Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Opto, Inc.

Nobuo Mushiake

Yasumasa Sawai

Shigeru Sawamura

Shunta Takimoto

Hideki Nagata

Soh Ohzawa

Hisashi Tokumaru

Kazunari Tada

Takashi Ohta

Hakuzo Tani

Kazuyuki Nishi

Youichi Ogawa

An objective lens causes birefringence, which causes wave aberration in outgoing light from the objective lens. A coated objective lens has a dielectric multilayer film that can reduce astigmatism component of the wave aberration to 5 m&#x3bb; rms or smaller when 10 m&#x3bb; rms or larger astigmatism component of wave aberration is generated.

Optical element and optical pickup device

A scanning optical system is used to re-form an original image on a CCD line sensor. The optical system has an object side lens unit, a mirror and an image side lens unit. The object side lens unit condenses light from the object. The mirror is arranged between the object side lens to deflect the light having passed through the object side lens unit for scanning. An exit pupil of the object side lens unit coincide with an entrance pupil of the image side lens unit.

Scanning optical system

An illumination optical system has a lens array for dividing light from a light source into a plurality of beams of light; a polarized light conversion optical system having a separator and converter, wherein the separator has a prism array comprising a plurality of right angle prisms arranged consecutively with the same surface being an inclined surface for reflecting the plurality of beams of light by the inclined surface and separating the plurality of reflected beams of light into first and second linearly polarized light beams having mutually intersecting polarization directions, and the converter converts the polarization direction of one of the first and second linearly polarized light beams to the ot her polarization direction, wherein the lens cell width of the lens array is greater than the prism array pitch of the prism array viewed from the incidence side of the plurality of beams of light.

Illumination optical system and projector using same

A liquid crystal projector includes an illumination optical system provided with a light source, first and second lens arrays arranged in this order from the light source, a liquid crystal panel, and a polarization changing optical system arranged between the first and second lens arrays. This makes it possible to install the polarization changing optical system and the optical integrator in a smaller space.

Liquid crystal projector with an illumination optical system

An optical recording head which decomposes light emitted from a light source into three primary colors with rotation of a color wheel, emits the light linearly through an optical fiber array, illuminates an optical valve array through an integrator and an illuminating optical element array and exposes a photographic paper to light modulated by the optical valve array through an imaging optical element array. The integrator is formed by arranging two mirrors in parallel to each other, and a rod lens is provided between the mirrors. The rod lens has a refracting power to decrease the divergent angle of the light emergent from the optical fiber array.

Optical recording head

An optical device includes four prisms joined into one body to combine light beams, a first type of multilayer coating being provided between joining surfaces of the four prisms, and a second type of multilayer coating being provided on at least one non-joining surface of the four right-angle prisms. Each prism bears the first type of multilayer coating and the second type of multilayer coating on two or less surfaces thereof. The optical device is further provided with liquid crystal image panels to combine optical images and project a combined optical image to a screen.

Projector

A projector is provided with a first lens array, a polarized beam splitter for splitting a beam of light into beams of linearly polarized light components whose polarization axes are normal to each other, a second lens array in vicinity of a position where the beams of linearly polarized light components converge, and a converter for converting one of the linearly polarized light components so as to have the same axes of polarization as the other linearly polarized light components. The polarized beam splitter includes a prism having the following relationship: ##EQU1## wherein .psi. denotes an angle of incidence with respect to the parallel plate, W denotes a width of the first lens, H denotes a height of the first lens, F denotes a focal length of the first lens, and N denotes a refractive index of the prism.

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Osaka, Japan

Nobuo Mushiake