摘要 |
The form of a light condensing part of an illuminating device is of a freer form such as expressed by a general polynomial, rather than a round cross-sectional form. Accordingly, an illumination device or an image reading apparatus having the same which includes a light guide element having an entrance surface provided at one end thereof for an incident light flux, an exit surface provided on a side other than the one end extending in a longitudinal direction of the light guide element for allowing the incident light flux to exit therefrom, a reflecting and/or scattering area provided at a side other than the exit surface for reflecting and/or scattering the light flux propagated in a light-transmissive member, and a light condensing part provided on the exit surface for condensing the exiting light flux, and a light source provided adjacent to the entrance surface of the light guide element, wherein, assuming that in a cross-section orthogonally intersecting the longitudinal direction, a direction opposite to a normal line of the reflecting and/or scattering area is a z axis and a direction orthogonally intersecting the z axis is a y axis, at least a part of a surface of the light condensing part is expressed by a polynomial of y, and at least one of coefficients of odd-number-th degree terms in the polynomial is not "0".
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