Patent ID: 6025864
Filing Date: 2000-02-15
Classification: G02B,G02F

Abstract:
An optical scanning device, comprising:an optical waveguide constituted by a thin film;a light source for emitting a plurality of light beams into said optical waveguide, each of said light beams entering said optical waveguide at an incident position;a plurality of collimator means for collimating the light beams in said optical waveguide;a plurality of deflection means for deflecting the light beams in said optical waveguide by using an electro-optic effect which distributes a refractive index of said optical waveguide according to externally applied input signals supplied to said deflection means to cause diffraction of said light beams by the distributed refractive index, said plurality of deflection means each receiving a respective one of said plurality of light beams collimated by a respective one of said plurality of collimator means and said plurality of deflection means each being arranged relative to said optical waveguide to deflect a respective one of said plurality of light beams in said optical waveguide, each of the plurality of deflection means including;a prism-shaped polarization domain inversion region formed in said optical waveguide with two sides being not parallel to each other and a plurality of electrodes positioned on both sides of said optical waveguide and each of said plurality of deflection means applies voltage across said plurality of electrodes to generate different refractive indexes in the prism-shaped polarization domain inversion region thereby distributing the refractive index, each said prism-shaped polarization domain inversion region of a respective one of said plurality of deflection means being arranged at positions spaced apart from said incident positions of said light beams by different distances in a propagation direction of said plurality of light beams; anda plurality of emission means for emitting the deflected light beams form said optical waveguide, said plurality of emission means each being arranged to emit a respective one of said plurality of light beams deflected by a respective one of said plurality of deflection means.