Optical anamorphoser and method of manufacture

Details Optical anamorphoser and method of manufacture Optical anamorphoser and method of manufacture

1989-12-14

1991-05-14

Lee, John D.

350 9625, 350320, G02B 604

Patent

active

050150650

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
There is a very large need on the present market for devices that transform an image either by magnifying it, or by shrinking it, or by digitizing it after splitting it into elements, or by reconstituting from electronic signals associated, for example, with elementary liquid crystals. Mention may be made, for example, of replacing bulky cathode ray tubes which are difficult to move and which consume quantities of energy by flat screen matrices which are smaller in size but still expensive. It is essential to magnify the image in this case since controlling electronic circuits which are large in size are prohibitive in cost.
Conventional optical magnifier devices using lenses are ill-suited for this magnification since they give rise to considerable distortion between the object and its magnified image. In addition, some flat screens are "passive", i.e. they use liquid crystals which need to be illuminated in order to be visible. Light must therefore be applied to the liquid crystals which then absorb the light when unexcited or allow it to pass (in a given range of wavelengths) when excited. In this application also, conventional optical systems are unsuitable.
Attempts have been made to use optical fibers for achieving such image magnification (or reduction) by processing the source (object image) by pixels. Such devices are to be found in certain types of high-definition camera. In these devices, a bundle of mutually touching optical fibers is deformed while hot so that the diameter of each fiber is reduced, thereby reducing the size of the image element applied to the larger diameter end and thus obtaining an image which is smaller in size.
The present invention seeks to provide a different device based on light guides and enabling such optical anamorphosis to be obtained, together with a method of manufacturing the device simply. The anamorphoser of the present invention, in addition to including other advantages, has the advantage of being modular and thus of being easily juxtaposed in order to build up large-sized screens without increasing the sizes of the electronic circuits, and thus retaining low cost prices.
To this end the present invention firstly provides an optical anamorphoser characterized in that it is constituted by a plurality of light guides of individually constant diameter, each defining one pixel, and extending in an embedding body between a first surface in which one end of each fiber defines a regular geometrical arrangement at a determined pitch and a second surface in which the other ends of the fibers define a geometrically similar arrangement to said first arrangement at a pitch which is scaled relative to the above-mentioned pitch.
Secondly, the present invention provides a method of manufacturing this optical anamorphoser, the method consisting in:
providing a bundle of fibers individually of the same diameter as the light guides, with the fibers being held in the bundle regularly spaced relative to one another in a geometrical arrangement which is geometrically similar to the above-mentioned arrangements at two fixing and guide plates extending perpendicularly to the fibers and spaced apart at a determined distance;
twisting the bundle about its axis by rotating the plates relative to each other through a determined angular amplitude;
maintaining this twist and fixing at least a portion of the bundle in this configuration by means of a resin in which said fibers are embedded; and
after the resin has solidified, slicing the body obtained in this way perpendicularly to its longitudinal axis in two parallel planes whose positions relative to the body are determined in such a manner as to ensure that the slicing faces correspond to the above-mentioned surfaces.
It will be understood that during relative rotation of the plates, the outer fibers are not stressed in the same way as those situated close to the twisting axis. Thus, the bundle of fibers is held in at least one of the fixing plates in a manner which is not made final e.g. allows fiber slipage, until after the above-m

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