Nalux Co., Ltd.

Yukinobu Nishio

Daisuke Seki

Kayoko Fujimura

Masato Okano

Kazuya Yamamoto

Tomohito Kuwagaito

Toru Inomata

Sho Arai

Tatsuya Murayama

A method for manufacturing a mold for a retroreflective element, the mold having plural polygonal faces having a common vertex, the method including the steps of: roughing of a polygonal face in which cutting is carried out such that a predetermined cutting amount in a finishing process is left with respect to a desired shape; and finishing of the polygonal face in which a blade portion is made to move relatively towards the vertex while an angle of relief of the blade portion is kept within 1 degree so as to carry out cutting of the predetermined cutting amount, wherein a depth of cut for each one-time cutting operation is 2 micrometers or smaller, and the movement of the blade portion is a combination of a motion towards the vertex and an oscillation.

Method for manufacturing mold for retroreflective element and method for manufacturing retroreflective element

A mold machining method using an endmill, the contour of a cross section of the mold being concave and continuous in an area, a ratio of the maximum to the minimum of radius of curvature of the contour of a portion of the area (a first area) being 2 or greater, and a blade of the endmill having a second area where the contour of a cross section is similar to the contour of the first area, the method comprising the steps of determining a spiral path of the endmill such that each point of the first area is machined by a portion of the second area, corresponding to said each point in the similarity, and a radial interval between the spiral tool path is maximized while keeping surface roughness of the machined mold at or below a predetermined value; and machining the mold along the path.

Mold machining method using end mill

A diffuser provided with plural shapes obtained by translation on an xy plane of at least one of z=g(x, y) and z=&#x2212;g(x, y), z=g(x, y) being a smooth function within a rectangle having sides of length of s in x direction and sides of length of t in y direction, the origin being the center of the rectangle, wherein on the sides of the rectangle, and wherein z=g(x, y) has a single vertex at()()=()&#xb7;(),first derivative of()is continuous in second derivative of()has a single point of discontinuity in first derivative of()is continuous in and second derivative of()has a single point of discontinuity in 

Diffuser

Provided is a mold manufacturing method that is capable of manufacturing a mold of a complex shape particularly of an optical element with sufficient shape accuracy and within a relatively short time. This mold manufacturing method includes: a step for forming a base made of metal into a first shape through machining; a step for coating the base with a resin layer; a step for forming the resin layer into a second shape; and a step for forming the base into a third shape through dry-etching.

Mold manufacturing method

A microlens array includes N microlenses arranged in a predetermined direction on an x-y plane. A projection onto the x-y plane of the vertex of each microlens is arranged in the vicinity of a lattice point of a reference lattice on the x-y plane, the lattice spacing of the reference lattice in the predetermined direction being D/M (millimeters) where M is a positive integer. A distance between two sides of a lens facing each other is approximately equal to D, and a distance between the projection onto the x-y plane of the vertex of the lens and the projection onto the x-y plane of a side of the lens is D/2+&#x3b5;i. Letting n represent the refractive index of the material of each microlens and letting f (millimeters) represent the focal length of each microlens, the following relationships are satisfied. 

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Osaka, Japan

Yukinobu Nishio