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. 03, 1998
Filed:
Aug. 14, 1996
Lawrence A Barnes, Fairport, NY (US);
Philip Frank Marino, Rochester, NY (US);
Gary R Bisson, Rochester, NY (US);
Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY (US);
Abstract
An optical actuator for positioning a lens to focus a laser light beam on a surface of a compact disk, and to compensate for tilt errors in the surface of the compact disk, including a lens mount for supporting the lens; a base; at least two pairs of spaced-apart flexures, each pair of flexures being fixed to the lens mount and to a base, the flexures of one pair being arranged so that they are non-parallel when viewed from the side and the distance between flexures at the base is less than the distance at the position where they are mounted to the lens mount and the other pair of flexures being arranged so that they are non-parallel when viewed from the side and the distance between flexures at the base is greater than the distance at the position where they are mounted to the lens mount; and applying a force to the lens mount along a line and between the flexures so that when viewed from the parallel flexure side the line bisects each flexure to cause the flexures to deflect such that as the lens moves in a vertical direction to focus the light beam, it also rotates to maintain a nearly perpendicular alignment of the optical axis to the compact disk surface, minimizing the residual tilt error.