Optical characteristics switching mechanism optical head and optical apparatus
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsTomohiro Murayama, Isao Kishimoto, Hiroshi Kawakami
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention relates to an optical characteristics switching mechanism for switching optical characteristics of an optical system by selectively locating an optical element in an optical path of the optical system. The optical characteristics switching mechanism of the present invention comprises optical characteristics switching element for selectively arranging a holder holding the optical element at either of a first position at which the optical element exists in the optical path and a second position at which the optical element is out of the optical path, by rotating the holder with use of a magnetic force.
Claims11
An optical head comprising:
- laser beam emitting section;
- an objective lens for converging the laser beam emitted by the laser beam emitting section to make the converged laser beam incident on an optical disk;
- a photodetecting section for receiving a laser beam reflected by the optical disk through the objective lens;
- an objective lens supporting mechanism holding the objective lens such that at least focusing of lens is allowed to be controlled;
- an optical element different from the objective lens;
- a holder for the optical element;
- an optical characteristics switching mechanism for rotating the holder about axis extending in a direction substantially perpendicular to a direction in which the laser beam passes through the optical element, whereby the optical element is moveable movable between a first position where the optical element is located in an optical path of the laser beam and a second position where the optical element is out of the optical path beam.
An optical disk apparatus comprising:
- a driver for rotating an optical disk;
- a laser beam emitting section;
- an objective lens for converting the laser beam emitted by the laser beam emitting section to converted laser beam incident on an optical disk;
- a photodetecting section for receiving a laser beam reflected by the optical disk;
- and
- an optical characteristics mechanism for switching optical characteristics of an optical system, between the laser beam emitting section and the objective lens, wherein the optical characteristics mechanism includes:
- an objective lens supporting mechanism having the objective lens such that at least focusing of the objective lens is allowed to be controlled;
- an optical element different from the objective lens;
- a holder for the optical element;
- a switching mechanism for rotating the holder about an axis extending in a direction substantially perpendicular to a direction in which the laser beam passes through the optical element, whereby the optical element is movable between a first position where the optical element is moveable between a first position where the optical is located in an optical path of the laser beam and a second position where the optical element is out of the optical path of the laser beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.