Patent ID: 6278552
Filing Date: 2001-08-21
Classification: G02B,H04N

Abstract:
A polarization separation device comprising:a grating having a recurring blaze-shaped grating pattern formed on one surface of a transparent base plate; andan optically anisotropic material layer arranged adjacent to the grating and having different refractive indices in a direction in which the grating pattern recurs and in a direction perpendicular to that direction,wherein the polarization separation device separates light incident thereon into two linearly polarized light components that have polarization planes perpendicular to each other in accordance with polarization directions thereof by refracting one and simply transmitting the other of those two linearly polarized light components,wherein the following conditions are fulfilled:.vertline.Ne-N0.vertline..gtoreq.0.2,and.vertline.Np-N0.vertline..ltoreq.0.03,where N0 represents a refractive index of the grating, Ne represents the refractive index of the optically anisotropic material layer with respect to one of the linearly polarized light components, and Np represents the refractive index of the optically anisotropic material layer with respect to the other of the linearly polarized light components.