AN X-RAY TRANSFOCATOR AND FOCUS VARIATION METHOD

Abstract

The invention discloses an X-ray zoom lens system (Transfocator) and a focus variation method. The system is characterized in that it includes a main frame, many switched arms arranged on one side of the main frame, and a driving component set at the top of the main frame, and a positioning groove set at the bottom of the main frame; For them, each switched arm is composed of successively connected a push rod, a push-push ratchet mechanism, a preload spring and a guide stick, two-dimensional flexible axis, and a CRLs holder from top to bottom; CRLs are stacked and arranged in the mentioned above CRLs holder; The push-push ratchet mechanism contains that an extension spring, a slider with ratchet guide slot, a guide baseplate, a C-shaped tie rod, in which the slider with ratchet guide slot and the guide baseplate form a linear guide motion pair by a linear groove and a guide structure. The upper end of the slider with ratchet guide slot is connected to the upper end of the guide plate by the extension spring; The lower end of the slider with ratchet guide slot is successively connected with the preload spring and guide stick, the two-dimensional flexible axis, and the CRLs holder; The upper end of the C-shaped tie rod is used to slide in the ratchet guide slot of the slider with ratchet guide slot, and its lower end is connected with the bottom end of the guide baseplate by an elastic clamping.

Claims

1. An X-ray zoom lens system (transfocator), is characterized in that it includes a main frame, plural of switched arms arranged on one side of the main frame and along the optical axis of the X-ray transfocator, and a driving component set at the top of the main frame, and a positioning groove set at the bottom of the main frame; wherein the mentioned above each switched arm is composed of successively connected a push rod, a push-push ratchet mechanism, a preload spring and a guide stick, two-dimensional flexible axis, and a CRLs holder from top to bottom; the said guide stick is a telescopic structure, which is located in the said preload spring; CRLs are stacked and arranged in the said CRLs holder; the said push-push ratchet mechanism contains that an extension spring, a slider with ratchet guide slot, a guide baseplate, a C-shaped tie rod, in which the slider with ratchet guide slot and the guide baseplate form a linear guide motion pair by a linear groove and a guide structure; the upper end of the slider with ratchet guide slot is connected to the upper end of the guide plate by the extension spring; the lower end of the slider with ratchet guide slot is successively connected with the preload spring and guide stick, the two-dimensional flexible axis, and the CRLs holder; the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod is used to slide in the ratchet guide slot of the slider with ratchet guide slot, and its lower end is connected with the bottom end of the guide baseplate by an elastic clamping; the mentioned above positioning groove is located directly below the switched arms and opening is upward, which the axis is parallel to the optical axis; the mentioned above driving component includes a positioning table and a motor located on the positioning table; the mentioned above positioning table is used to move the (vertical linear) motor above the arm to be switched; the mentioned above motor is used to thrust the push rod of the arm to be switched, to control the slide of the upper end of the corresponding C-shaped tie rod in the ratchet guide slot of the slider with the ratchet guide slot, so that the slider with the ratchet guide slot is in low or high state, to make the switched arm to be ON-axis or OFF-axis relative to the optical axis.

2. A transfocator according to claim 1, wherein the mentioned positioning groove is a V-groove; and the common line of the two inclined planes of the V-groove is parallel to the optical axis.

3. A transfocator according to claim 1, wherein the mentioned the ratchet guide slot in a slider with ratchet guide slot is Y-shaped ratchet slot whose upper notch and bottom slot are correspond to the low position state and high position state respectively.

4. A transfocator according to claim 1, wherein the mentioned slider with ratchet guide slot is pushed downward to overcome the forces sum of the tension of the extension spring and pressure of the preload spring when the slider with ratchet guide slot moves downward with the push rod, so that the upper end of the mentioned C-shaped tie rod unidirectionally slides from bottom to top in mentioned ratchet guide slot; when the slider with ratchet guide slot has moved from high position to low position, the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod moved from bottom to top along the ratchet guide slot and hooks the slider with ratchet guide slot, that is, the slider with ratchet guide slot realizes the transformation from high position state to low position state.

5. A transfocator according to claim 1, wherein, if the current CRLs is in the state of OFF-axis after the mentioned motor arriving at the switched arm, the pushdown process can be divided into three stages: in the first stage, the push shaft of the motor moves downward until it contacts the push rod of the switched arm; in the second stage, the motor continues to push down the push rod to make the switched arm a downward motion so that the CRLs reach the V-groove at the bottom of the main frame, and to make the cylindrical contour of the CRLs is tangent to the two inner inclined planes of the V-groove; in the third stage, the motor still continues to push down, and the action of the push rod makes the slider with ratchet guide slot of the push-push ratchet mechanism motion pairs in the switched arm further down to the limit position, then the motor carries out lifting until the push shaft is disconnected from the push rod.

6. An X-ray focus variation method based on the mentioned X-ray transfocator system of claim 1, including the following steps: 1) the positioning table will send the motor to the position of the target switched arm; 2) the push shaft of the motor firstly moves downward to push the push rod of the switched arm, to make that the slider with ratchet guide slot of the target switched arm move down to the limit position and return to the upward movement; if the CRLs of the target switched arm is in the state of OFF-axis, it is pushed into the optical axis under the action of the push shaft of the motor, which is called switch ON of the CRLs; If the CRLs of the target switched arm is in the state of ON-axis, it will follows the push shaft of the motor and returns to lift up, to make the CRLs switch OFF relatively to the optical axis after that the slider with ratchet guide slot of the target switched arm move down to the limit position and return to the upward movement; 3) whenever the motor completes one cycle of a whole movement process of “moving down-limit position-lifting up”, the CRLs have been 1 time of the transform of switch ON/OFF or state change; furthermore, by the transform position between high and low of the slider with ratchet guide slot, and by the corresponding position locking, and also by the action of the preload spring on the CRLs holder, it can achieve state keeping or state self-locking of the switched CRLs after switching.

7. An collimating alignment method based on the mentioned X-ray transfocator system of claim 1, is characterized in that, when the CRLs are switched into the optical axis, the push shaft of the motor pushes down to the push rod of the target switched arm to make the slider with ratchet guide slot of the push-push ratchet mechanism a downward motion from high to low position, resulting in the compression of the preload spring which brings out a force directly on the two-dimensional flexible axis and the CRLs holder, eventually, so that cylindrical profile of CRLs in the holders is tangent to and coincide to V-groove, named center alignment.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

[0032] FIG. 1 is the schematic diagram of focusing principle and structure of CRLs on X-ray.

[0033] FIG. 2 is a typical Transfocator design scheme.

[0034] FIG. 3 is the overall scheme structure of the invention.

[0035] FIG. 4 is the structure diagram of a switched arm with push-push self-locking function.

[0036] FIG. 5 is the diagram of a push-push ratchet mechanism.

[0037] FIG. 6 is the assembly structure of the CRLs holder and CRLs

[0038] FIG. 7 is the workflow chart of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

[0039] The invention is further described in detail in the annex below, and the examples are used only to explain the invention, not to limit the scope of the invention.

[0040] The system of the invention is shown in FIG. 3, two motor drive components with orthogonal layout are set directly above the switched arms, which are composed of a (vacuum) horizontal step motor and its linear positioning table and a vertical linear motor. And the vertical linear motor installed on the positioning table can perform horizontal motion with the positioning table. A switched arm to be switched is set under the push shaft of the vertical linear motor (there is a certain height difference). N same arms are in turn compactly arranged along the optical axis direction (Supposed it is horizontal, and parallel to the direction of the horizontal positioning table). A long V-groove is arranged just below the N same arms. Supposed the common line of the two inner inclined planes of the V-groove is parallel to the optical axis, and make the opening of the V-groove face upward. The orthogonal drive component, the N arms to be switched, the V-groove, etc. are all installed on a same main frame. The overall structure and scheme are shown in FIG. 3.

[0041] The mentioned above switched arm to be switched are successively composed of a push rod, a push-push ratchet mechanism, a preload spring and a guide stick, two-dimensional flexible axis, and a CRLs holder and CRLs from top to bottom, as shown in FIG. 4. The upper of the push rod is connected with the switched arm, and its bottom is connected with the push-push ratchet mechanism. The bottom of the push-push ratchet mechanism is connected with the CRLs holders by the preload spring and a guide stick, two-dimensional flexible axis.

[0042] The mentioned above push-push ratchet mechanism is composed of an extension spring, a slider with ratchet guide slot, a guide baseplate, a C-shaped tie rod, an elastic knot (e.g. using disc springs), etc., as shown in FIG. 5. The slider and guide baseplate constitutes a linear guide slider motion pair by a linear slide groove and a guide structure, meanwhile, the upper end of the slider with ratchet guide slot is connected with the upper end of the guide baseplate by the extension spring, to make the slider with ratchet has always maintained an upward movement trend. The upper end of the C-shaped tie rod contacts with the inner side and bottom face of the ratchet guide slot of the slider. And the lower end of the C-shaped tie rod is fixed to the guide baseplate by elastic clamping (e.g. using disc springs) to ensure that the C-shaped tie rod can swing and slightly change the pitch angle. Therefore, in this way, the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod can carry out an unidirectional sliding motion with a predetermined trajectory in the ratchet guide slot, as shown in FIG. 5.

[0043] The assembly structure of the mentioned above CRLs holder and CRLs, is mainly composed of a CRLs cage, an inverted V-groove, two baffles, a thin plate, CRLs, etc., as shown in FIG. 6.

[0044] 2 Working principle and process:

[0045] 1) When a CRLs holder and CRLs need to be switched ON/OFF relatively the optical axis, the horizontal step motor and its linear positioning table of the orthogonal motor drive components will move horizontally to change the position of the vertical linear motor along the optical axis, to make the push shaft of the vertical linear motor alignment with the arm and its push rod that need to be switched ON/OFF relatively the optical axis. In other words, that is, the vertical linear motor is sent to the target position by the horizontal step motor and its linear positioning table, and the target position is just above the corresponding arm of the CRLs to be switched relatively the optical axis. If the current arm and CRLs are the state of OFF-axis, the switch function is performed to push CRLs into the optical axis, called switch ON. On the contrary, the ON-axis CRLs is moved outside the optical axis, which is called switch OFF.

[0046] 2) When the vertical motor arrives at the target position, it performs a vertical downward motion namely pushing down. If the current CRLs is the state of OFF-axis, the pushdown process can be divided into three stages: In the first stage, the push shaft of the motor moves downward until it contacts the push rod of the arm to be switched, that is, a clearance elimination process from disconnection to contact between the shaft of the vertical linear motor and the push rod of the target switched arm. In the second stage, the motor continues to push down the push rod to make the arm to be switched a downward motion so that the CRLs reach the V-groove at the bottom, and to make the cylindrical contour of the CRLs is tangent to the two inner inclined planes of the V-groove. The process is the CRLs switch into the optical axis, which is a switch ON stage. In the third stage, the motor still continues to push down, and the action of the push rod makes the slider with ratchet guide slot of the push-push ratchet mechanism in the arm to be switched further down to the limit position. It continues to move from the CRLs in place and pretension state to the limit position, which is called an over travel stage.

[0047] 3) When the mentioned above slider with ratchet guide slot reaches the limit position, the vertical linear motor will perform the reverse movement, that is, lift up, until its push shaft is disconnected from the push rod of the arm that needs to be switched, and a little distance is maintained, that is, the push shaft of the vertical linear motor returns to the initial position (vertical direction).

[0048] 4) During the process of the mentioned above 2) pushing down, the cylindrical profile of CRLs is fully tangent to and coincide to two inner inclined planes of the V-groove, which is called the state of switch ON of CRLs relatively to the optical axis, namely the CRLs inserted into the optical axis. The CRLs position of the state will be kept and ON state self-locking during the mentioned above 3) process of the lift up.

[0049] 5) The mentioned above 4) the ON state self-locking of the CRLs is completed by the cooperation of the push-push ratchet mechanism, the preload spring and guide stick, the two-dimensional flexible axis of the arm to be switched. During the mentioned above the process of 2) pushing down and 3) lift up, the slider with ratchet guide slot in the push-push ratchet mechanism changes from high position to low position, and can self-lock under both states of the high and low positions. When the slider with ratchet guide slot is under the low position, the mentioned above slider with ratchet guide slot applies a force to the two-dimensional flexible axis and the CRLs holder & CRLs by the preload spring and guide stick, to ensure the CRLs position of the mentioned above 3) process is still kept and achieve the ON state self-locking. The mentioned above 2D flexible axis allows two-dimensional angle slight adjustment of the central axis of the CRLs cylinder to ensure alignment with the center of the V-groove.

[0050] 6) The mentioned above 5) push-push ratchet mechanism can change high position to low position, which is pushed downward to overcome the forces sum of the tension of the extension spring between the slider with ratchet guide slot and the guide baseplate, the pressure of the preload spring between the slider with ratchet guide slot and the CRLs holder. It moves from high position to low position along the vertical guide. Meanwhile, this makes the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod move relative to the slider with ratchet guide slot, that is, its upper end unidirectionally slides from bottom to top in the ratchet guide slot of the slider with ratchet guide slot. Since the lower end of the C-shaped tie rod is fixed on the guide baseplate (the height is fixed), when the slider with ratchet guide slot changes from high position to low position, the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod immediately reverses the slider with ratchet guide slot after sliding of the upper end of the C-shaped tie rod from down to top along the ratchet guide slot, that is, the slider with ratchet guide slot realizes the transformation from high position to low position. Due to the unidirectional sliding feature of the ratchet guide slot, the C-shaped tie rod reverses and locks the current low position.

[0051] 7) The mentioned above 6) push-push ratchet mechanism with self-locking is based on ratchet mechanism, performs the relative motion of unidirectional and predetermined trajectory, so as to realize the C-shaped tie rod to reverse hook and self-lock the two positions (high and low position states) of the up and down movements under the action of the vertical linear motor.

[0052] 8) In the mentioned above 2), if current arm and CRLs is the state of ON-axis, the switch off will be implemented, and its pushdown process is changed from the three stages in 2) to two stages. They are the first stage of a clearance elimination and the third stage of an over travel. Since CRLs are already ON-axis state, the second stage of a switch ON is not included in the pushdown process. But, there is an additional stage in the lifting process in the mentioned above 3), namely CRLs switching OFF, that is, the slider with ratchet guide slot in the push-push ratchet mechanism will change from low position to high position so that the CRLs will move up with the slider with ratchet guide slot under the action of the extension spring until the CRLs are completely moved out of the optical axis, and this state is self-locking by the push-push ratchet mechanism in the high position, so that the CRLs (OFF-axis) state can be maintained, i.e. self-locking (OFF-axis) state. Then, the vertical linear motor continues to move up until it is disconnected from the push rod of the switched arm and maintains a certain distance, that is, the push shaft of the vertical linear motor returns to the initial position (vertical direction).

[0053] 9) When it is necessary to operate the switch-ON and switch-OFF of other arms, different arms and different target positions can be selected by adjusting the positions of the horizontal step motor and linear positioning table. Repeat steps 2)˜8) to realize the state switching (ON- or OFF-axis) and state self-locking of any arm and CRLs. Finally, the arrangement and combination of CRLs of different specifications along the optical axis direction can be realized, so as to achieve the purpose of changing the focal length of the lens system, i.e. zoom/transfocator.

[0054] The technical scheme and workflow chart of the invention are shown in FIG. 7.

[0055] First, the vacuum horizontal step motor and linear positioning table move to send the vertical linear motor to the position of the target switched arm;

[0056] Second, the push shaft of the vacuum vertical linear motor first moves downward (pushes down), and then returns to the upward motion (lifts up) after reaching the limit position;

[0057] Third, the CRLs will be pushed into the optical axis by the action of push downward of the push shaft of the vertical linear motor if the CRLs is OFF-axis state. The state will not change with the withdrawal and lifting of the push shaft of the vertical linear motor, that is, the CRLs (ON-axis) state locking (self-locking) will be realized. And the CRLs will return to upward movement (lifting) after the push shaft of the vertical linear motor pushes down to the limit position if the CRLs is ON-axis, namely, the arm and CRLs follow the push shaft of the vertical linear motor to return and lift to make the CRLs outside of the optical axis. At this time, the CRLs are in (OFF-axis) state and are maintained and locked (self-locking).

[0058] Fourth, as known as in 3rd item, whenever the vertical linear motor completes one cycle of a whole movement process of “moving down-limit position-lifting up”, the corresponding arm will occur one time of state change/switch. And the state can be kept and self-locked after the state change/switch. After the CRLs switched into the optical axis, the CRLs cylindrical contour and center line are aligned with the center of the V-groove under the combined action of the preload of the preload spring and the compensation of the 2D flexible axis.

[0059] Fifth, the state switch of ON-/OFF-axis and self-locking of arms and CRLs stacks arranged compactly along the optical axis can be achieved by repeating above steps. Then, many new combinations of the CRLs are formed in the optical axis for changing the focal length of the lens system, also namely the achievement of zoom (transfocator).

[0060] In the layout scheme of the orthogonal motor drive components, a horizontal motor in vacuum and a vertical linear motor in vacuum are used. This is only one of typical application or an example application. They can also be various motors or drivers or displacement actuators in ambient environment; Further, the horizontal and vertical directions are only one of example. They can be any two orthogonal directions, but one of them must be parallel to the optical axis.

[0061] Although specific embodiments of the invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, and the purpose is to help understand the contents of the invention and implement it, those skilled in the art can understand that various substitutions, changes and modifications are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention and the appended claims. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to the content disclosed in the best embodiment, and the scope of protection claimed in the invention shall be subject to the scope defined in the claims.