Endoscope Image Pickup Apparatus Sealing Resin Trenches
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image pickup apparatuses for endoscopes face challenges in reducing diameter to minimize invasiveness while maintaining high performance and ease of production, particularly in stacking and bonding multiple optical elements effectively.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a first and second optical member with trenches and a sealing resin that fills these trenches, enhancing bonding strength and optical system reliability without increasing the apparatus's outer dimensions, and includes bonding layers to secure the image pickup member with the optical members, ensuring high performance and low invasiveness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If multiple optical wafers are stacked together to create wafer-level optical members, then manufacturing efficiency and optical performance are improved, but the complexity of stacking and bonding processes increases
Solution Approach 1:
The optical system is divided into multiple optical wafers that can be independently manufactured and then stacked. Each wafer contains specific optical elements, allowing parallel production and reducing overall manufacturing complexity while maintaining high efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple optical wafers made of different materials or with different optical properties are stacked together to create a composite optical member. This approach enables customized optical characteristics while using standardized manufacturing processes for each wafer type
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the diameter of the image pickup apparatus is reduced to minimize invasiveness, then the endoscope becomes less invasive, but the optical performance and image quality may deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple optical elements and components are nested within each other in a compact arrangement. Optical wafers are stacked concentrically or in nested configurations, allowing high optical performance to be achieved within a minimized diameter constraint
Solution Approach 2:
The optical system transitions from a planar two-dimensional arrangement to a three-dimensional stacked configuration. By utilizing the vertical dimension through wafer stacking, the apparatus achieves enhanced optical performance without increasing the lateral diameter, thus reducing invasiveness
3Reliability
If trenches are formed in optical members and filled with sealing resin to enhance bonding strength, then reliability and moisture resistance are improved, but manufacturing steps increase
Solution Approach 1:
Trenches are formed in the optical wafers before stacking, and sealing resin is applied in advance. This preliminary preparation of sealing structures ensures that bonding interfaces are protected from moisture and contamination before assembly, enhancing reliability without requiring complex post-assembly operations
Solution Approach 2:
Sealing resin acts as an intermediary material between optical wafers and bonding layers. It fills trenches to provide moisture barrier protection while maintaining the structural integrity of the stacked assembly, simplifying the overall manufacturing process by combining sealing and bonding functions
Data Source
AI summary
An image pickup apparatus for endoscope includes: an image pickup member provided with a plurality of image pickup side faces; a first optical member provided with first side faces; a first bonding layer bonding together the image pickup member and the first optical member; a second optical member provided with second side faces; and a second bonding layer bonding together the second optical member and the first optical member, in which a plurality of first side faces include first near side faces closer to an optical axis than are the second side faces and the image pickup side faces, and the image pickup apparatus for endoscope further includes a sealing resin covering the first near side faces, at least part of the first bonding layer, and the second bonding layer.