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US 12,631,806 B2Granted
Diffractive optics having transversely distributed multiple foci
AssigneeArizona Board of Regents on Behalf of the University of Arizona
InventorsStanley Pau, David Brady
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A diffractive optical element configured as a lens having such an aperture function that causes light incident onto such lens to form a multiplicity of focal points (whether real or virtual) that do not lie along the same axis transverse to the surface of such lens, thereby simultaneously forming a multiplicity of spatially-independent optical images distributed transversely to a normal drawn to a surface of such lens. A method of using such diffractive optical element.
Claims15
A diffractive lens element, comprising:
- an optical substrate made of an optical material and having an incident surface, and
- a diffractive lens defined in said optical substrate and having an aperture,
- wherein a surface of the aperture is substantially completely covered by multiple arrays of contiguous surface areas of the optical substrate,
- wherein each array of the multiple arrays has a polygonal perimeter and a plurality of the contiguous surface areas,
- wherein, within each of polygonal perimeters, portions of the optical substrate corresponding to different contiguous surface areas vary from one another in a thickness or a refractive index, and
- wherein, collectively, the multiple arrays of the contiguous surface areas of the optical substrate produce an effect that would be produced by a presence of multiple independent Fresnel lenses spatially shifted with respect to one another along the optical substrate.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.