Illumination system comprising heterogeneous fiber arrangement

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10254535-B2
Application number	US-201715690535-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 30, 2017
Priority date	Aug 31, 2016
Publication date	Apr 9, 2019
Grant date	Apr 9, 2019

Abstract

An illumination system is provided that includes a spatial fiber arrangement with an optical element at the distal end of the fiber arrangement. The fiber arrangement has a first region including individual fibers with a significantly smaller active diameter in comparison with the individual fibers of a remaining region. The optical element at the distal end is assigned the remaining region. The fiber arrangement can be a rigid fiber rod that includes an intermediate region provided between the first region and the remaining region. The intermediate region suppresses stray light transfers between the first and remaining regions. The fiber arrangement can include an optical coupling element at a proximal end of the fiber rod.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An illumination system, comprising:
an optical element; and
at least one spatial fiber arrangement formed from a multiplicity of individual fibers and having a distal end and a proximal end, the multiplicity of individual fibers being separated into a first region (A), a second region (B), and a third region (C), the first region (A) being separated from the second region (B) by the third region (C), the individual fibers in the second region (B) having a smaller active diameter in comparison with the individual fibers of the first region (A), the optical element being at the distal end and being assigned to at least to the second region (B), the individual fibers in the first, second, and third regions (A, B, C) are joined so that the fiber arrangement is a rigid fiber rod, the individual fibers in the third region (C) suppressing stray light transfers between the first and second regions (A, B).

2. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers are fused to one another at least in partial regions of outer circumferential surfaces.

3. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers are sintered together at least in partial regions of outer circumferential surfaces.

4. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers are adhesively bonded to one another at least in partial regions of outer circumferential surfaces.

5. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising an optical coupling element at the proximal end, the optical coupling element being configured to couple light into the rigid fiber rod and configured to couple an image from the second region (B) into a camera and/or into a sensor.

6. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , the individual fibers in the second region have a core diameter of less than 25 μm.

7. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the third region (C) has a property selected from the group consisting of opaque, translucent, transparent, and colored and has a wall thickness dimensioned so that stray light transfers between the first and second regions (A, B) are damped by at least a factor of 10.

8. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising opaque fiber elements that absorb stray light positioned between the individual fibers.

9. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers are optical fibers comprising a core glass and a cladding glass.

10. The illumination system as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the core glass and the cladding glass comprise a lead-free or heavy-metal-free glass composition.

11. The illumination system as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the individual fibers in the third region (C) comprise a lead-free or heavy-metal-free glass composition.

12. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers are quartz fibers.

13. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers have high transmission values in the blue visible spectral range below 520 nm and/or in the near IR range up to 1000 nm.

14. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the individual fibers consist of optically conductive plastic fibers.

15. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the rigid fiber rod has at least one bend and/or one taper between the proximal and distal ends.

16. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the rigid fiber rod has a varying cross section along a longitudinal axis between the proximal and distal ends.

17. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the optical element is selected from the group consisting of a gradient-index lens, a spherical lens, an aspherical lens, a Fresnel lens, and an LSR lens.

18. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the optical element is embedded in a cover plate by an optical adhesive.

19. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the optical element is adhesively bonded in a hole of the rigid fiber rod.

20. The illumination system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the proximal end is configured so that collimated light is coupled into the proximal end so that an image at the proximal end from the second region (B) is projectable at the distal end through a lens system onto an active area of a camera and/or of a sensor.

21. An illumination system, comprising:
an optical element;
at least one spatial fiber arrangement formed from a multiplicity of individual fibers and having a distal end and a proximal end, the multiplicity of individual fibers being separated into a first region (A), a second region (B), and a third region (C), the first region (A) being separated from the second region (B) by the third region (C), the individual fibers in the second region (B) having a smaller active diameter in comparison with the individual fibers of the first region (A), the optical element being at the distal end and being assigned to at least to the second region (B), the individual fibers in the first, second, and third regions (A, B, C) are joined so that the fiber arrangement is a rigid fiber rod, the third region (C) suppressing stray light transfers between the first and second regions (A, B); and
opaque fiber elements that absorb stray light positioned between the individual fibers.

Assignees

• Schott Ag

Inventors

• Schultheis Bernd
• Russert Hubertus
• Werner Holger
• Tabor Kevin

Classifications

• A61B1/00165

  with light-conductive means, e.g. fibre optics (A61B1/07 takes precedence) · CPC title

• A61B1/00167

  Details of optical fibre bundles, e.g. shape or fibre distribution · CPC title

• G02B6/0006

  Coupling light into the fibre (in general G02B6/4298) · CPC title

• G02B23/26

  using light guides {(for illumination G02B23/2469)} · CPC title

• G02B6/06

  the relative position of the fibres being the same at both ends, e.g. for transporting images · CPC title