Patent 7978408 was granted and assigned to Disco Corporation on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A polarizing device for converting a circularly polarized light beam into a radial polarized light beam, wherein the circularly polarized light beam is obtained by passing a linearly polarized light beam oscillated from a laser oscillator through a quarter-wave plate. The polarizing device includes an axicon lens having a conical surface and a dielectric film formed on the conical surface of the axicon lens.