Patent ID: 6947665

Claim:
A radiant source for heating a workpiece positioned relative to the radiant source comprising: a plurality of radiant heating elements, arranged in a single array that is generally concentric about a source center axis; a reflector having a reflecting surface that bounds a single channel which opens in a direction of a workpiece and that contains the heating elements of said single array, said reflector comprising inner, outer and bottom walls that extend around at least a portion of the center axis to define said single channel and that are surface finished for reflecting radiant energy emitted by the heating elements to a region occupied by the workpiece; and one or more replaceable reflecting inserts that comprises plane and/or cylinder and/or cone and/or a convex curved surfaces of revolution which are placed coaxial inside the said reflector to redistribute part of the radiated energy in a different direction; a bottom wall of said channel comprising a part of a plane and said inner and outer walls comprising a part of a cone surface of revolution spanning two or more adjacent heating elements that widen outwardly along a region of said channel between the bottom wall and said workpiece to reflect radiant energy toward the workpiece through a widened optical diaphragm.