JPS61129893A - Light beam deflector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To contrive miniaturization, speed-up, and structural simplification by a method wherein a piezoelectric substrate is provided with the semiconductor laser light emitting part and the scan polarizing part of required structure. CONSTITUTION:A bend part 2 is formed in the piezoelectric substrate 1, and electrodes 4, 5 are formed on its front and back; then, the electrode 4 is partly processed into a mirror surface 4a. The semiconductor laser light emitting part 6 is provided in the bend part 2 on the front side, and a mirror member, gate-shaped in cross section, having a mirror 7 opposed to that light emitting part is fixed to a non-bend part 3. When a voltage is not impressed on the substrate 1 because of the zero voltage value of a power source 9, a laser light out of the light emitting part 6 multireflects on the mirror 7 and the mirror surface 4a and is emitted out of the bend 2. Next, when a required voltage is impressed on both electrodes 4, 5 of the substrate 1 via electrode lead-out parts 4b, 5b, then the bend 2 bends on the supporting end by piezoelectric lateral effect, and the direction of laser light reflection changes from the part 6; accordingly, the angle-of-deviation theta of the laser light is controlled by controlling the impressed voltage.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical deflection element that is installed in, for example, a laser printer or an optomechatronic device and controls the deflection of laser light.

(0) Background of the Invention Conventionally, polygon scanners and hologram scanners are known as this type of optical deflection device.

Each of these scanners has the advantage of having a laser beam polarization function, but has the disadvantage of requiring a separate light emitting section.

In addition, each of these scanners requires a rotary drive unit such as a motor, which makes the structure complex, and there is a limit to miniaturization of the Ha.Furthermore, not only is it difficult to obtain a sufficient scanning speed, but This had the problem of being adversely affected by vibration and heat generated by motor rotation.

On the other hand, although an optical deflection element that utilizes thermo-optic effects has already been invented, the scan angle of this element is too small to put it into practical use.

In any case, conventional scanners having polarization capability have had problems in that they cannot be sufficiently miniaturized, high-speed, and solid-state.

(c) Purpose of the Invention The object of the present invention is to provide an optical polarization element that can be made smaller and faster, has a simple structure, and can be solidified.

(d) Summary of the Invention A piezoelectric substrate is divided into a tongue-shaped bent portion and non-bent portions on both sides thereof, electrodes are formed on both the front and back surfaces of the bent portion, and a semiconductor laser is formed on the front side of the bent portion. A light emitting part is provided, a mirror member having a gate-shaped cross section and a mirror facing the light emitting part is fixed to a non-bent part, an electrode surface facing the mirror is made a mirror surface, and both electrodes of the piezoelectric substrate are provided. The present invention is characterized in that it is an optical deflection element configured to deflect semiconductor laser light by controlling an applied voltage.

(E) Effects of the Invention According to the invention, since the semiconductor laser light emitting section and the scanning mechanism section, that is, the bending section can be provided on the same substrate, the device can be miniaturized and the structure simplified. There is.

In addition, when a voltage is applied to both electrodes of the piezoelectric substrate mentioned above, the bending part bends due to the piezoelectric transverse effect, so the direction of reflection of the laser beam can be varied, and by controlling this voltage, the laser beam can be The scanning direction of the light can be freely changed, and by roughly increasing the applied frequency, the scanning speed can be increased.

(f) Examples of the invention An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below based on the drawings.

The drawings show a light deflection element, and in FIGS. 1 to 3,
Reference numeral 1 denotes a piezoelectric substrate made of crystal, PZT, etc., and a U-shaped hole is formed in the approximate center of the piezoelectric substrate 1 by well-known etching means to form a tongue-shaped bent portion 2 and non-bent portions on both sides of the piezoelectric substrate 1. 3
It is divided into

Electrodes 4.5 are formed on the front and back surfaces of the above-mentioned bent portion 2 by vapor deposition, and a portion of the electrode 4 on the surface of the bent portion 2 (the portion indicated by the imaginary line in FIG. 3) is mirror-finished and laser-treated. It has a mirror surface 4a for reflecting light.

Furthermore, a semiconductor laser light emitting section 6 is provided on the front surface side of the above-mentioned bending section 2. A mirror member 8 having a circular cross section and having a mirror 7 (specifically, a mirror-finished mirror surface for reflecting laser light) facing the semiconductor laser light emitting section 6 is fixed to the non-bending section 3. .

As described above, the surface of the electrode 4 facing the mirror 7 is formed into a mirror surface 4a for reflecting laser light by mirror finishing.

As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, lead wires 10.11 are connected to the positive and negative electrodes of the power source 9, respectively, in order to apply the power source 9 to both the front and back electrodes 4.5 of the piezoelectric substrate 1. These lead wires 10.11 are connected to the electrodes 4, 5, more specifically, to the lead-out portions 4b, 5b of the electrodes 4, 5, respectively.

The illustrated embodiment is constructed as described above, and its operation will be explained below.

Now, as shown in FIG. 4, when the voltage value of the power source 9 is set to zero and no voltage is applied to the piezoelectric substrate 1,
The laser light from the semiconductor laser light emitting section 6 is repeatedly incident and reflected between the fixed mirror 7 and the mirror surface 4a of the electrode 4 as shown in the figure, and is emitted from the end of the bent section 2 in a fixed direction.

Next, as shown in FIG. 5, both electrodes 4.5 of the piezoelectric substrate 1 are
When a predetermined voltage is applied to the bending part 2, the bending part 2 bends by using the supporting end as a bending fulcrum part due to the piezoelectric transverse effect, so that the direction of reflection of the laser light from the semiconductor laser light emitting part 6 is as shown in FIG. 4 when the applied voltage is zero. It changes over time.

In Figure 5, after repeating a total of 8 reflections, the bending part 2
Laser light is emitted from the end of the bending portion 2. By controlling the applied voltage value and arbitrarily varying the bending angle of the bending portion 2, the deflection angle θ of the laser light can be freely controlled.

Moreover, by increasing the applied frequency, the scanning speed can be increased. However, in this case, the power source 9 described above can of course be changed from the illustrated DC power source to an AC power source.

Moreover, the semiconductor laser light emitting section 6 is disposed on the same piezoelectric substrate 1.
Since it is possible to provide the scanning mechanism section (that is, the bending section 2), the device can be made smaller and the structure can be simplified, and the optical deflection device itself can be solidified.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a plan view of the optical deflection element, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line I[-m in FIG. 1, and FIG.
A sectional view taken along the line l1l-1 in the figure, Figure 4 is IV in Figure 1.
A cross-sectional view taken along the line -IV, and FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view for explaining the deflection action. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Piezoelectric substrate 2...Bending part 3...Non-bending part 4.5...Electric rod 4a...Mirror surface 6...Semiconductor laser light emitting part 7...Mirror 8... Mirror member Figure 1 Optical scratch resistance system) #JF team

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A piezoelectric substrate is divided into a tongue-shaped bent portion and non-bent portions on both sides thereof, and electrodes are formed on both the front and back surfaces of the bent portion, and electrodes are formed on the front side of the bent portion. A semiconductor laser light emitting section is provided, a mirror member having a gate-shaped cross section and a mirror facing the light emitting section is fixed to a non-bending section, an electrode surface facing the mirror is made a mirror surface, and both sides of the piezoelectric substrate are fixed. An optical deflection element configured to deflect semiconductor laser light by controlling the voltage applied to an electrode.