Olympus Corporation

Yorio Wada

Nobuyoshi Toyohara

Ken Kawamata

Yoshiki Shinta

Takeshi Deguchi

Kunihiko Uzawa

Atsushi Yonetani

Joji Sakamoto

In an optical filter, a thin film is formed by laminating low refractive index layers alternatingly from a substrate side with high refractive index layers. The thin film is provided with first, second, and third laminated portions. In the first laminated portion, the refractive indices of the high refractive index layers become gradually higher. In the second laminated portion, the refractive indices of the high refractive index layers are substantially equal to the highest refractive index of the high refractive index layers constituting the first laminated portion. In the third laminated portion, the refractive indices of the high refractive index layers become gradually lower, and the refractive indices of the low refractive index layers are substantially equal to the lowest refractive index of the low refractive index layers constituting the second laminated portion. The low refractive index layers of the first and second laminated portions have a low refractive index layer uniform portion or a low refractive index layer decreasing portion.

Optical filter and optical instrument

This optical filter provides a substrate and thin films. The thin films comprise an outermost layer portion and a refractive index varying portion. The refractive index varying portion is formed by laminating alternately towards the substrate a low refractive index layer having a refractive index that is higher than that of air and a high refractive index layer having a refractive index that is higher than the low refractive index layer. The outermost layer portion comprises an outermost low refractive index layer having a refractive index that is higher than that of air, a first outermost high refractive index layer having a refractive index that is higher than that of the outermost low refractive index layer, and a second outermost high refractive index layer having a refractive index that is higher than that of the first outermost high refractive index layer.

Optical filter and optical device

A microscope includes an optical element provided with an anti-reflection film applied thereto. The anti-reflection film has the following layered structure:

Anti-reflection film and microscope having optical element with the same anti-reflection film applied thereto

A fluorescence observing apparatus has an excitation filter unit for transmitting only exciting light with particular wavelengths, of illuminating light, and an absorption filter unit for transmitting only fluorescent light produced from a specimen by irradiating the specimen with the exciting light to block the exciting light. In this case, the space between the half-value wavelength on the long-wavelength side of the excitation filter unit and the half-value wavelength on the short-wavelength side of the absorption filter unit is in the range of 6&#x2013;12 nm, and variations in the half-value wavelengths of the excitation filter unit and the absorption filter unit where humidity is changed from 10% to 95% are within 0.5 nm. Whereby, faint fluorescent light is efficiently taken out and the observation can be made.

Fluorescence observing apparatus

An optical filter is provided with a thin film having: a first laminated portion that is constructed by alternately laminating low refractive index layers that have a relatively low refractive index with high refractive index layers that have a relatively high refractive index, and in which the refractive index of the high refractive index layers gradually increases from the substrate side; a second laminated portion in which the refractive indices of the high refractive index layers are equal to or higher than the highest refractive index from among the high refractive index layers constituting the first laminated portion; and a third laminated portion in which the refractive indices of the high refractive index layers gradually decrease from the second laminated portion side. In this thin film, there is inserted a high refractive index variation layer portion, in which the refractive index of a high refractive index layer is set so as to be lower than the other two refractive index layers that are adjacent on both sides thereof via low refractive index layers.

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Hanno, Japan

Yorio Wada