Stacked Lens Adhesive Projections for Precise Optical Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing optical units face challenges in downsizing while maintaining accurate positioning and ease of manufacturing, particularly in endoscopes where stacked lenses are integrated with adhesive layers, leading to potential misalignment and increased complexity.
Innovation Solution
A stacked lens design featuring optical devices bonded by an adhesive layer with projections that extend beyond their surfaces, allowing for precise positioning within a frame member using matching projections, and a manufacturing method involving dicing to create these projections, facilitating easy assembly and reduced manufacturing costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If a stacked lens is manufactured by cutting a stacked wafer including optical wafers bonded with an adhesive agent, then the optical unit can be downsized, but positioning accuracy deteriorates due to potential misalignment during assembly
Solution Approach 1:
The adhesive layer is designed with projections formed during the bonding process itself, before the cutting process. These projections are created as a preliminary positioning feature that will later engage with corresponding recesses in the mount, ensuring accurate positioning is established before final assembly operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The adhesive layer serves a dual function: it bonds the optical wafers together and simultaneously provides positioning projections that act as intermediaries between the stacked lens and the mount. This intermediary structure ensures precise positioning without requiring additional positioning components or complex alignment procedures.
2Ease of manufacture
If a stacked lens includes an adhesive layer between optical devices, then manufacturing complexity is reduced through wafer bonding, but assembly difficulty increases due to alignment requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The adhesive layer performs multiple functions automatically: it bonds the optical wafers together and self-generates positioning projections during the bonding process. These projections automatically engage with the mount's recesses during assembly, making the adhesive layer serve itself as both a bonding agent and a positioning mechanism, thereby simplifying assembly operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The bonding function and positioning function are merged into a single adhesive layer structure. The same adhesive material that bonds the optical wafers also forms the positioning projections, eliminating the need for separate positioning components and reducing the number of assembly steps required.
3Manufacturing precision
If positioning is achieved through recessed portions and projections, then alignment accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional structural features
Solution Approach 1:
The adhesive layer is designed to perform multiple functions: optical bonding and mechanical positioning. By making the adhesive layer universal in its functionality, the patent eliminates the need for separate positioning structures, thereby improving alignment accuracy without significantly increasing overall device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A stacked lens includes: a first optical device; a second optical device disposed on an optical axis of the first optical device; and an adhesive layer bonding the first optical device and the second optical device and including a projection projecting outside a side surface of the first optical device and a side surface of the second optical device.