Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Yosuke Mizuyama

Shogo Matsubara

Xinbing Liu

Hideaki Horio

Masaharu Oyama

Masaharu Ohyama

An apparatus and method for making a grayscale photo mask and a three-dimensional grayscale diffractive optical element operate as follows. A grayscale photo mask is obtained by exposing a laser direct write (LDW) glass material to laser beam radiation from a first laser beam of modulated power moved over a grid of discrete locations on the LDW material, the modulated power being in accordance with grayscale pattern data, and, while the first laser beam is moved over the discrete locations of the grid, exposing the grid to a second laser beam, the power of the second laser beam being less than the bleach threshold of the glass material, to provide each of the discrete locations with a gray scale level to provide a predetermined gray scale pattern of varying optical transmissivity on the LDW material to produce a grayscale mask. An optical element is obtained by exposing a photoresist layer on a wafer to radiation transmitted through the grayscale mask; and removing material from the photoresist layer to provide a predetermined varying thickness of the photoresist layer as determined by the gray scale patterns on the grayscale mask to produce the three-dimensional grayscale diffractive optical element. The optical element may be a diffraction grating. The power of the second laser exposed on said discrete locations may be between about 50 mW and about 5 W, and the power of the first laser exposed on the discrete locations may be between about 20 mW and about 500 mW.

Apparatus and method of making a grayscale photo mask and an optical grayscale element

It is an object of the invention to provide an aberration correcting mirror which has a small size, power saving, a low voltage, a low price and high precision. In particular, it is an object to provide a practical mirror for correcting a spherical aberration. The invention provides an aberration correcting mirror constituted by a substrate, a piezoelectric unit, a pair of electrode films interposing the piezoelectric unit therebetween, an elastic unit and an optical reflective film, wherein the substrate has a cavity portion which is schematically symmetrical about an optical axis, each of the pair of electrode films is divided into at least two parts including a first electrode and a second electrode, the first electrode being schematically symmetrical about the optical axis and the second electrode being provided to surround the first electrode, and such an electric potential as to set the directions of electric fields in the piezoelectric unit to be reverse to each other is applied to the first electrode and the second electrode.

Optical pick-up aberration correcting mirror, aberration correcting method and optical pick-up

In a switching apparatus having a pair of electrodes including a first electrode and a third electrode, which are provided with a piezoelectric element therebetween and a pair of electrodes including a second electrode and a fourth electrode, which are provided adjacently to the pair of the first and third electrodes in a state where they are electrically insulated from the first and third electrodes, an electric field in a first direction is generated between the first electrode and the third electrode, and simultaneously an electric field in a second direction is generated between the second electrode and the fourth electrode.

Switching apparatus, electric field applying method and switching system

An electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus which includes a first electrode which is a recording electrode, a second electrode which is a collecting electrode, and a third electrode which is a common electrode. A potential difference is selectively given between the first and second electrodes for selectively attracting toner particles by electrostatic force. The ink is then ejected and traveled onto a recording medium for printing by applying potential to the third electrode. This configuration prevents dispersion of toner particles while applying ejection signals, enabling to suppress ejection failure and unstable discharge even in high frequency prints.

Electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus

An electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus for flying an ink by applying a recording signal voltage between a recording electrode and a counter electrode. An optical density having any value in a range of 0.8 to 2.0 can be obtained by setting an angle of an ink meniscus at an tip of the recording electrode in a range of 0 to 65&deg; or setting a distance from the tip of the recording electrode to the ink meniscus in a range of 0 to 1500 &mgr;m.

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Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Yosuke Mizuyama