Claims
- 33. A planar light illumination module (PLIM) of compact construction for producing a planar laser illumination beam (PLIB) which emanates substantially within a single plane along the direction of beam propagation towards an object to be optically illuminated, said PLIM comprising:
a module housing having an axial extent, first and second end portions, a central bore formed along said axial extent, and a wedge-like recess integrally formed in said second end portion; a visible laser diode (VLD) mounted along said bore at said first end portion of said module housing, for producing a laser beam generally along said axial extent; a focusing lens mounted along said bore between said first and second end portions, for focusing said laser beam to a predetermined focal point; and a laser beam expansion element mounted within said wedge-like recess at said second end portion of said module housing, and expanding said laser beam along a predetermined direction and producing a substantially planar laser illumination beam from said beam expansion component.
- 34. The PLIM of claim 32, wherein said beam expansion component comprises a cylindrical lens element mounted within said wedge-like recess.
- 35. The PLIM of claim 32, wherein said focusing element is micro-oscillated so that said planar laser illumination beam is micro-oscillated laterally along its planar extent.
- 36. The PLIIM of claim 33, wherein said recess has a wedge-like geometery.
- 37. In a PLIIM system, a planar laser illumination module (PLIM), said PLIM comprising:
a laser diode for producing a laser beam; a focusing lens for focusing said laser beam to its minimum beam width at a point which is the farthest distance at which said PLIIM based system is designed to capture images, and a cylindrical lens element for expanding (i.e. spreading out) said laser beam along the direction of beam propagation so that a substantially planar laser illumination beam (PLIB) is produced, which is characterized by a plane of propagation that is coplanar with the direction of beam propagation.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED U.S. APPLICATIONS
[0001] This is a Continuation of copending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/721,885 filed Nov. 24, 2000, which is a Continuation-in-Part of copending application Ser. No. 09/327,756 filed Jun. 7, 1999, and PCT/US00/15624 filed Jun. 7, 2000, published as WO 00/75856 A1; each said application being commonly owned by Assignee, Metrologic Instruments, Inc., of Blackwood, N.J., and incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Continuations (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09721885 |
Nov 2000 |
US |
Child |
10059051 |
Jan 2002 |
US |
Continuation in Parts (2)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09327756 |
Jun 1999 |
US |
Child |
09721885 |
Nov 2000 |
US |
Parent |
PCT/US00/15624 |
Jun 2000 |
US |
Child |
09721885 |
Nov 2000 |
US |