Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8134908 | Diffractive optical element and optical pickup An optical pickup with a simplified structure in which, according to the type of optical disc, diffracted light from three types of laser light can be directed efficiently onto a photodetector and appropriate focus control can be performed based on the signals detec... | 03/13/2012 |
| RE42825 | Optical pickup head device, information recording/reproducing apparatus, and method for recording information An optical pickup head device includes a diffraction grating for generating zero-order diffracted light and at least first-order diffracted light and provides a tracking error signal with a DPP method. The diffraction grating includes grating patterns with a nonunif... | 10/11/2011 |
| 7983134 | Method and apparatus for recording/reproducing data on/from a recording medium A method and apparatus for recording/reproducing data is disclosed. The apparatus for recording/reproducing data comprises a diffraction element splitting light diffracted or reflected from a recording medium into a main beam and first and second sub beams, the main... | 07/19/2011 |
| 7978587 | Optical pickup apparatus and optical disc apparatus with a single beam system An optical pickup apparatus is provided with a dividing element having a plurality of regions. The dividing element is capable of dividing a light flux reflected by the optical disc into a plurality of light fluxes having different outgoing directions. Each region o... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7940630 | Optical pick up apparatus with a single beam system and having a diffraction grating An optical pickup apparatus includes a semiconductor laser for emitting a laser light, an objective lens for irradiating the light flux emitted from the semiconductor laser onto an optical disc, and a light detector for receiving the light flux reflected from the op... | 05/10/2011 |
| 7940631 | Optical pickup device An optical pickup device includes a diffraction grating 12 for separating an emitted light beam into at least three light beams. The diffraction grating 12 is divided into three regions by dividing lines D1 and D2 extending in a first dir... | 05/10/2011 |
| 7885166 | Optical pick up apparatus with a single beam system and having a diffraction grating An optical pickup apparatus includes a semiconductor laser for emitting a laser light, an objective lens for irradiating the light flux emitted from the semiconductor laser onto an optical disc, and a light detector for receiving the light flux reflected from the op... | 02/08/2011 |
| 7778140 | Optical head device and optical information device An offset-free tracking signal enables stable tracking control even if an optical disc is a multi-layer disc having three or more layers. Light receiving portions of a main region light receiving portion group are arranged between a projection line of a third dividi... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7684306 | Optical pickup apparatus There is provided an optical pickup apparatus that can obtain a stable servo signal by reducing stray light generated by diffraction in a recording layer other than a recording layer on which light is condensed. A hologram element provided in an optical pickup appar... | 03/23/2010 |
| 7672212 | Optical pickup apparatus, objective optical element and optical information recording reproducing apparatus An optical pickup apparatus according to the present invention includes: a first light source for emitting a first light flux; a second light source for emitting a second light flux; a third light source for emitting a third light flux; and an objective optical elem... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7672211 | Optical pickup apparatus, objective optical element and optical information recording reproducing apparatus An optical pickup apparatus according to the present invention includes: a first light source for emitting a first light flux; a second light source for emitting a second light flux; a third light source for emitting a third light flux; and an objective optical elem... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7656770 | Optical pickup apparatus, objective optical element and optical information recording reproducing apparatus An optical pickup apparatus according to the present invention includes: a first light source for emitting a first light flux; a second light source for emitting a second light flux; a third light source for emitting a third light flux; and an objective optical elem... | 02/02/2010 |
| 7609607 | Diffraction element and optical pick-up apparatus having the same A diffraction element for use in an optical pick-up is capable of calculating a TE signal more stably irrespective of any assembly error in optical elements. The diffraction element of the invention is divided into three areas, a first, a second, and a third area. E... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7567495 | Optical pickup apparatus and optical disc apparatus using same An optical pickup apparatus is provided with a dividing element having a plurality of regions. The dividing element is capable of dividing a light flux reflected by the optical disc into a plurality of light fluxes having different outgoing directions. Each region o... | 07/28/2009 |
| 7443780 | Optical pickup device and optical disk device having a diffraction element so that a first light beam and a second light beam comport with each other An optical pickup device is adapted to read information signals from optical recording media of two different types such as a “DVD” and a “CD” for which two light beams with different wavelengths are used and comprises a photodetector having a single light r... | 10/28/2008 |
| 7426169 | Optical pickup apparatus and optical pickup method An optical pickup apparatus for reading/reproducing data on an optical recording medium, includes a plurality of laser diodes configured to emit laser light of different wavelengths respectively, a photodetection device configured to detect each laser light, a diffr... | 09/16/2008 |
| 7382709 | Objective lens, optical element, optical pick-up apparatus and optical information recording and/or reproducing apparatus equipped therewith A hybrid objective lens has a refractive lens and a diffractive optical element constructed by plural coaxial ring-shaped zones on at least one optical surface thereof. When n1, n2 and n3 each is a diffraction order of a diffracted ray having a ... | 06/03/2008 |
| 7369467 | Optical pickup including polarization holographic optical element and photodetector Disclosed is an optical pickup including a polarization holographic optical element (HOE) and a photodetector. The optical pickup includes a light source, an optical path changer, an objective lens, a polarization HOE, and a photodetector. The polarization HOE has a... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7355933 | Optical pickup device Substantially all of the laser light emitted from laser chip(s) 11 toward optical disk(s) 17 may be transmitted through polarizing hologram(s) 13 and may thereafter be transmitted through quarter-wave plate(s) 15, and after being reflecte... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7342869 | Optical-recording medium playback apparatus and optical-recording medium, including flying optical head features An optical-recording-medium playback apparatus includes a first optical member which focuses light emitted from a light-emitting unit on an optical recording medium, a second optical member which focuses light reflected by the optical recording medium, a light-recei... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7339860 | Displacement measurement Laser light is irradiated from a lateral side of an optical disk (2) set in place to a peripheral side face of the optical disk (2), return light from the peripheral side face irradiated with the laser light is detected, and a displacement of the optic... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7333416 | Optical pickup apparatus for recording or reproducing information for an optical information recording medium and objective lens for optical pickup apparatus An objective lens of an optical pickup apparatus converges a divergent light flux onto an information recording surface. The following conditional formula is satisfied: |δSA1/δU|·|δU|+|δSA2/δT|·|δT|≦0.07... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7327661 | Optical pickup and optical information recording apparatus using the same An optical pickup includes a diffraction grating partitioned into three areas, in which the phase of periodic grating groove structure in an area is successively shifted from that in the adjacent area by 90°. In the generation of a differential push-pull signal, an... | 02/05/2008 |
| 7317672 | Optical head An optical head includes the following: a light beam separator (35) that includes substantial interference regions for light that is reflected from an information recording medium and travels in a straight path and ±first-order diffracted light produced by i... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7315502 | Light integration unit, optical pickup device using the unit, and optical disk device An object of the present invention is to attain stable tracking servo performance by suppressing an offset caused by a shift of an object lens or a tilt of a disk, despite the one-beam method which does not cause reduction in light quantity of the main beam. A diffr... | 01/01/2008 |
| 7313061 | Optical pickup having a plurality of photodetectors divided into four regions used to obtain both focus and tracking error signals An optical pickup comprises: first and second semiconductor lasers (11, 14); a hologram element (17) for diffracting light reflected by an optical information recording medium (9 or 12); and a plurality of photodetectors (18-23 | 12/25/2007 |
| 7301869 | Spherical aberration correcting method and apparatus In a spherical aberration correcting apparatus, a test recording unit is configured to perform a test recording on an optical disk. A characteristic obtaining unit is configured to obtain a characteristic corresponding to a parameter by the test recording. The param... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7280458 | Optical pickup apparatus and optimal light spot focusing method An optical pickup apparatus includes a first light source to emit a first light beam having a predetermined wavelength, a first optical path changer to change a proceeding path of the first light beam, an objective lens to focus the first light beam on a recording m... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7280457 | Optical disc with an improved compound lens The present invention relates to an optical pickup and a disc drive for preventing aberrations of laser light due to variations in temperature and humidity to ensure satisfactory characteristics of the laser light. A compound lens (14) is disposed in the opti... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7274628 | Method for correcting influence of thickness unevenness of recording medium, information recording/reproducing apparatus using the same method and optical head unit An optical disk unit of this invention includes a defocus detecting system for detecting a defocus of an objective lens, a thickness unevenness detecting system for detecting a thickness unevenness of a transparent resin layer provided nearest the objective lens of ... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7265883 | Optical scanner with micro-optics for beam combination An optical scanner having a micro-optical element for combining two light beams is disclosed. The optical scanner has a micro-optical element including two parts, which serves to combine two light beams emitted, by two beam sources on a photodetector. The first part... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7266268 | Diffraction grating Diffraction gratings for coupling an electromagnetic wave into a planar waveguide are disclosed. The diffraction grating may include a first diffraction grating and a second diffraction grating slanted relative to one another. Alternatively, the diffraction grating ... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7260028 | Method for correcting influence of thickness unevenness of recording medium, information recording/reproducing apparatus using the same method and optical head unit An optical disk unit of this invention includes a defocus detecting system for detecting a defocus of an objective lens, a thickness unevenness detecting system for detecting a thickness unevenness of a transparent resin layer provided nearest the objective lens of ... | 08/21/2007 |
| 7245565 | Optical head and optical disk unit An optical head comprising a light source, an objective lens, a light splitting means, a light receiving element, a tracking error signal detection means, and a spherical aberration detection means, wherein the light splitting means has six regions that are divided ... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7224662 | Objective lens for optical pickup An objective lens for an optical pickup is configured such that, when a light beam having a wavelength corresponding to the optical disc requiring the higher NA is converged on the optical disc requiring the higher NA at the higher NA, the phase of light flux passed... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7218599 | Optical pickup Regional borderlines that are the borderlines between the first region and the second region on a diffraction grating of an optical pickup partially overlap a group of y-axis parallel borderlines that are borderlines between pattern A and pattern B that are parallel... | 05/15/2007 |
| 7218449 | Optical device for scanning an optical record carrier An optical device for scanning an optical record carrier (20) has a radiation source (25) that can emit two radiation beams of different wavelength along different optical paths (28, 29). The emitted radiation is focused on the record carrier an... | 05/15/2007 |
| 7209415 | Optical pickup device and recording and/or reproducing device Provided are an optical pickup device, which is capable of detecting and correcting spherical aberration while suppressing an increase in the number of construction elements and without increasing outer dimensions of a pickup device main body, and a recording and/or... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7206277 | Optical pickup device and focal error detecting device therefor and wave aberration and focal error detecting device therefor An optical pickup device includes an irradiating optical system for converging a light beam to form a spot on a recording surface via a light-transmitting layer of an optical recording medium, and a photodetection optical system for converging return light reflected... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7203138 | Optical head device, inclination detection apparatus using the same, and optical information processing apparatus using the same An optical head device includes a light source for emitting light; a collection optical system for collecting the light emitted by the light source to an information memory medium including tracks having prescribed grooves; a light detector having a plurality of det... | 04/10/2007 |
