Patent ID: RE40488

Claim:
An orientation measuring instrument comprising: a dielectric resonator having a plane being close to or in contact with a sample, sample said dielectric resonator arranged on less than 3 cm from a first surface of the sample; a microwave exciter generating an electric field vector having a unidirectional component at a frequency in the vicinity of the resonance frequency of said dielectric resonator when the sample is present and in an in-sample plane parallel to said plane in said dielectric resonator; a detector detecting transmission energy or reflection energy by said dielectric resonator; a rotation mechanism rotating said sample or said dielectric resonator in a plane parallel to said plane; and a data processor obtaining dielectric anisotropy of the sample from variance of a detection output of said detector following rotation by the rotation mechanism whereby said orientation measuring instrument measures orientation of a portion of the sample , wherein said dielectric resonator is a square resonator, terminals of said exciter and said detector are bar - like rod antennas having been arranged in a direction perpendicular to the plane of said dielectric resonator being close to or being in contact with the sample, and the periphery of said dielectric resonator is covered with a shielding material consisting of a conductive material except a sample measuring surface .