductive film having excellent translucency and conductivity together with organic solvent resistance includes conductive oxide acicular powder dispersed in a solvent containing a binder resin, the glass transition point (Tg) of the binder resin being 120&#xb0; C. or more.

Translucent conductive film forming coating liquid, translucent conductive film, and dispersive type electroluminescent device

A near-field optical head has a planar substrate having a first surface, a second surface disposed opposite to the first surface, and an inverted pyramidal hole extending through the first and second surfaces. The inverted pyramidal hole has at least one fine aperture formed at an apex thereof and disposed in the first surface and having at least one curved slant surface. An optical waveguide extends into the inverted pyramidal hole of the planar substrate for propagating light along an optical path. A mirror is disposed in the optical waveguide for bending in the direction of the fine aperture the optical path of the light propagated through the optical waveguide.

An information reproducing apparatus has a medium with a linear tracking mark extending in a scanning direction and a linear data mark extending in a direction orthogonal to the scanning direction. A light control unit irradiates the data mark with a first near-field light polarized in the scanning direction and irradiates the tracking mark with a second near-field light polarized in the direction orthogonal to the scanning direction. A detector detects light scattered by the data mark and the tracking mark irradiated with the first near-field light and the second near-field light, respectively. A signal processing unit processes a first output signal from the detector corresponding to the detected light scattered by the data mark and processes a second output signal from the detector corresponding to the detected light scattered by the tracking mark. The signal processing unit has a control circuit that carries out tracking control in accordance with an intensity of the second output signal and that carries out access control in accordance with an intensity of the first output signal.

Information reproducing apparatus and information reproducing method

A process for producing a fine silver particle colloidal dispersion the fine silver particles of which have a larger average particle diameter than those in the conventional Carey-Lea process and also which has superior dispersion stability. An aqueous silver nitrate solution is allowed to react with a mixed solution of an aqueous iron(II) sulfate solution and an aqueous sodium citrate solution, and the resultant reaction fluid containing an agglomerate of fine silver particles is left at 0 to 100&#xb0; C. to obtain an agglomerate of fine silver particles having grown into granular particles. Next, this agglomerate of fine silver particles having grown into granular particles is filtered, and, to the resultant cake of the agglomerate of fine silver particles, pure water is added to obtain a fine silver particle colloidal dispersion having an average particle diameter of 20 to 200 nm. This fine silver particle colloidal dispersion is concentrated and washed, further followed by addition of an organic solvent containing dimethyl sulfoxide, to obtain a coating liquid for silver film formation.

Fine silver particle colloidal dispersion, coating liquid for silver film formation, processes for producing these, and silver film

The object of the present invention is to provide an information recording/reproduction device for implementing high-density information recording and reading using mutual interaction of a recording medium with near field light, and particularly to a near field optical head with a high optical efficiency and a manufacturing method thereof. This is achieved by enabling an energy propagation mechanism via a plasmon by forming a layer dispersed with metal particulate at a microscopic opening generating near field light, and therefore increase optical efficiency.

Near field optical head and optical recording device

A near-field optical probe has a planar substrate formed with a through-hole and a phase shifter layer translucent to light having a wavelength of illumination light used to illuminate the substrate for producing near-field light. The phase shifter layer is effective to cause a shift of phase in the illumination light by 180 degrees and is provided on the substrate so as to cover one opening of the through-hole to form a microscopic aperture for producing near-field light.

Near-field optical probe for reproducing information on a recording medium using near-field light

A near-field optical head has a planar substrate having a first surface, a second surface disposed opposite to the first surface, and an inverted conical or pyramidal hole extending through the first and second surfaces. The conical or pyramidal hole has at least one fine aperture formed at an apex thereof and is disposed on the first surface of the planar substrate. An optical waveguide is disposed on the second surface of the planar substrate for propagating light. A light reflection film is disposed in the optical waveguide for reflecting in the direction of the fine aperture light propagated through the optical waveguide.

An information reproducing apparatus has a light source for generating linearly polarized light, a medium having linear marks disposed in overlapping relation to one another, and an optical head disposed between the light source and the medium and having a fine aperture. A polarized light control portion in the light source controls the linearly polarized light to pass through the fine aperture of the optical head to generate near-field light having a preselected polarization direction and to irradiate the linear marks of the medium with the near-field light so that the preselected polarization direction of the near-field light is orthogonal to a longitudinal axis of each of the linear marks. A detector detects light scattered by the linear mark irradiated with the near-field light.

Near-field information reproducing apparatus and near-field information reproducing method

An optical microcantilever for a scanning near field microscope comprises a support section, a cantilever-shaped optical waveguide, and a light blocking wall. The optical waveguide has a free end, a fixed end fixed to the support section and terminating in a light input/output end, and a tip formed at a side of the free end of the cantilever and having a microscopic aperture at an end thereof. The light blocking wall blocks the transmission of light scattered from a region of the light input/output end in the direction of the tip of the optical waveguide.

Optical microcantilever

A near-field optical head has a main surface confronting a recording medium during use of the near-field optical head. A sharpened tip is disposed on the main surface and has an optical aperture at a front end thereof. An opaque film covers the sharpened tip and has a plastically deformed portion in the vicinity of the optical aperture. The front end of the sharpened tip projects from the plastically deformed portion of the opaque film. At least one stopper is disposed in the vicinity of the sharpened tip and has a height substantially equal to a height of the sharpened tip. At least one air-bearing surface is disposed on the main surface.

Method for forming optical aperture, near-field optical head, method for fabricating near-field optical head, and information recording/reading apparatus

In a recording apparatus for reproducing information recorded on a recording medium by utilizing near-field light, the recording apparatus realizes reliable information reproduction with a simple structure. Illumination lightis illuminated to the recording mediumto create near-field light on a surface of the recording medium. The created near-field light is scattered by a microscopic apertureformed in the aperture elementso that scattering light (propagation light) thereof is detected to create a reproduced signal. Derived from the created reproduced light a distance control signal representative of a distance between the microscopic apertureand the recording medium. Based on the distance control signal, the aperture elementis controlled in position. Due to this, the microscopic apertureis brought into proximity to the recording medium

Recording apparatus

A capacitive dynamic quantity sensor whose size is small and whose reliability and mass productivity are high is provided. In order to realize signal transmission from a lower electrode to an upper electrode, silicon columns which are electrically isolated from one another but not mechanically isolated from one another are formed to connect both electrodes.

Growing community of inventors

Chiba, Japan

Kenji Kato