Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Opto, Inc.

Konica-minolta Holdings, Inc.

Naoki Nishida

Kenji Konno

Takuji Hatano

Koujirou Sekine

Manami Kuiseko

Shinji Maruyama

Hiroaki Ueda

Hiroshi Hatano

Miyuki Teramoto

Masahiro Okitsu

Mitsuru Yokoyama

Shunichi Hayamizu

Koji Takahara

Tsuyoshi Iwamoto

Shinji Fukumoto

Provided is an optical recording head in which a light beam from a light source is collected by an optical element and reflected on a reflecting surface to be formed into a spot light. Since a support portion for supporting the light source of the optical element at a predetermined position and the reflection surface for reflecting the light beam are formed integrally with each other, it is not required to perform the positioning thereof, and light can be collected to a very small spot with high efficiency, and an optical recording head and an optical recording apparatus having low heights can be provided.

Optical recording head and optical recording apparatus

Disclosed is a near field light generating device comprising a first medium layer which transmits light from a light source. This near field light generating device generates near field light by using light irradiating a plasmon probe through the first medium. This near field light generating device is characterized in that a second medium layer having a refractive index lower than that of the first medium layer is formed between the first medium layer and the plasmon probe.

Near field light generating device, optically assisted magnetic recording head, optically assisted magnetic recording device, near field optical microscope and near field light exposure apparatus

Provided is a highly reliable optical recording head which has a small fluctuation of a quantity of light applied on a recording medium due to temperature. The optical recording head is provided with a light guide section for guiding light applied from a light source, a slider relatively moving to the recording medium, and a light transmitting section, which is arranged on the slider, transmits the light outputted from the light guide section and outputs the light toward the recording medium. The optical recording head is further provided with an adhesive layer, which is sandwiched between the light transmitting section and the light guide section and fixes the positions of the light transmitting section and the light guide section, and an elastic cohesive layer, which is sandwiched between the portions other than the light transmitting section of the slider and the light guide section.

Optical recording head, optical recording head manufacturing method and recording/reproducing device

A thermal-assisted magnetic recording head which heats a magnetic bit of a magnetic disk by light radiation in recording magnetic data into the magnetic disk with a magnetic writing element. The magnetic recording head has a reflecting converging element with a surface emitting laser incorporated therein, and a transparent plate serving as a slider. A laser beam emitted from the surface emitting laser is reflected by a mirror surface of the reflecting converging element and is converged on a plasmon probe formed on a bottom surface of the transparent plate. Thereby, near-field light effuses from the plasmon probe into a very small area and heats the magnetic bit of the magnetic disk.

Thermal-assisted magnetic recording head and magnetic recording apparatus

A recorder has a recording head which uses light for information recording to a recording medium. The recording head has a slider and an optical waveguide. The slider moves relative to the recording medium while floating thereon. The optical waveguide is provided in the slider and has a refractive index difference of 20% or more between a core and a cladding.

Recording head and recorder

A mask with an opening pattern is placed on a substrate, and etching is carried out by use of anisotropy etching of crystal. The opening pattern of the mask is composed of broken lines, each of which is discontinued by discontinuing portions. By the etching, a birefringence optical element with a fine structure, in which trenches, each of which is discontinued by discontinuing portions, are juxtaposed periodically at a specified pitch, is obtained.

Birefringence optical element and manufacturing method thereof

Disclosed herewith is an optical switch provided on an optical path of an optical waveguide and which switches an advancing direction of a light passed through the optical path. The optical switch includes a movable switching member which switches the advancing direction of the light, and a driving member which electrostatically drives said switching member to move in an arbitrary position so that the light passed through the optical path is guided to different directions.

Optical switch device having movable switching member

Disclosed herein is an optical switch for changing over a running direction of a light passing through an optical waveguide between a first direction and a second direction by moving a switching member disposed on an optical path of an optical waveguide. The switching member has a plurality of switching positions for selectively guiding each of lights of at least two different wavelengths into the first direction or second direction.

Optical switch using an optical waveguide

A plurality of top waveguides and bottom waveguides are formed on a substrate. The pitch of the light exit end of the top waveguide and the light exit end of the bottom waveguide at the light exit side of the substrate is narrower than the pitch of the light entrance end of the top waveguide and the light entrance end of the bottom waveguide at the light entrance side of the substrate. The light exit end of the waveguide on the light exit side of the substrate and the light exit end of the waveguide indicated by the dashed line are arranged as single rows forming a core row in two layers in a staggered layout. This optical waveguide produces ideally overlapping laser beam spots on the surface of a photosensitive body.

Optical waveguide and method of manufacturing same

An optical waveguide is produced by forming on a substrate a waveguide layer and/or a clad layer containing, as their main ingredient, polyimide with a fluorine substitution rate of 30% or higher (thus as a fluorinated polyimide layer), with a primer layer laid in between that contains, as its main ingredient, polyimide with a fluorine substitution rate of 10% or lower (including 0%). This improves adherence of the fluorinated polyimide layer to the substrate and prevents the fluorinated polyimide layer from peeling off the substrate. For more effective prevention of such peeling-off and of warping of the substrate, the primer layer is preferably formed to have a thickness of 0.1 to 20 &mgr;m. The primer layer may contain a coupling agent.

Polyimide optical waveguide

In an optical waveguide channel device equipped with multiple cores, the distances between cores at the entry edge must be large in order to cause a laser beam to enter each core. On the other hand, the distances at the exit edge must be small. Therefore, the core must have a curved area at which the axis is curved. Further, in order to make it easier to match the spot of the entering beam and the core, the core diameter of the optical waveguide channel device and the beam spot diameter of the entering light are made large. However, in a core having a multi-mode curved area, high-order light is easily excited at the curved area. Therefore, the curved area from the entry edge to the exit edge of each core is made to have a single mode. Consequently, exit light having an essentially Gaussian profile may be obtained.

Optical waveguide channel device

A thin film waveguide and an optical deflecting device which have a substrate and a waveguide layer. An optical buffer layer which has a refractive index smaller than that of the waveguide layer is provided between the substrate and the waveguide layer, and the optical buffer layer has such a thickness as to make a zero mode guided light beam progressing in the waveguide layer have a propagation loss not more than 2 dB/cm and as to make a first mode guided light beam progressing in the waveguide layer have a propagation loss not less than 4 dB/cm. For example, the waveguide layer is a ZnO thin film, the substrate is a silicon substrate, and the optical buffer layer is a SiO.sub.2 thin film. Further, an interdigital transducer is provided on the waveguide layer to excite Sezawa waves as surface acoustic waves. For example, the waveguide layer is designed to have a thickness which meets the following condition: 1.0&lt;hK&lt;5.0 (K=2 .pi./.LAMBDA.), wherein, h is the thickness of the waveguide layer, and .LAMBDA. is the wavelengths of the Sezawa waves. Furthermore, a conductor film is provided opposite the interdigital transducer with the waveguide layer in-between.

Thin film optical waveguide and optical deflecting device

A waveguide input/output device for input and output of laser light L into a thin-film waveguide 2 via an input grating or prism 7 and an output or emission grating 8. The height of the emission grating 8 is gradually increased in a travel direction of a light advancing through the waveguide and either the height of the input grating 7 or the height of the output grating 8 is gradually increased in the direction of propagation of the service elastic waves in the waveguide 3 generated by a transducer element 3.

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Kusatsu, Japan

Naoki Nishida