Patent ID: 7459832

Claim:
A vibration wave driving apparatus comprising: a vibrator including; an electro-mechanical energy converter provided with a plurality of layers alternately laminated with a layer having a plurality of electrode films and a material having an electro-mechanical energy converting function that generates vibration by applying an AC voltage to the plurality of electrode films; an elastic body which comes into contact with the electro-mechanical energy converter; and a shaft which passes through the inside of the electro-mechanical energy converter and the elastic body to operatively connect them, wherein the vibrator generates a plurality of bending vibrations in a direction substantially orthogonal to the shaft by the vibration generated by the electro-mechanical energy converter, and the plurality of bending vibrations are combined to induce circular motion on the surface of the elastic body; and a contact body which comes into contact with the vibrator and is driven by the circular motion induced on the surface of the elastic body, wherein the electro-mechanical energy converter includes a plurality of electrode films on the same plane, each electrode film separated from its neighbor by a boundary of non-conductive part, a cross section of the plane is a polygonal area and the electrode film boundary is provided in an area that does not include the vertex of the polygonal area.