Shogo Horinouchi

INTEGRATED MICRO MO HEAD USING LAMINATED GLASS PLATES

We have already proposed two types of integrated micro MO heads for Mini Disc and reported on their characteristics [1],[2],[3]. These heads are made by forming optical elements such as holograms and beam splitters in multiple parallel glass plates. The type 1 head is made by laminating a 44 μm thick half-wave plate as an azimuth rotator[1],[2]. On the other hand, the type 2 head includes, instead of a half-wave plate, a polarization beam splitter which has a sloping incident plane making an angle of 45 deg. to the incident plane of polarization [3]. In this paper, we report mainly on the detailed structure of the integrated MO head developed for the Mini Disc, the characteristics of each optical thin film for the finite conjugate optical system used in this device, and the simulation results for a number of optical characteristics.