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:
Mar. 10, 1992
Filed:
Dec. 04, 1990
Kiyoshi Yokomori, Yokohama, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A beam shaping optical system has an optical prism; a gap layer stacked on a reflecting face of the optical prism and having a refractive index lower than that of the optical prism; and a waveguide layer stacked on the gap layer and having a refractive index lower than that of the optical prism and higher than the refractive index of the gap layer, the optical prism, the gap layer and the waveguide layer constituting a prism coupler. The prism coupler is adapted to reflect a collimated light beam made incident to the prism coupler on a stacking face of the optical prism such that the diameter of the incident light beam in a direction parallel to an incident face of the prism coupler is changed to shape the incident light beam, the gap layer and the waveguide layer being stacked on the stacking face. The waveguide layer may be stacked on a transparent substrate and the refractive index of the waveguide layer may be higher than that of the transparent substrate. The optical prism and the gap layer may be adhered to each other by an adhesive layer having a refractive index higher than that of the waveguide layer. Optical axes of the light beams incident and emitted from the prism coupler may form a straight line. Thicknesses of the gap layer may be different from each other in accordance with positions thereof.