U.S. patent number RE43,106 [Application Number 11/849,609] was granted by the patent office on 2012-01-17 for optical pickup compatible with a digital versatile disk and a recordable compact disk using a holographic ring lens.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.. Invention is credited to Chul-Woo Lee, Jang-Hoon Yoo.
United States Patent |
RE43,106 |
Yoo , et al. |
January 17, 2012 |
**Please see images for:
( PTAB Trial Certificate ) ** |
Optical pickup compatible with a digital versatile disk and a
recordable compact disk using a holographic ring lens
Abstract
An optical pickup apparatus compatible with at least two types
of optical recording media, using light beams having respective
different wavelengths for recording and reading information, the
optical pickup apparatus including two laser light sources to emit
light beams having the different wavelengths, a holographic lens
including a holographic ring to transmit the light beams incident
in an inner region of the holographic ring, and to diffract a
specific light beam among the light beams emitted from the laser
light sources incident in an outer region relative to the inner
region, an objective lens to focus the light beams passed through
the holographic ring lens on the respective information recording
surfaces of the two types of the optical recording media, optical
elements to alter optical paths of the light beams reflected from
the information recording surfaces of the optical recording media
to corresponding photodetectors.
Inventors: |
Yoo; Jang-Hoon (Seoul,
KR), Lee; Chul-Woo (Kyunggi-Do, KR) |
Assignee: |
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
(Suwon-si, KR)
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Family
ID: |
21962800 |
Appl.
No.: |
11/849,609 |
Filed: |
September 4, 2007 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
Issue Date |
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09419792 |
Oct 18, 1999 |
6304540 |
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09049988 |
Mar 30, 1998 |
6043912 |
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Reissue of: |
09930964 |
Aug 17, 2001 |
7046611 |
May 16, 2006 |
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Foreign Application Priority Data
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Mar 28, 1997 [KR] |
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97-11297 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
369/112.08;
369/112.1; 369/112.23; 369/44.23; 369/112.13 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G11B
7/1353 (20130101); G02B 5/32 (20130101); G11B
7/1378 (20130101); G11B 7/1374 (20130101); G11B
7/1275 (20130101); G11B 7/1372 (20130101); G11B
7/13922 (20130101); G11B 7/139 (20130101); G11B
2007/0006 (20130101); G11B 2007/13727 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G11B
7/00 (20060101) |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
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Other References
Y Komma, et al., "Dual Focus Optical Head for 0.6mm and 1.2mm
disks," Optical Data Storage, SPIE vol. 2338, 1994, pp. 282-288.
cited by other .
Tagaki et al., "DVD/CD Compatible Pick-up with Liquid Crystal
Shutter," IEEE (1997). cited by other .
M. Shinoda, et al., "Two-Element Objective Lenses and Spherical
Aberration Correction for DVR," IEEE Transactions on Consumer
Electronics, vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 808-813 (Aug. 1996). cited by
other.
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Primary Examiner: Edun; Muhammad N
Attorney, Agent or Firm: NSIP Law
Parent Case Text
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No.
97-11297, filed Mar. 28, 1997, and is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 09/419,792 filed in the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office on Oct. 18, 1999 and which issued as U.S. Pat. No.
6,304,540 which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser.
No. 09/049,988 filed Mar. 30, 1998, which issued as U.S. Pat. No.
6,043,912, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by
reference.
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. An objective lens to form beam spots using light beams of
respectively different wavelengths, the objective lens comprising:
an inner region including an optical center of the objective lens;
a holographic region surrounding said inner region and comprising a
plurality of steps disposed on a lens surface of the objective
lens; and an outer region surrounding said holographic region,
wherein said inner region transmits the light beams, said
holographic region diffracts a second one of the light beams, and
the outer region transmits a first one of the light beams.
2. The objective lens according to claim 1, wherein a first focal
plane on which a first portion of the second light beam incident on
said holographic region is focused coincides with a second focal
plane on which a second portion of the second light beam incident
on said inner region is focused.
3. The objective lens according to claim 1, wherein said
holographic region further comprises grooves to diffract the second
light beam.
4. An objective lens for an optical pickup, the objective lens
comprising: a holographic region having a plurality of concentric
ring-shaped steps formed on a lens surface of the objective lens,
wherein the objective lens has a wavelength dependence such that
two light beams having corresponding different wavelengths and an
identical diffractive order form appropriate different wavefronts
corresponding to reproducing and/or recording information from
and/or to corresponding two kinds of optical recording media having
respectively different thickness.
5. The objective lens according to claim 4, further comprising an
inner region surrounded by said holographic region, wherein a first
focal plane on which a first portion of the second light beam
incident on said holographic region is focused coincides with a
second focal plane on which a second portion of the second light
beam incident on said inner region is focused.
6. The objective lens according to claim 4, wherein said
holographic region includes grooves to diffract the light beam.
7. An objective lens to form beam spots of different sizes using
corresponding first and second light beams of respectively
different wavelengths, the objective lens comprising: an inner
region including an optical center of the objective lens which has
an optical property optimized to focus the first light beam onto a
first optical recording medium of a first thicknesses and to focus
the second light beam onto a second optical recording medium of a
second thickness other than the first thickness; and a diffractive
region surrounding said inner region and comprising an optical
property optimized so as to selectively diffract the first and
second light beams as a function of wavelength so as to change a
numerical aperture of the objective lens.
8. The objective lens of claim 7, wherein, to adjust the numerical
aperture as the function of the wavelength, the diffractive region:
selectively diffracts the first light beam having a first
wavelength so as to not be focused on the first optical recording
medium, and selectively allows the second light beam of a second
wavelength to be focused on the second recording medium.
9. The objective lens of claim 8, wherein the diffractive region
selectively diffracts the first light beam as first order
light.
10. The objective lens of claim 9, wherein the diffractive region
comprises a blazed type hologram.
11. The objective lens of claim 9, wherein the diffractive region
comprises grooves formed in stepwise depths.
12. The objective lens of claim 7, wherein the diffractive region
is optimized to selectively diffract the first and second light
beams so as to reduce spherical aberration of the first and second
light beams when focused on the first and second optical recording
media as the function of the wavelength.
13. The objective lens of claim 7, wherein the diffractive region
is optimized to selectively diffract the first and second light
beams such that the numerical aperture of the objective lens is
greater for the second optical recording medium than for the first
optical recording medium.
14. The objective lens of claim 13, wherein the diffractive region
diffracts the first light beam of a first wavelength so as to not
be focused on the first optical recording medium.
15. The objective lens of claim 14, wherein the diffractive region
allows the second light beam of a second wavelength to be focused
on the second optical recording medium.
16. The objective lens of claim 15, wherein the diffractive region
is disposed on an optical surface having the inner region.
17. The objective lens of claim 16, wherein the optical surface is
optimized with respect to the first and second light beams to be
received prior to being reflected from the first and second optical
recording media.
18. The objective lens according to claim 7, wherein a first focal
plane to which a first portion of the second light beam incident on
the diffractive region is directed coincides with a second focal
plane to which a second portion of the second light beam incident
on the inner region is directed.
19. The objective lens according to claim 7, wherein the
diffractive region further comprises grooves optimized with respect
to the second light beam so to maximize first order light and to
minimize zero.sup.th order light.
20. An objective lens for use in focusing light beams on optical
recording media of different thicknesses, comprising: an inner
region which directs the light beams having corresponding
wavelengths to be focused on the corresponding optical recording
media having respectively different thicknesses; and a diffractive
region having a wavelength dependence such that the light beams are
selectively diffracted so as to adjust a numerical aperture of the
objective lens.
21. The objective lens of claim 20, wherein the diffractive region
diffracts one of the light beams having one of the wavelengths so
as to reduce spherical aberration when recording and/or reproducing
with respect to a corresponding one of the optical recording
media.
22. The objective lens of claim 21, wherein: the one optical
recording medium is a compact disk, and the diffractive portion
diffracts the one light beam as first order light so as to reduce
the spherical aberration with respect to the compact disk.
23. The objective lens of claim 22, wherein: another optical
recording medium is a digital versatile disk, and the diffractive
portion allows another light beam of another wavelength other than
the one wavelength to be directed to the digital versatile disk so
as to record and/or reproduce with respect to the digital versatile
disk together with a portion of the another light beam focused by
the inner region.
24. The objective lens of claim 20, wherein the diffractive portion
diffracts one of the light beams as first order light so as to
adjust the numerical aperture of the objective lens in order to
record and/or reproduce with respect to a corresponding one of the
optical recording media.
25. The objective lens of claim 20, wherein a first focal plane on
which a first portion of one light beam incident on the diffractive
region is directed coincides with a second focal plane on which a
second portion of the one light beam incident on the inner region
is directed.
26. The objective lens of claim 20, wherein a first focal plane on
which a first portion of one light beam incident on the diffractive
region is directed does not coincide with a second focal plane on
which a second portion of the one light beam incident on the inner
region is directed such that a spherical aberration is reduced at
the second focal plane and the numerical aperture is adjusted
according to the wavelength of the one light beam.
27. The objective lens of claim 26, wherein a third focal plane on
which a first portion of another light beam incident on the
diffractive region is directed coincides with a fourth focal plane
on which a second portion of the another light beam incident on the
inner region is directed.
28. An optical system for use in focusing light beams on optical
recording media of different thicknesses, comprising: an optical
element; and an objective lens, wherein the optical element
comprises: an inner region which directs the light beams having
corresponding wavelengths to be focused by the objective lens on
the corresponding optical recording media having respectively
different thicknesses; and a diffractive region having a wavelength
dependence such that the light beams are selectively diffracted so
as to adjust a numerical aperture of the objective lens.
29. The optical system of claim 28, wherein the diffractive region
diffracts one of the light beams having one of the wavelengths so
as to reduce spherical aberration when recording and/or reproducing
with respect to a corresponding one of the optical recording
media.
30. The optical system of claim 29, wherein: the one optical
recording medium is a compact disk, and the diffractive portion
diffracts the one light beam as first order light so as to reduce
the spherical aberration with respect to the compact disk.
31. The optical system of claim 30, wherein: another optical
recording medium is a digital versatile disk, and the diffractive
portion allows another light beam of another wavelength other than
the one wavelength to be directed through the objective lens to the
digital versatile disk so as to record and/or reproduce with
respect to the digital versatile disk together with a portion of
the another light beam which passed through the inner region and
the objective lens.
32. The optical system of claim 28, wherein the diffractive portion
diffracts one of the light beams as first order light so as to
adjust the numerical aperture of the objective lens in order to
record and/or reproduce with respect to a corresponding one of the
optical recording media.
33. The optical system of claim 28, wherein a first focal plane on
which a first portion of one light beam incident on the diffractive
region is directed by the objective lens coincides with a second
focal plane on which a second portion of the one light beam
incident on the inner region is directed by the objective lens.
34. The optical system of claim 28, wherein a first focal plane on
which a first portion of one light beam incident on the diffractive
region is directed by the objective lens does not coincide with a
second focal plane on which a second portion of the one light beam
incident on the inner region is directed by the objective lens such
that a spherical aberration is reduced at the second focal plane
and the numerical aperture is adjusted according to the wavelength
of the one light beam.
35. The optical system of claim 34, wherein a third focal plane on
which a first portion of another light beam incident on the
diffractive region is directed by the objective lens coincides with
a fourth focal plane on which a second portion of the another light
beam incident on the inner region is directed by the objective
lens.
36. An objective lens for an optical pickup, the objective lens
comprising at least one holographic region so as to selectively
transmit data with respect to disks of different thicknesses using
light beams, wherein the at least one holographic region comprises
a plurality of gratings on the objective lens, at least one part of
the at least one holographic region transmits the light beams for
use in transmitting the data with respect to the disks of different
thicknesses, and at least one other part of the at least one
holographic region diffracts one of the light beams so as to adjust
a numerical aperture of the objective lens for use in transmitting
the data with respect to the disks of different thicknesses.
37. An optical pickup for use with recording media, comprising: a
light source to emit light beams of different wavelengths; an
objective lens comprising at least one holographic region, the at
least one holographic region comprising a plurality of gratings on
the objective lens; and an optical detector to detect the light
beams after reflection from the recording media and after having
passed through the objective lens, wherein: at least one part of
the at least one holographic region transmits the light beams, and
at least one other part of the at least one holographic region
diffracts one of the light beams.
.Iadd.38. An objective lens for an optical pickup for selectively
diffracting at least one of plurality of light beams, the lens
comprising a first surface which focuses the plurality of light
beams; and a second surface adjacent to the first surface and
having a diffractive pattern to diffract at least one of the
plurality of light beams, wherein the diffractive pattern comprises
a holographic pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.39. The objective lens of claim 38, wherein: the first
surface includes an inner portion of the lens, and the second
surface is on a periphery of the first surface..Iaddend.
.Iadd.40. The objective lens of claim 38, wherein the first surface
does not include the diffractive pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.41. The objective lens of claim 38, wherein the diffractive
pattern is configured to selectively diffract one of the plurality
of light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.42. An objective lens for an optical pickup for selectively
diffracting at least one of plurality of light beams, the lens
comprising a first surface which focuses the plurality of light
beams; and a second surface adjacent to the first surface and
having a diffractive pattern at a location where a numerical
aperture of the objective lens is higher than a predetermined
numerical aperture value so as to diffract at least one of the
plurality of light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.43. The objective lens of claim 42, wherein the predetermined
numerical aperture value is 0.3..Iaddend.
.Iadd.44. The objective lens of claim 42, wherein the first surface
does not include the diffractive pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.45. The objective lens of claim 42, wherein the diffractive
pattern is configured to selectively diffract one of the plurality
of light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.46. The objective lens of claim 42, wherein the diffractive
pattern comprises a holographic pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.47. An objective lens for an optical pickup for correcting a
spherical aberration caused by one of plurality of light beams, the
lens comprising a first surface which focuses the plurality of
light beams; and a second surface adjacent to the first surface and
having a diffractive pattern which diffracts the plurality of light
beams and which is disposed to correct the spherical aberration of
at least one of the plurality of the one light beams, wherein the
diffractive pattern comprises a holographic pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.48. The objective lens of claim 47, wherein the first surface
does not include the diffractive pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.49. The objective lens of claim 47, wherein the diffractive
pattern is configured to selectively diffract one of the plurality
of light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.50. An objective lens for an optical pickup for correcting a
spherical aberration caused by one of plurality of light beams, the
lens comprising a first surface which focuses the plurality of
light beams and has a curved surface curving from an apex; and a
spherical aberration correction pattern formed below the apex so as
to correct the spherical aberration of the one light
beam..Iaddend.
.Iadd.51. The objective lens of claim 50, further comprising a
second surface on a periphery of the first surface and having the
spherical aberration correction pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.52. The objective lens of claim 50, wherein the first surface
does not include the spherical aberration correction
pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.53. The objective lens of claim 50, wherein the spherical
aberration correction pattern is configured to selectively diffract
one of the plurality of light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.54. The objective lens of claim 50, wherein the spherical
aberration correction pattern comprises a holographic
pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.55. A method of selectively focusing first and second light
beams of respectively different wavelengths using an objective lens
to form corresponding beam spots of different sizes, the method
comprising: receiving an emitted one of the first and second light
beams at an inner region of the objective lens, the inner region
including an optical center of the objective lens which has an
optical property optimized to focus the first light beam onto a
first optical recording medium of a first thicknesses and to focus
the second light beam onto a second optical recording medium of a
second thickness other than the first thickness; and receiving the
emitted one of the first and second light beams at a diffractive
region surrounding said inner region, the diffractive region
comprising an optical property optimized so as to diffract at least
one of the first and second light beams as a function of wavelength
so as to correct for spherical aberrations on the first and second
optical recording media, wherein the diffractive region comprises a
holographic pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.56. The method of claim 55, wherein the inner region does not
include a diffractive region..Iaddend.
.Iadd.57. The method of claim 55, wherein the diffractive pattern
is configured to selectively diffract the first and second light
beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.58. A method of selectively focusing light beams on optical
recording media of different thicknesses using an objective lens,
the method comprising: receiving an emitted one of the light beams
at an inner region of the objective lens, the inner region having
an optical property which directs the light beams having
corresponding wavelengths to be focused on the corresponding
optical recording media having respectively different thicknesses;
and receiving the emitted one of the light beams at a diffractive
region, the diffractive region having a wavelength dependence such
that the light beams are diffracted so as to correct for spherical
aberrations due to the different thicknesses of the optical
recording media, wherein the diffractive region comprises a
holographic pattern..Iaddend.
.Iadd.59. The method of claim 58, wherein the inner region does not
include the diffractive region..Iaddend.
.Iadd.60. The method of claim 58, wherein the diffractive pattern
is configured to selectively diffract the light beams..Iaddend.
.Iadd.61. A method of manufacturing an objective lens, the method
comprising forming a diffractive pattern on a portion of a surface
of the objective lens without forming the diffractive pattern on
another portion of the surface such that the another portion
focuses a plurality of light beams, and the formed diffractive
pattern has an optical property to selectively diffract one of the
plurality of light beams, wherein the forming comprises etching a
hologram having grooves on the surface as the diffractive
surface..Iaddend.
.Iadd.62. A method of manufacturing an objective lens, the method
comprising forming a diffractive pattern on a portion of a surface
of the objective lens without forming the diffractive pattern on
another portion of the surface such that the another portion
focuses a plurality of light beams, and the formed diffractive
pattern has an optical property to selectively diffract one of the
plurality of light beams, wherein the forming comprises molding a
hologram having grooves on the surface as the diffractive
surface..Iaddend.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical pickup apparatus
compatible with a digital video disk (DVD) and a recordable compact
disk (CD-R), and more particularly, to an optical pickup apparatus
which can compatibly record information on and read information
from a digital video disk (DVD) and a recordable compact disk
(CD-R), respectively, using a holographic lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical pickup apparatus records and reads the information such
as video, audio or data at a high density, and various types of
recording media are a disk, a card and a tape. Among them, the disk
type is primarily used. Recently, in the field of the optical disk
apparatus, a laser disk (LD), a compact disk (CD) and a digital
video disk (DVD) have been developed. Such an optical disk includes
a plastic or glass medium having a certain thickness along an axial
direction to which light is incident, and a signal recording
surface on which information is recorded and located on the plastic
or glass medium.
So far, a high-density optical disk system enlarges a numerical
aperture of an objective lens to increase a recording density, and
uses a short wavelength light source of 635 nm or 650 nm,
Accordingly, the high-density optical disk system can record or
read signals on or from a digital video disk, and can also read
signals from a CD. However, to be compatible with a recent type of
a CD, that is, a recordable CD (CD-R), light having a wavelength of
780 nm should be used, due to the recording characteristic of the
CD-R recording medium. As a result, using the light beam
wavelengths of 780 nm and 635 (or 650) nm in a single optical
pickup becomes very important for compatibility of the DVD and the
CD-R. A conventional optical pickup which is compatible with the
DVD and the CD-R will be described below with reference to FIG.
1.
FIG. 1 shows an optical pickup using two laser light diodes as
light sources for a DVD and a CD-R and a single objective lens. The
FIG. 1 optical pickup uses laser light having a wavelength of 635
nm when reproducing a DVD, and uses laser light having a wavelength
of 780 nm when recording and reproducing a CD-R.
Light having the 635 nm wavelength emitted from a first laser light
source 11 is incident to a first collimating lens 12, in which the
light is shown in a solid line. The first collimating lens 12
collimates the incident light beam to be in a parallel light beam.
The light beam passing through the first collimating lens 12 is
reflected by a beam splitter 13 and then goes to an interference
filter prism 14.
Light having the 780 nm wavelength emitted from a second laser
light source 21 passes through a second collimating lens 22, a beam
splitter 23 and a converging lens 24, and then goes to the
interference filter prism 14, in which the light is shown in a
dotted line. Here, the light beam of the 780 nm wavelength is
converged by the interference filter prism 14. An optical system
having such a structure is called a "finite optical system." The
interference filter prism 14 totally transmits the light beam of
the 635 nm wavelength reflected from the beam splitter 13, and
totally reflects the light beam of the 780 nm wavelength converged
by the converging lens 24. As a result, the light beam outgoing
from the first laser light source 11 is incident to a quarter-wave
plate 15 in the form of a parallel beam by the collimating lens 12,
while the light beam from the second laser light source 21 is
incident to the quarter-wave plate 15 in the form of a divergent
beam by the converging lens 24 and the interference filter prism
14. The light transmitted through the quarter-wave plate 15 passes
through a variable aperture 16 having a thin film structure and
then is incident to an objective lens 17.
The light beam of the 635 nm wavelength emitted from the first
laser light source 11 is focused by the objective lens 17 on an
information recording surface in the DVD 18 having a thickness of
0.6 mm. Therefore, the light reflected from the information
recording surface of the DVD 18 contains information recorded on
the information recording surface. The reflected light is
transmitted by the beam splitter 13, and is then incident to a
photodetector for detecting optical information.
If the finite optical system described above is not used, when the
light beam of the 780 nm wavelength emitted from the second laser
light source 21 is focused on an information recording surface in
the CD-R 25 having a thickness of 1.2 mm using the above described
objective lens 17, spherical aberration is generated due to a
difference in thickness between the DVD 18 and the CD-R 25. The
spherical aberration is due to the fact that the distance between
the information recording surface of the CD-R 25 and the objective
lens 17 is farther than that between the information recording
surface of the DVD 18 and the objective lens 17, along an optical
axis. To reduce such a spherical aberration, a construction of a
finite optical system including the converging lens 24 is required.
By using the variable aperture 16 to be described later with
reference to FIG. 2, the light beam of the 780 nm wavelength forms
an optimized beam spot on the information recording surface of the
CD-R 25. The light beam of the 780 nm wavelength reflected from the
CD-R 25 is reflected by the beam splitter 23, and then detected in
a photodetector 26.
The thin-film type variable aperture 16 of FIG. 1, as shown in FIG.
2, has a structure which can selectively transmit the light beams
incident to the regions whose numerical aperture (NA) is less than
or equal to 0.6, which coincides with the diameter of the objective
lens 17. That is, the variable aperture 16 is partitioned into two
regions based on the numerical aperture (NA) of 0.45 with respect
to an optical axis. Among the two regions, a first region 1
transmits both light beams of 635 nm wavelength and 780 nm
wavelength. A second region 2 totally transmits the light beam of
the 635 nm wavelength and totally reflects the light beam of the
780 nm wavelength. The region 1 is a region having a numerical
aperture less than or equal to 0.45, and the region 2 is an outer
region relative to the region 1 in which a dielectric thin film is
coated. The region 1 is comprised of a quartz (5102) thin film to
remove any optical aberration generated by the dielectric thin film
coated region 2.
By using the variable aperture 16, the 780 nm wavelength light
transmitted through the region 1 having the 0.45 NA or below forms
a beam spot appropriate to the CD-R 25 on the information recording
surface thereof. Thus, the FIG. 1 optical pickup uses an optimum
beam spot when a disk mode is changed from the DVD 18 to the CD-R
25. Accordingly, the FIG. 1 optical pickup is compatible for use
with the CD-R.
However, the optical pickup shown in FIG. 1 and as described above
should form a "finite optical system" with respect to the 780 nm
wavelength light in order to remove any spherical aberration
generated when changing a DVD compatibly with a CD-R. Also, due to
the optical thin film, that is, the dielectric thin film, which is
formed in the region 2 of the variable aperture 16 having the NA of
0.45 or above, an optical path difference between the light
transmitted through the region 1 having the NA of 0.45 or below and
that transmitted through the region 2 having the NA of 0.45 or
above, is generated. To eradicate this difference, it is necessary
to form an optical thin film in the region 1. Due to this reason, a
quartz coating (SiO.sub.2) is formed in the region 1 and a
multi-layer thin film is formed in the region 2. However, such a
fabricating process does not only become complicated but also
adjustment of the thickness of the thin film should be performed
precisely in units of ".mu.m". Thus, it has been difficult to
mass-produce the optical pickup.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an optical pickup
apparatus which is compatible with a digital video disk (DVD) and a
recordable compact disk (CD-R), by adopting an infinite optical
system and using a holographic lens to remove a spherical
aberration generated due to a difference in thickness between
optical disks.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set
forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will
be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of
the invention.
To accomplish the above and other objects of the present invention,
there is provided an optical pickup apparatus compatible with at
least two types of optical recording media, using light beams
having respective different wavelengths for recording and reading
information, the optical pickup apparatus including two laser light
sources to emit light beams having different wavelengths,
respectively, a holographic lens, including a holographic ring, for
transmitting both of the light beams emitted from the two laser
light sources in an inner region of the holographic ring, and
diffracting a specific light beam among the light beams emitted
from the laser light sources in an outer region of the holographic
ring, an objective lens to focus the light beams passed through the
holographic ring lens on the respective information recording
surfaces of the two types of the optical recording media, optical
elements to alter optical paths of the light beams reflected from
the information recording surfaces of the optical recording media,
and two photodetectors to individually detect optical information
from the light beams incident from the optical elements.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become
apparent and more readily appreciated from the following
description of the preferred embodiments, taken in conjunction with
the accompanying drawings of which:
FIG. 1 is a view showing the construction of a conventional optical
pickup;
FIG. 2 is a view for explaining the structure of a conventional
variable aperture shown in FIG. 1
FIG. 3 is a view showing an optical system of an optical pickup
according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4A is a view showing a positional relationship between a
holographic ring lens and an objective lens according to the
embodiment of the present invention, and
FIG. 4B is a view showing the plane surface of the holographic ring
lens;
FIG. 5A is a view showing the plane surface of the holographic ring
lens, and FIG. 5B is a graphical view showing that part of the FIG.
5A region which is enlarged;
FIG. 6 is a graphical view showing transmissive efficiency
according to the groove depth of the holographic ring lens with
regard to two wavelengths; and
FIG. 7 is a view showing that the holographic ring lens and the
objective lens are integrally incorporated.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred
embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are
illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference
numerals refer to the like elements throughout. The embodiments are
described below in order to explain the present invention by
referring to the figures.
FIG. 3 shows an optical system of an optical pickup according to an
embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3, the
optical pickup apparatus includes two laser light sources 31 and 39
for emitting light beams having different wavelengths,
respectively, two holographic beam splitters 32 and 40 for altering
optical paths of the light beams reflected from information
recording surfaces of first and second types of optical disks, a
beam splitter 33 for totally transmitting or reflecting the
incident light beam according to the light wavelength, a
collimating lens 34 for collimating the incident light beam to be
in a parallel form, a holographic ring lens 35 for diffracting the
incident light beam according to its wavelength, and an objective
lens 36 for focusing the light beams on the respective information
recording surfaces of optical disks 37 and 41. Two photodetectors
38 and 42 which detect the light beams reflected from the
respective information recording surfaces of the optical disks 37
and 41 and the laser light sources 31 and 39 are integrally
incorporated into single modules to form units 30 and 43,
respectively. The operation of the optical pickup constructed above
will be described below, in which a DVD and a CD-R are described as
optical recording media.
First, when recording and/or reading information on a DVD, a light
beam having the 650 nm (or 635 nm) wavelength is emitted from the
first laser light source 31 and is incident to the holographic beam
splitter 32, in which the light is shown as a solid line. The
incident light beam passes through the holographic beam splitter 32
and proceeds to the beam splitter 33. When recording and/or reading
information about a CD-R, a light beam having the 780 nm wavelength
is emitted from the second laser light source 39 and is incident to
the holographic beam splitter 40, in which the light is shown as a
dotted line. The incident light beam passes through the holographic
beam splitter 40 and proceeds to the beam splitter 33.
The beam splitter 33 totally transmits the incident light beam of
the 650 nm wavelength and totally reflects the incident light beam
of the 780 nm wavelength. The totally transmitted or reflected
light beam goes to the holographic ring lens 35 in the form of a
parallel beam after passing through the collimating lens 34. The
holographic ring lens 35 selectively diffracts the incident light
beam according to the wavelength thereof, to prevent the generation
of spherical aberration with regard to the light beams focused on
the information recording surfaces of the optical disks 37 and
41.
FIG. 4A is a view showing a positional relationship between the
holographic ring lens 35 and an optical surface of the holographic
ring lens 35. As shown in FIG. 4A, the objective lens 36 is
partitioned into regions A and B. The region A, being closer to an
optical axis of the objective lens 36, has little effect on a
spherical aberration and the region B, being farther from the
optical axis, has a large effect on the spherical aberration. Also,
the objective lens 36 is most appropriate for a disk having a thin
thickness such as a DVD. Thus, when a DVD is exchanged with a thick
disk such as a CD-R to operate the optical pickup, the holographic
ring lens 35 is required. If the holographic ring lens 35 is not
used when recording and/or reading information on the CD-R, the
spherical aberration in the beam spot formed on the information
recording surface of the disk becomes large, in which the size is
more than 1.7 .mu.m. Generally, the size of the beam spot formed on
the information recording surface of the CD-R is 1.41 .mu.m. The
holographic ring tens 35 diffracts the 780 nm wavelength light beam
passed through the region F of the holographic ring lens 35 so as
to prevent the generation of spherical aberration, for which a
hologram depicted with dots in FIG. 4B is disposed on the region F
of the holographic ring lens 35. Accordingly, the light beam which
is incident to the region A of the holographic ring lens 35, passes
through the objective lens 36 without any diffraction by the
holographic ring lens 35, and then is directly focused on the disk.
The region F of the light beam which is incident to the holographic
ring lens 35, is wavelength-selectively diffracted by the
holographic ring lens 35 and then proceeds to the objective lens
36. The diffracted light beam of 780 nm wavelength passing through
the objective lens 36 makes the size of the beam spot focused on
the disk smaller, and no spherical aberration is generated. A focal
plane on which the diffracted 780 nm wavelength light beam passing
through the region F is focused should coincide with an optimized
surface of the disk on which the 780 nm wavelength light beam
passing through the region A is focused. By using the holographic
ring lens 35, a working distance from the surface of the objective
lens 36 to the information recording surfaces of the disks becomes
shorter in the CD-R 41 rather than in the DVD 37.
FIG. 5A is a view showing the structure of the holographic ring
lens 35. The holographic ring lens 35 has an inner region 351
including an optical center of the holographic ring lens 35, a
holographic ring 353 centering at the optical center of the
holographic ring lens 35 and surrounding the inner region 351, and
an outer region 355 surrounding the holographic ring 353. In
connection with FIG. 4A, the Inner region 351 coincides with the
region A, the holographic ring 353 coincides with the region F, and
the outer region 355 coincides with the region B except the region
F. A region D shown in FIG. 5B below where the hologram in the
holographic ring lens 35 shown in FIG. 5A is provided on the
holographic ring 353, corresponds to the numerical aperture of
0.3-0.5 which is intended to be appropriate to the CD-R. In FIG.
5A, a symbol E indicates the diameter of the objective lens for a
DVD whose numerical aperture (NA) is 0.6. Also, the holographic
ring lens 35 used in the present invention can selectively adjust
the numerical aperture (NA) of the objective lens according to the
wavelengths of the light beam, and requires no separate variable
aperture. The holographic ring lens 35 has the same function as a
general spherical lens which transmits a light beam in the
convergent or divergent form. Further, the holographic ring lens 35
has a positive optical power and uses a phase shift hologram as a
hologram formed in the holographic ring 353. An optimized depth of
the grooves the hologram should be determined so that the
holographic ring 353 selectively diffracts the incident light beam
according to the wavelength thereof. The holographic ring lens 35
is constructed so that the light beam of the 650 nm wavelength has
transmissive efficiency close to 100% and the light beam of the 780
nm wavelength has a zero-order transmissive efficiency 0% with
respect to non-diffracted light beam. For that, in case that the
holographic ring 52 has grooves of a constant depth the phase
variation by the groove depth of the holographic ring should be
about 360.degree. with respect to the 650 nm wavelength light.
Since the phase variation is generated by 360.degree., the
holographic ring lens 35 transmits most of the 650 nm wavelength
light. The phase variation by the holographic ring 353 should be
optimized with respect to the 780 nm wavelength light, by which the
780 nm wavelength light is all diffracted as first-order light. As
a result, the holographic ring 353 is designed to hardly diffract
the 650 wavelength light, but to diffract the 780 nm wavelength
light as a first-order diffracted light. An optimized surface
groove depth d of the holographic ring 353 for selectively
diffracting 650 nm and 780 nm wavelength light beams is determined
by the following equations (1) and (2).
.times..times..pi..times..times..lamda..times..times..times..times..times-
..pi..times..times..pi..times..times..lamda.'.times.'.times..times..times.-
'.times..lamda. ##EQU00001##
Here, .lamda. is the 650 nm wavelength, .lamda.' is the 780 nm
wavelength, and n and n' denote a reflective index (1.514520) in
the 650 nm wavelength and a reflective index (1.511183) in the 780
nm wavelength, respectively. In the above equations (1) and (2), if
m=3 and m'=2, the depth d becomes about 3.8 .mu.m.
FIG. 5B is a graphical view showing an enlarged view of the
hologram region D shown in FIG. 5A. The hologram which is formed in
the holographic ring 353 has grooves of a constant depth by etching
or can be manufactured by molding. Further, grooves of the hologram
can be formed stepwisely, together with a ring pattern. The grooves
of the hologram can also be formed in a blazed type so as to
maximize the diffraction efficiency on a non-zeroth order
diffracted light.
FIG. 6 is a graphical view showing zero-order transmissive
efficiency of the holographic ring according to the wavelengths of
incident lights. When the surface groove depth d is 3.8 .mu.m, the
650 nm wavelength light is transmitted via the holographic ring 353
by 100% as shown in a solid line overlapped with the symbol "++",
and the 780 nm wavelength light is transmitted via the holographic
ring 353 by 0% as shown by a solid line overlapped with a circle.
At this time, the holographic ring 353 diffracts the 780 nm
wavelength light as the first-order light, in which diffraction
efficiency thereof is 40%.
All of the 650 nm wavelength light incident to the holographic ring
lens 35 having the above characteristics is transmitted and then
proceeds to the objective lens 36. The incident light beam passes
through the objective lens 36 and forms a beam spot on the
information recording surface of the DVD 37. The light beam
reflected from the information recording surface of the DVD 37 is
incident to the holographic ring lens 35. After passing through the
holographic ring lens 35, the reflected light beam is incident to
the collimating lens 34, the beam splitter 33 and then to the
holographic beam splitter 32, wherein the holographic beam splitter
32 directs the reflected light beam to the photodetector 38. The
780 nm wavelength light incident to the holographic ring lens 35 is
transmitted in the holographic lens 353 and then proceeds to the
objective lens 36 as shown in FIG. 4A, but is diffracted in the
region A and then proceeds to the objective lens 36. Therefore, the
light beam passing through the objective lens 36 forms an optimized
beam spot on the information recording surface of the CD-R 41. The
light beam reflected from the information recording surface of the
CD-R 41 is incident to the beam splitter 33 and then reflected. The
reflected light proceeds to the holographic beam splitter 40 and
then is incident to the photodetector 42 by altering the optical
path.
The holographic ring lens 35 having the above functions may be
manufactured integrally with an objective lens by being etched or
molded to a constant depth inwards from one optical surface of the
objective lens. The integrally incorporated holographic ring lens
has the same function as the holographic ring lens 35. FIG. 7 is a
view showing that the holographic ring lens and the objective lens
are integrally incorporated.
As described above, the optical pickup apparatus according to the
present invention is used compatibly with a DVD and a CD-R, by
using a holographic ring lens to eliminate a spherical aberration
generated in response to a disk being changed to another disk
having a different thickness, in which a working distance is
shorter in the case of the CD-R than the DVD. Also, the optical
pickup apparatus provides advantages which include ease in
construction of a holographic ring lens and good mass-production
capabilities.
While only certain embodiments of the invention have been
specifically described herein, it will be apparent that numerous
modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit
and scope of the invention.
* * * * *