Patent ID: 6549336
Filing Date: 2003-04-15
Classification: G02B

Abstract:
An optical low-pass filter for use in front of a solid-state image sensor of an offset sampling structure wherein pixels are arrayed at a pitch Px in a horizontal direction and at a pitch Py in a vertical direction, and are shifted by an offset amount of Px/2 in the horizontal direction from the pixels of the adjacent rows, said optical low-pass filter consisting of two birefringent plates, the two birefringent plates comprising:a first optical member that splits an incident light ray into a rectilinear ray and a refracted ray whose propagation direction is about 45Â° or about âˆ’45Â° to the horizontal direction; and a second optical member that splits an incident ray into a rectilinear ray and a refracted ray whose propagation direction is about 90Â° or about âˆ’90Â° to the horizontal direction.