Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Patent
1996-07-25
1998-11-17
Engel, James
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
156250, 359831, 451 41, B32B 3100
Patent
active
058370820
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
SPECIFICATION
TITLE OF THE INVENTION
Method of manufacturing prisms, particularly microprisms and beam-splitting prisms
FIELD OF APPLICATION
The invention relates to a method of manufacturing prisms, particularly microprisms and beam-splitting prisms, the dimensions of which may be in the range of .mu.m. Microprisms are used, for example, for the redirection of beams in endoscopes or for the introduction of light in microoptical or microelectronical structures. The beam-splitting prisms are composed of at least two combined prismatic glass elements with a thin partially transparent layer being disposed between the contact surfaces of the elements.
PRIOR ART
U.S. Pat. No. 3,254,556 describes a method for the production of microprisms composed of plates, wherein several plane-parallel plates are stacked with their faces being in contact, wherein the plates are displaced relative to each other in such a way that they constitute a body with the outline of a parallelogram.
The plates are fixed with respect to each other in this displaced position. Thereafter, the resulting body is cut with a saw, wherein the planes of cutting extend parallel to the inclined face of the parallelogram-shaped body which has the stepped surface structure. Thus, a plurality of microprism plates are obtained from the block of plane-parallel plates which are offset relative to each other.
From the Japanese specification JP 5-66 303 is known a method for the production of prisms that are to be used as beam-splitting prisms, wherein first a plurlity of rectangular plane-parallel plates are manufactured. On the surface of each plate a thin layer of dielectric material is deposited that later on serves for the splitting of the beams. Then, a rectangular block is formed by stacking several plates with their faces in contact, wherein the plates are aligned at two of their circumferential sides and their faces. The plates of the resulting rectangular block are displaced relative to each other parallel to their faces by a distance that corresponds to the thickness of the plates, so that a body with parallelogram-shaped cross section is formed. With a subsequent first sawing procedure, the stepped projections are removed from one side of the parallelogram-shaped body which projections were formed by the displacement of the plates, so that a continuous, smooth face is obtained that is polished after the cutting procedure. With this face the parallelogram-shaped body is fixed to a auxiliary plate, so that it can be subjected to a further sawing procedure. During sawing, the cuts are oriented perpendicular to the plane of the auxiliary plate and along those lines where the beam-splitting layers hit the auxiliary plate between the plates. The plate-like elements thus obtained are divided with two further cutting procedures in such a way that cubic beam-splitting prisms are obtained.
This procedure is feasible with beam-splitting cubes having generally used dimensions that can be handled and processed as a single element, but it fails in the case of microoptical components.
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
New possibilities of application in microoptics and optoelectronics require inexpensive microprisms and beam-splitting prisms in large numbers. The invention is to solve the problem of manufacturing microprisms and beam-splitting prisms with reasonable effort much less expensively and as much smaller optical components than usual in the past. The microprisms and beam-splitting prisms should satisfy high demands concerning their precision.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the invention, the object is met by the features of claim 1. Claims 2 to 13 represent advantageous further developments of the main claim. The invention relates to a process for the production of prisms. It is especially desired to inexpensively manufacture microprisms or beam-splitting prisms with very variable geometrical shapes.
The prisms are produced from plane-parallel rectangular plates in several steps, which partially may be repeated several times w
REFERENCES:
patent: Re26617 (1969-06-01), Staunton
patent: 3254556 (1966-06-01), Staunton
Engel James
Kueffner Friedrich
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