Though DVD becomes more and more popular, there are still millions of CD-R disk in using. The ability of reading both DVD and CD-R disk is necessary in compatible disk drive. Traditional optical pickup consists of different bulk components, which result in high cost, high difficulty in assembly and low reliability. Integration is a way to overcome these troubles. Based on planar optics, an integrated digital versatile disk (DVD)/compact disk recordable (CD-R) compatible optical pickup has been developed. In this device, the beams of two wavelengths follow different zigzag optical paths inside a few-mm thick glass substrate, which is used as a light guide. It is demonstrated that a beam combiner, a polarized beam splitter, a Fresnel prism, and a beam separator were integrated around a glass substrate, and such a planar optical pickup exhibited an excellent performance with high efficiency. It confirms that planar optics is an effective way to realize compatibility of DVD/CD-R.

Date Published: 10 June 2002
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 4647, Functional Integration of Opto-Electro-Mechanical Devices and Systems II, (10 June 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.469822

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4647:
Functional Integration of Opto-Electro-Mechanical Devices and Systems II
Michael R. Descour; Juha T. Rantala, Editor(s)