The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 05, 1985
Filed:
Jun. 01, 1981
Wilbur I Kaye, Corona Del Mar, CA (US);
Beckman Instruments, Inc., Fullerton, CA (US);
Abstract
In an optical instrument including a birefringent liquid crystal cell of the type consisting of a pair of transparent plates and a zero-twist, nematic-phase, liquid crystal material with a positive dielectric anisotropy between the plates, the liquid crystal molecules being oriented in and tilting in a plane perpendicular to the cell plates, a beam of light being conducted through the cell, generally normal to the plates thereof, it has been observed that if all of the rays of the beam are not collimated, each ray will suffer a different retardation in passing through the cell and this is unacceptable in most applications. This problem is minimized, according to the present invention, by using a filament light source positioned with the filament axis normal to the plane of the tilting molecule axes or by using two liquid crystal cells between a pair of polarizers, one of the cells being rotated 180.degree. relative to the other about an axis normal to the plates thereof whereby the liquid crystal molecules of the cells tilt in opposite directions.