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05 Feb 2004
The pick of this week’s patent applications including a projection objective lens that can be used with 193nm light.
• Title: Projection objective for a projection exposure apparatus
Applicant: Carl Zeiss SMT AG, Germany
International application number: WO 04/010224
Carl Zeiss of Germany is trying to patent a projection objective lens suitable for use with 193 nm light. The lens contains four mirrors all centered around a common optical axis.
• Title: Methods and apparatus for communication using UV light
Applicant: Next Safety, Inc, US
International application number: WO 04/010589
Patent application WO 04/010589 discusses how UV LEDs (emitting wavelengths as low as 280 nm) and low-noise UV photodetectors could be used in communication systems. According to the inventors, a system should use photodetectors with dark currents as low as 1 x 10-12/m2 at room temperature. They claim that an LED emitting around 1 picowatt of UV light can be placed at least 10 meters from a photodetector.
• Title: Glass capable of being machined by laser
Applicant: Nippon Sheet Glass Company, Ltd, Japan
International application number: WO 04/009504
The Nippon Sheet Glass Company is trying to patent its recipe for producing glass that can be machined by a laser. Crucially, the firm says its composition reduces the glass’s thermal expansion co-efficient. The glass is made from a series of oxides all added in precise quantities. The largest components are silicon dioxide and boric oxide followed by aluminium oxide and titanium dioxide.
• Title: Apparatus and method for combining multiple optical beams in a free-space optical communication system
Applicant: Terabeam Corporation, US
International application number: WO 04/010626
Patent application WO 04/010626 describes a way to combine multiple light beams that are carrying data. The setup involves firing each individual beam down a multimode optical fiber. Each fiber carries the light to a multimode optical beam combiner, which produces a single, mode-scrambled signal. “The apparatus enables multiple beams having similar wavelengths to be combined to increase optical signal strength,” say the authors. “It also enables multiple beams having different wavelengths to be combined to form a wavelength division multiplexed signal.”
Author
Jacqueline Hewett is news reporter on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
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