Light guide and image reader

Abstract

A light guide emits lights incident on an end face from an emitting face extending longitudinally of the guide, while having the lights reflected by its internal face. A sectional shape of the guide in a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of this light guide has two opposite parabolas, a line segment connecting the focal points of the two opposite parabolas, and a line segment (bottom face) corresponding to the emitting face. A scattering pattern consisting of white ink is formed on the line segment (bottom face) connecting the focal points. With this guide, the face of a document is to be efficiently illuminated by conversely utilizing the characteristic of the compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) to convert scattered lights extending over a full angle from a limited area into radiant lights confined to a prescribed emission angle and thereby minimizing the expansion of lights.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.