Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Corporation

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

The University of Tokyo

Kimihiko Nishioka

Susumu Takahashi

Akira Hasegawa

Tetsuo Nagata

Nobuo Yamashita

Akira Yokota

Katsuya Ono

Kentaro Sekiyama

Masaru Shiraiwa

Takeaki Nakamura

Takao Okada

Tsutomu Yamamoto

Kazuhito Hayakawa

Toshihito Kouchi

Minoru Okabe

Eiji Yasuda

Akitoshi Toda

Shinji Kaneko

Tsutomu Igarashi

Yoshihiro Kawano

Hideo Tomabechi

Akira Takano

Hirofumi Miyanaga

Shinichi Nakamura

Hisao Yabe

Hiroyuki Yamamoto

Takayuki Suzuki

Hisashi Goto

Tetsuhide Takeyama

Akira Taniguchi

Kazuo Nakamura

Toyoharu Hanzawa

Shinichiro Hattori

Hiroshi Matsui

Toshiyuki Nagaoka

Mitsujiro Konno

Kenji Murakami

Atsushi Miyazaki

Yoshinao Oaki

Koji Takamura

Yoshisada Aoki

Yoshiharu Takasugi

Hisanari Shimazu

Masaaki Yamagishi

Masahiro Chiba

Takeshi Nakane

Kazuya Nishimura

Tatsuo Nagasaki

Akira Suzuki

Masahide Kanno

Takuya Tsukagoshi

Hiroki Hibino

Yusuke Takei

Hideaki Yoshida

Masafumi Yamasaki

Yasuo Sasaki

Hiroyoshi Fujimori

Yoji Watanabe

Tsutomu Uzawa

Kiyoshi Matsumoto

Takashi Fukaya

Masao Uehara

Hiroshi Fujiwara

Takashi Tsukaya

Shinya Matsumoto

Isao Shimoyama

Koichi Matsui

Toshihiro Nakao

Miyuki Murakami

Kiyoshi Tsuji

Akihiro Namba

Tomonori Ishikawa

Tatsuya Yamaguchi

Takayuki Ide

Yasushi Namii

Toshimasa Akagi

Koichi Karaki

Hisao Ogiu

Nobuyuki Matsuura

Masahiko Kinukawa

Iwao Kanamori

Masanao Murata

Kazunari Kobayashi

Dai Kawase

Kazunari Tokuda

Yutaka Tatsuno

Jun Yoshinaga

Yoshihito Shimizu

Shigeo Tokunaga

Kenji Hirooka

Kenichi Kikuchi

Masaaki Daigaku

Yoshikazu Tojo

Tomoaki Sato

Nobuo Yamasita

Masami Hamada

Naoki Hasegawa

Takashi Mizusaki

Kunio Ohno

Provided is a scanning near-field optical microscope capable of obtaining, in a highly sensitive manner, optical information having a spatial frequency higher than a spatial frequency corresponding to a wavelength of irradiation light. A scanning near-field optical microscopeaccording to the present invention includes: a light irradiating partfor emitting illumination light toward a samplea light receiving partfor receiving light; a microstructure for generating or selectively transmitting near-field light, the microstructure being disposed on at least one of an emission side of the light irradiating partand an incident side of the light receiving partand an ultrahigh-wavenumber transmitting mediumfor transmitting near-field light, the ultrahigh-wavenumber transmitting medium exhibiting anisotropy in permittivity or permeability.

Near-field optical microscope, near-field optical probe, and sample observation method

An optical element using a medium exhibiting negative refraction, a carbon nano tube being used for the medium exhibiting negative refraction, is disclosed. There is also disclosed an optical system having a plurality of optical elements each formed of a medium exhibiting negative refraction, wherein the plurality of optical elements includes optical elements having different chromatic dispersions.

Medium exhibiting negative refraction, optical element, and optical system

A lens system includes a first lens which is formed of a medium exhibiting negative refraction and a second lens which is formed of a medium having a positive refractive index. Abbe's number for a material which forms the first lens differs from Abbe's number for a material which forms the second lens. Moreover, a lens system includes a first lens which is formed of a medium exhibiting negative refraction and a second lens which is formed of a medium exhibiting negative refraction. Abbe's number for a material which forms the first lens differs from Abbe's number for a material which forms the second lens.

Lens system and optical apparatus

An optical apparatus includes a variable optical-property element, a driving circuit driving the variable optical-property element, and an image sensor. In order to compensate a change of an imaging state caused by at least one factor of temperature, humidity, a manufacturing error, a change of an object distance, and a zoom state, photographing is performed while referring to a look-up table to change driving information provided to the variable optical-property element, and the driving information that the high-frequency component of a photographed image is practically maximized is assumed so that the variable optical-property element is driven by the driving information to perform photographing.

Optical apparatus provided with variable mirror

A lens has a convex or concave shaped smooth non-spherical surface or non-circular curve which is formed of a medium indicating negative refraction.

Lens and optical system

A lens system includes a first lens which is formed of a medium exhibiting negative refraction, and a second lens having a positive refractive index. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a lens system in which a negative refractive index medium for which a curvature of field is reduced. Moreover, it is also possible to have a lens system in which a lens having a positive focal length and a lens having a positive focal length, which is made of a positive refractive index medium, are combined.

A shake compensating device for optical devices includes an optical system for forming an image of an object; a reflecting surface placed in the optical path of the optical system, a first substrate having a first electrode, placed adjacent to the reflecting surface; a second substrate fixed to an optical device, placed opposite to the first substrate and having a second electrode at a position opposite to the first electrode; a voltage control circuit for applying voltages across the first electrode and the second electrode, one of which is divided into a plurality of electrodes; and a detecting unit for detecting the shake angle of the optical device. In this case, the voltage control circuit controls the voltages applied across the divided electrodes and the other electrode opposite thereto in accordance with the output of the detecting unit.

Shake compensation device for optical devices using a mirror to compensate for the shake

A lens made of a medium exhibiting negative refraction is disclosed. Also, an optical element made of a medium exhibiting negative refraction is disclosed. The lens or optical element may be incorporated in an optical system or an optical apparatus.

Optical apparatus with optical element made of a medium exhibiting negative refraction

An optical apparatus includes an optical element that is made of a medium exhibiting negative refraction. A correction varies a wavelength of light used, thereby correcting a variation in image forming capability, which occurs due to one of a variation in refractive index of the optical element and a variation in refractive index of a surrounding medium.

Optical apparatus

An optical apparatus uses a variable-optical-characteristic optical element whereby focusing, zooming or the like can be effected without moving a lens or the like and the whole optical apparatus can be arranged in a lightweight structure. The user wears a power transmitting unitby hanging it from his/her neck, for example. The power transmitting unitmay be put in a clothes pocket or the like. The power transmitting unitmay be placed somewhere around the user. In the power transmitting unit, a transmitting circuitis driven by a power supplyto send an electromagnetic wave from a transmitting antennatoward variable-focus eyeglasses. The variable-focus eyeglasseshave a receiving antennaprovided on eyeglass framesto receive the electromagnetic wave sent from the power transmitting unit. The received electromagnetic wave is, for example, boosted in voltage and rectified to drive the variable-focus lenses.

A variable optical-property element includes a liquid crystal the pitch of twist is less than 60 times the wavelength of light used, so that a spatially uneven electric or magnetic field or temperature is applied to the liquid crystal to thereby form an index distribution, and the electric or magnetic field or the temperature is changed to thereby alter the index distribution. In this way, the variable optical-property element is capable of changing its optical properties as a liquid crystal lens and is used in an optical apparatus.

Variable optical-property element and optical apparatus including the same

The invention relates to an optical system that has reduced power consumptions, ensures noiseless operations and fast responses, contributes to cost reductions due to simplified mechanical structure, and, albeit having a small outside diameter and small size, is capable of focusing and zooming. The optical system of the invention comprises a variable mirror and a moving optical element group. The optical element group has a zooming function, and the variable mirror has a focusing function. An optical apparatus of the invention comprises such an optical system as mentioned above.

Optical system, and optical apparatus

An optical apparatus has an imaging optical system provided with a deformable mirror and an electronic zoom function that an image recorded in an image sensor by the imaging optical system is magnified by image processing. A ray deflecting function of the deformable mirror is changed in accordance with a change of an object area corresponding to an image to be used, and aberration of the imaging optical system is optimized. The deformable mirror is controlled by an arithmetical unit connected to an image processor and a driving circuit. The electronic zoom is performed with respect to the image recorded in the image sensor through a signal processing circuit and the image processor, and when the image is displayed on a display device, the deformable mirror is deformed so that sharpness at nearly the center of an object image formed on the image sensor is improved. This offers the optical apparatus in which a compact design is achieved, the magnification of the optical system can be changed, and the sharpness of the image is high even when a variable magnification ratio is increased.

A focal-length adjusting unit for photographing apparatuses includes a distance-measuring means for detecting the amount of defocus to an object by using a light beam of the object passing through a photographing optical system; at least two optical elements located in an optical path for distance measurement, deflecting incident light from the object to introduce the light into an image sensor or a distance-measuring sensor; a variable optical-property element constituting at least one of the optical elements, capable of changing the deflection of light in accordance with an applied voltage or an applied current; and a voltage applying means or a current applying means for applying a voltage or a current in accordance with the distance-measuring output of the distance-measuring means. In this case, before a distance measurement is made by the distance-measuring means, the function of light deflection of the variable optical-property element is set to a predetermined value.

Deformable mirror having displacement detecting function

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Hachioji, Japan

Kimihiko Nishioka