Plastic optical fiber for medical device lighting and medical device lighting using same
AssigneeToray Industries, Inc.
InventorsHideki Kojima, Hironobu Maeda, Shinji Sato, Hidekazu Kunieda, Satoshi Matsuba
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A plastic optical fiber for a medical device lighting decreases the cost of a lens and simplify the design of a lighting apparatus, wherein the plastic optical fiber for a medical device includes a core composed of a (co)polymer containing methyl methacrylate as a main component and is characterized by including a cladding material composed of a copolymer having a fluorine weight composition ratio of 60 to 74%, and by having a theoretical numerical aperture, NA, of 0.48 to 0.65 and, thus, the plastic optical fiber has a high numerical aperture and also has excellent translucency and flexibility.
Claims14
A medical device lighting, comprising
- 1) a light source,
- 2) a light guide that transmits light from said light source to an end of said light guide and radiates said light to an irradiated object, wherein said light guide comprises a plastic optical fiber comprising a core and a cladding,
- said core is composed of a (co)polymer containing methyl methacrylate as a main component,
- said cladding is composed of a copolymer having a fluorine weight composition ratio of 60 to 74%, and
- said plastic optical fiber has a theoretical numerical aperture, NA, of 0.48 to 0.65, and
- 3) a lens for lighting disposed on said end face of said end, wherein the light guide side of said lens has a concave surface, and a curvature radius, Rs, of the minor axis of the lens and a minor axis diameter, FLs, of said end face of said light guide have a relationship of Rs/FLs>0.7.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.