JP2001021726A - Manufacture of light transmission body - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for manufacturing many uniformly machined light transmission body single bodies having excellent smooth property of end faces thereof with satisfactory productivity by fixing light transmission bodies of a light transmission body collective body mutually by a fixing member capable of being peeled off from the light transmission body and removing the fixing member after smoothing and machining end faces of these light transmission bodies. SOLUTION: When a substrate is used to form a light transmission body collective body, a light transmission body and the substrate are fixed using a fixing member. A fixing jig 2 pressed and fixes a clamp for fixation by pressure of an air cylinder for clamp 4 so that the light transmission body collective body is not deviated and does not vibrate due to a load at the time of cutting. The fixing jig 2 holding the light transmission body collective body put on a fixing jig travel rail 5 is moved along the fixing jig travel rail 5 while rotating a rotary head 7 on which a diamond cutting edge 6 is attached by a motor 8. Consequently, an end face of the light transmission body is cut by the diamond cutting edge 6 to form the end face into a mirror face perpendicular to an optical axis of the light transmission body.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an optical transmission body.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a refractive index distribution type optical transmission body is mirror-polished at its both end surfaces into parallel planes perpendicular to a central axis, and is used as a single lens as a single lens. In addition, many of them are closely arranged and adhered and integrated to form a lens array,
Reading devices such as copiers, facsimile machines, scanners, and L
It is widely used for components such as writing devices of ED printers.

Conventionally, the end face processing of a single optical transmission body has been performed for each single optical transmission body. However, productivity is poor, and a large number of optical transmission bodies must be uniformly processed so that there is no variation among the optical transmission bodies. Was difficult. On the other hand, as a method for mirror-polishing the end face of a plastic optical transmission body array, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-152
No. 518 discloses a method of cutting an end face of an optical transmission body array using a diamond cutting blade.

[0004]

This method is an effective means for processing an optical transmitter array. However, in this method, since each optical transmitter of the optical transmitter array is bonded and fixed to each other, When the optical transmission body is used as a single body, it cannot be used as a method for processing the end face of the single optical transmission body. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a method capable of obtaining a large number of optical transmission bodies having excellent end surface smoothness and uniformly processed with high productivity.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The gist of the present invention is to fix a plurality of light transmitting bodies of a plurality of cylindrical light transmitting bodies arranged in parallel so that the light transmitting bodies can be separated from the light transmitting bodies. The present invention is a method for manufacturing an optical transmission body in which the optical transmission body is fixed by a material and the end faces of these optical transmission bodies are smoothed and then the fixing material is removed to obtain the optical transmission body.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a method for manufacturing an optical transmitter according to the present invention will be described in detail based on one embodiment of the present invention.

In the present invention, first, a plurality of optical transmitters are closely arranged in parallel and closely to obtain an optical transmitter aggregate. In order to easily hold the optical transmission bodies and improve the workability when fixing the optical transmission bodies with the fixing material as described later, the optical transmission bodies should be arranged so that the end faces thereof are lined up. Is preferred. In this case, the number of columns can be one or a plurality of columns. Further, in order to process the end faces of a large number of optical transmission bodies at once, the end faces of the optical transmission bodies can be arranged in a plane, that is, arranged in a plate shape. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of an optical transmission body aggregate in a case where optical transmission bodies are arranged in a line, as viewed from an end face of the optical transmission body. In FIG. 1, the optical transmission bodies 13 are closely arranged so that their longitudinal directions are parallel to each other, and are sandwiched by substrates 14. In this case, as the substrate, a known substrate or the like used for manufacturing an optical transmitter array is used, and even a flat plate has a groove formed on one side corresponding to the shape of the outer peripheral surface of the optical transmitter. Can be used.

As a method of arranging the optical transmission members on the substrate, a known method is used. However, the more precisely the optical transmission members are arranged in parallel with each other, the smoother the end surfaces of the optical transmission members are, The length of each optical transmitter, the angle between the optical axis and the end face,
It is preferable to use a method capable of arranging the optical transmission members with high accuracy as much as possible because it is possible to uniformly process a large number of optical transmission members while preventing variations in the state of the end face. Specifically, the light transmitting bodies are arranged on a flat arrangement jig having suction holes while sucking the light transmitting bodies, and the arrayed light transmitting bodies are transferred to a substrate coated with an adhesive, and the transferred light transmitting bodies are transferred. It is preferable to use a method of holding the body row using another substrate.

When an optical transmitter aggregate is formed using a substrate as shown in FIG. 1, the optical transmitter aggregate has a desired length and a width equal to the length of the optical transmitter. It is also possible to first prepare a substrate having, it is also possible to form using them, after forming an optical transmitter aggregate using a substrate having an optical transmitter longer than the desired length and the same width,
It is also possible to cut the optical transmission assembly to obtain an optical transmission assembly composed of an optical transmission body having a desired length. When arranging the optical transmitters using a flat substrate, the optical transmitters are arranged in parallel by bringing the adjacent optical transmitters into close contact with each other. It is preferable to use a method of forming an optical transmission body aggregate using substrates having the same width, since the arrangement accuracy of the optical transmission body is increased.

In the above description, the method of forming the optical transmitter aggregate using the substrate is preferable in order to form the optical transmitter aggregate having high alignment accuracy. Has been described how to form
As long as a plurality of optical transmitters can be arranged in parallel, a method of forming an optical transmitter aggregate without using a substrate may be used.

Next, the optical transmitters of the optical transmitter assembly are
When a substrate is used for forming the optical transmitter aggregate, the optical transmitter and the substrate are further fixed using a fixing material. As the fixing material, the optical transmitters of the optical transmitter aggregate can be fixed to each other to the extent that the optical transmitters do not shift during cutting, and the optical transmitter and the substrate can be fixed, and can be separated from the optical transmitter, that is, An optical transmission body or a substrate having an adhesive strength to the material of the substrate to the extent that the optical transmission body can be removed without causing optical and physical damage is used. For example, when the optical transmission body is made of an acrylic resin, it is preferable to use a solventless epoxy adhesive as the fixing material. If an epoxy-based adhesive mixed with a solvent is used, the light transmitting body is slightly dissolved, so that the adhesion between the light transmitting body and the fixing material is too strong, and there is a possibility that the fixing material may be difficult to remove. Other examples of the fixing material include double-sided tapes, releasable tapes such as cellophane tapes, water-soluble adhesives, water-soluble adhesives, hot-melt adhesives, and water-soluble spray glues. Examples of the adhesive include a peelable adhesive. When fixing the light transmitting body of the light transmitting body assembly, a known method can be used according to the fixing material to be used, but when a liquid fixing material is used, the end face of the light transmitting body is used. The method of sucking the fixing material from the side under reduced pressure and filling the fixing material between the light transmitting members is simple and preferable because the fixing material can be filled between the light transmitting members without unevenness.

Next, the end face of the light transmitting body of the light transmitting body assembly fixed by the fixing material is smoothed. When the optical transmission body to be smoothed is an optical transmission body made of plastic, cutting with a diamond blade is preferable because an end face with high smoothness can be obtained with good workability.
An example of a cutting process using a diamond blade will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a fixing jig for the optical transmission unit assembly, and FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a cutting device for the optical transmission unit assembly. As shown in FIG. 2, the fixing jig 2 presses the fixing clamp 3 by the pressure of the clamping air cylinder 4 so that the optical transmission body assembly 1 does not shift or vibrate due to a load during cutting. The optical transmission assembly 1 is fixed.
Next, as shown in FIG. 3, while rotating the rotary head 7 to which the diamond blade 6 is attached by the motor 8, the fixing jig placed on the fixing jig moving rail 5 and holding the optical transmission assembly 1. 2 is moved along the fixing jig moving rail 5 so that the end face of the optical transmission body of the optical transmission body assembly 1 is cut with a diamond blade 6 so that the end face becomes a mirror surface perpendicular to the optical axis of the optical transmission body. I do. Although other devices can be used as the cutting device, the cutting device shown in FIG. 2 can perform high-precision cutting and can uniformly process a large number of optical transmission bodies. preferable. The diamond blade used in the present embodiment is preferably a cutting blade made of single crystal diamond, and a natural blade or an artificial blade can be used. The cutting allowance at the time of cutting is preferably 20 μm or more in order to surely smooth the end face, and is preferably 500 μm or less in order to reduce the cutting debris and improve the productivity of the optical transmission body. . When the unevenness of the end face of the optical transmission body is significant, it is preferable to reduce the unevenness by rough cutting or the like in advance to reduce the load on the cutting blade and extend the life of the cutting blade.

The method for smoothing the end face of the optical transmission body is not limited to this, and a known polishing method or cutting method can be used. Further, in the optical transmission body, only one end face may be smoothed or both end faces may be smoothed in accordance with the performance required of the optical transmission body.

After that, the fixing material for fixing the optical transmission members is removed, and the optical transmission members are separated one by one.
Many optical transmission bodies having smooth end faces can be obtained by one cutting operation. Thus, according to the method of the present invention,
An optical transmission body having a high end face smoothness can be obtained with high productivity, and a large number of optical transmission bodies can be processed simultaneously, so that a large number of uniformly processed optical transmission bodies can be obtained.

In the present invention, the optical transmission member to be cut is not particularly limited. However, when a cutting method using a diamond blade is used for smoothing the end surface of the optical transmission member, a plastic optical transmission member is cut. It is preferable that The columnar refractive index distribution type optical transmission body having the refractive index continuously decreasing from the center to the outer peripheral portion requires smoothness of the end face in its application. When the transmission body is manufactured, the effects of the present invention can be fully utilized. FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an example of such a graded index optical transmission body. Assuming that the refractive index on the central axis (optical axis) 12 is N ₀ and the refractive index distribution constant is A, the optical transmission body 11 has a refractive index N (r) at a point radially away from the central axis by a distance r. Preferably has a refractive index distribution substantially expressed by the following equation (1). N (r) = N ₀ (1−Ar ² ) (1)

[0016]

The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the following examples. (Example 1) Polymethyl methacrylate ([η] = 0.
40, measured at 25 ° C. in MEK, hereinafter the same [η] of polymethyl methacrylate) 52 parts by weight, benzyl methacrylate 35 parts by weight, methyl methacrylate 13
Parts by weight of 0.25 parts by weight of 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone and 0.1 parts by weight of hydroquinone.
C. by heating and kneading to 48% by weight of polymethyl methacrylate, benzyl methacrylate 1
0 parts by weight, methyl methacrylate 35 parts by weight, 2,2,2
7 parts by weight of 3,3,4,4,5,5-octafluoropentyl methacrylate 0.25 parts by weight of 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone and 0.1 part by weight of hydroquinone are heated and kneaded at 70 ° C. to form a second layer. Stock solution,
47 parts by weight of polymethyl methacrylate, 30 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate, 23 parts by weight of 2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafluoropentyl methacrylate, 1 part by weight
-Hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone (0.25 parts by weight) and hydroquinone (0.1 parts by weight) were heated and kneaded at 70 ° C. to obtain a third layer forming stock solution, polymethyl methacrylate (40 parts by weight), methyl methacrylate (18 parts by weight),
42 parts by weight of 2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafluoropentyl methacrylate 0.25 parts by weight of 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone and 0.1 part by weight of hydroquinone were heated and kneaded at 70 ° C. 37 parts by weight of polymethyl methacrylate, 4 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate, 2,2,3,3,4,4,4
5,5-octafluoropentyl methacrylate (59 parts by weight), 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone (0.25 parts by weight) and hydroquinone (0.1 parts by weight) were heated at 70 ° C.
Using a concentric five-layer composite nozzle, which was heated and kneaded to obtain a fifth layer forming stock solution, the five kinds of stock solutions were arranged in order from the center so that the refractive index of the uncured material became lower, and simultaneously extruded to obtain a filamentous material. Was formed.

[0017] The temperature of the composite spinning nozzle was 48 ° C.
The discharge ratio of each layer is 3 in the ratio of the thickness (the radius for the center layer).
4.7 / 38.7 / 19.5 / 6.3 / 0.8. The filaments are passed through an interdiffusion treatment section that diffuses the uncured material constituting each layer having a length of 30 cm between the layers. Then, 12 chemical lamps each having a length of 120 cm and 40 W are circularly arranged at equal intervals. The uncured material was cured by passing the light through the center of the light irradiating section, and was taken out by a nip roller to obtain a light transmitting body. Incidentally, nitrogen is introduced into the interdiffusion processing section, and the flow rate thereof is 64 L / min.
Met.

The radius of this optical transmission body was 0.46 mm. This optical transmission body was cut into a length of 120 mm and had a thickness of 0.1 mm.
An optical transmission body assembly was obtained by being tightly arranged in a row while being sandwiched between two substrates having a size of 5 mm, a width of 120 mm and a length of 250 mm. Epoxy adhesive, Three Bond 202
3 is used as a base material, and 3103 2103 as a curing agent is mixed at a ratio of 10: 1 into a space formed by the substrate of the optical transmission assembly and the optical transmission body from the end face of the optical transmission body. Suctioned and filled underneath. After the optical transmission assembly filled with the fixing material is left at room temperature for 48 hours, the optical transmission assembly is cut into strips with a diamond cutter so that the lens length becomes 7.2 mm. Obtained. The optical transmitter and the substrate of the optical transmitter assembly were cut using a device shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 on a plane perpendicular to the center axis thereof using a diamond cutting blade, and both end faces were mirror-finished. The length of the light transmitting body after cutting was 6.8 mm. Thereafter, the substrate on which the optical transmitter was fixed and the fixing material were peeled off and removed, and a total of about 4000 optical transmitters having a mirror-finished end surface and a length of 6.8 mm were obtained. An optical transmission body having high end surface smoothness was obtained with high productivity.

(Embodiment 2) In Embodiment 1, instead of cutting the optical transmission body to a length of 120 mm, a length of 7.2 mm is used.
The substrate is a grooved substrate having a groove pitch of 0.93 mm and a maximum thickness of 0.5 mm and a width of 7.2 m.
m, a substrate having a length of 268 mm, and a commercially available double-sided tape (post-it posting tape 561W) as a fixing material
(Manufactured by Sumitomo 3M Limited) except that the end face was mirror-finished and the length was 6.8.
Thus, 288 optical transmitters each having a size of mm were obtained. An optical transmission body having high end surface smoothness was obtained with high productivity.

(Embodiment 3) As a substrate, a thickness of 0.5 m
m, width 120 mm, length 268 mm, using a water-soluble adhesive Okitsumo magic tack as a fixing material, when removing the fixing material from the optical transmission body aggregate,
Except that the fixing material was removed by washing with water, the end face was mirror-finished in the same manner as in Example 1 to obtain a total of about 4,000 light transmitting bodies having a length of 6.8 mm. An optical transmission body having high end surface smoothness was obtained with high productivity.

[0021]

According to the method for manufacturing an optical transmission body of the present invention, a large number of optical transmission bodies having excellent end surface smoothness and uniformly processed can be obtained with high productivity.

[0022]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of an optical transmission body aggregate in a case where optical transmission bodies are arranged in a line, as viewed from an end face of the optical transmission body.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of a fixing jig for an optical transmission body assembly.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an example of a cutting device for an optical transmission body assembly.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an example of a gradient index optical transmission body.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Optical transmission body aggregate 2 Fixing jig 3 Fixing clamp 4 Clamping air cylinder 5 Fixing jig moving rail 6 Diamond blade 7 Rotating head 8 Motor 11 Optical transmission body 12 Central axis 13 Optical transmission body 14 Substrate

Claims (2)

[Claims] An optical transmitter assembly obtained by arranging a plurality of columnar optical transmitters in parallel is fixed to each other by a fixing material that can be peeled off from the optical transmitter. The manufacturing method of the optical transmission body which obtains an optical transmission body by removing the fixing material after smoothing the end face of the optical transmission body. 2. The production method according to claim 1, wherein a plastic light transmitting body is used as the light transmitting body, and cutting using a diamond blade is performed as the smoothing processing.