Mcdonnell Douglas Corporation

Ronald A Ferrante

Gordon H Burkhart

Rudolf Herman Ott

Rex G Carnes

A color selective, anti-reflective optical coating has a substrate (42), a first layer (44) and a second layer (46). The first layer (44) has an index of refraction that is 25% to 39% greater than an index of refraction of the substrate (42). The first layer (44) has a width of between 12.31 nanometers and 13.41 nanometers. The second layer (46) has an index of refraction that is between 1% and 17.5% less than the index of refraction of the substrate (42). The second layer (46) has a width between 118.32 nanometers and 130.78 nanometers. When the color selective, anti-reflective optical coating is applied to a head lamp lens (40), it significantly increases the output of the head lamp (20) and has a distinctive tint.

Anti-reflective coating

Two-layer, thin film coating designs on glass substrates are described which reduce coated surface reflectance while inhibiting the visibility of fingerprints.

Fingerprint resistant anti-reflection coatings

A method and apparatus for coating optical substrates, such as a combiner substrate, is provided so as to create aspheric optical elements, such as aspheric combiners for heads up displays. Due to its asphericity, the aspheric optical element, such as an aspheric combiner, can compensate or correct for optical aberrations within an optical system, such as a heads up display. However, the coating method and apparatus of the present invention allows aspheric optical elements, including aspheric combiners, to be repeatedly fabricated in a less expensive manner. The coating apparatus includes a fixture for holding an optical substrate, such as a combiner substrate, in a predetermined aligned relation with a mask. The mask defines an opening having a predetermined shape which varies in at least one radial direction and through which a portion of the optical substrate is exposed. By creating a relative rotation between the mask and the optical substrate, an aspheric dielectric layer can be deposited on the substrate, such as via ion assisted deposition, which has a thickness which varies in a predetermined manner along at least one radial direction in correspondence to the predetermined shape of the opening defined by the mask. In order to create an aspheric combiner, a reflection coating can then be deposited upon the aspheric dielectric coating to reflect visual images provided by a cathode ray tube of the heads up display to the pilot without undesirable aberrations.

Methods and apparatus for creating an aspheric optical element and the

An aircraft head-up display with a combiner using a thin film dielectric reflector with a contoured reflectance spectrum of a narrow bandwidth that matches the spectrum of the light output of a cathode-ray tube whose phosphors produce a narrow bandwidth light output used to create visual data for display to the pilot. The dielectric combiner is constructed with a dielectric coating made up of ion deposited layers, with alternate layers having different indices of refraction and possibly different thicknesses near one quarter wavelength thick. The resultant combiner transmits ambient light essentially without attenuation at all visible light frequencies except those frequencies of the visual data produced by the CRT phosphors, which are reflected into superposition with the background viewable through the combiner.

Hud with a spectral contour dielectric combiner

An aspheric cylindrical lens for collimating, with low optical aberrations, the asymmetrically diverging beams of diode laser arrays and a method of fabricating such lenses. The aspheric cylindrical lens are formed from a plano-spherical optical lens. The planar surface of the lens is then optimized such that each ray of light from a diverging input light source will travel the same optical path length in reaching a predetermined collimation plane. Due to the optimization process, an aspherical front lens surface is formed from the initial planar lens surface. The aspheric cylindrical lens may be formed by means of a drawing process in which a master lens element is drawn into a plurality of aspheric cylindrical lens elements. In such a drawing process, a master lens element is manufactured having a spherical back lens surface and an optimized front lens surface which are proportionately identical in cross-section to resulting aspheric cylindrical lens, but substantially larger in physical dimensions. The numerous optimized aspheric cylindrical lens resulting from the drawing process may thus be produced in an economical and reliable manner.

Aspheric cylindrical lens and method of fabrication

A hybrid lens for collimating, with low optical aberrations, an asymmetrically diverging input wavefront. The hybrid lens has a front surface which serves to diffract the input wavefront and a back surface which serves to refract the wavefront. Embodiments are described comprised of either a single plano-convex optical lens or a pair of lenses, one of which is a plano lens and the other or which is plano-convex. In either alternative, the convex surface is spherical. The planar surface of the single plano-convex lens or the back lens surface of the plano lens is optimized such that each ray of light from a diverging input light source will travel the same optical path length in reaching a predetermined collimation plane. This optimization is done by means of binary optic technology which uses a reactive-ion etch to form the requisite eight-level binary optic diffraction pattern. The widths of the fringe patterns generated by the three masks determined by calculations of the optical path difference between on-axis and off-axis rays which are traced through the hybrid lens.

Hybrid diffractive/refractive lens

There is provided by this invention an apparatus for combining a reflected image in a heads-up-display system with an unobstructed view of the outside world and a system for providing a heads-up-display. The heads-up-display system utilizes a dielectric combiner in order to eliminate flare and increase the system's mechanical stability. The combiner apparatus is comprised of a transmissive substrate and a plurality of dielectric layers which selectively reflects light within a narrow range of wavelengths. The use of dielectric thin films provides a mechanically stable and durable combiner element for a heads-up-display system while eliminating the deleterious effects of flare present in combiner elements utilizing a holographic optical element.

Dielectric combiner including first and second dielectric materials

There is provided by this invention a binary alignment corrector for correcting the directional errors caused by non-linear placement or 'bowing' of diodes within laser arrays. The binary alignment corrector is an array of diffraction gratings with each diffraction grating corresponding to an individual diode of the laser array. Based on the amount of angular misalignment for a particular laser diode, the grating period of its corresponding diffraction grating is calculated. The binary alignment corrector is then fabricated by very large scale integration techniques such that each individual diffraction grating of the binary alignment corrector has a grating period sufficient to properly align its corresponding laser diode. Furthermore, a bias angle may be introduced in the alignment of each laser diode so that laser diodes which are only slightly misaligned may also be corrected.

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St. Charles, MO, United States of America

Ronald A Ferrante