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29 Jul 2004
The pick of this week's patent applications including an technique which reveals the cleanliness of a surface.
• Title: Method for determining the surface cleanliness with infrared spectroscopy
Applicant: The Boeing Company, US
International application number: WO 2004/061438
Boeing has devised a way to determine the amount of contamination on a surface using infrared light. The method involves firing two infrared wavelengths at the surface and measuring the amount of absorbance at both wavelengths. The authors calculate the amount of contaminant by comparing the absorbance figures to a contaminant-free reference. According to the authors, the technique could be used to detect the presence of silicone, hydrocarbon and cutting oils as well as aqueous cleaners.
• Title: High altitude stripping for threat discrimination
Applicant: BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration, Inc, US
International application number: WO 2004/061470
Patent application WO 2004/061470 details an optical system which could be used by the military to identify decoy and live missiles. The technique uses both infrared light and LADAR and works on a principle called stripping, which uses atmospheric drag to identify objects. According to the applicants, their approach works to altitudes in excess of 100 km and extends stripping to a higher altitude than ground-based radar. "It is a finding of this invention that the LADAR will improve the spatial resolution by a factor of five over typical missile defense IR seekers using a common aperture," they conclude.
• Title: Glass-plate cutting machine
Applicant: Rorze Systems Corporation, Korea
International application number: WO 2004/060823
The optimal way to cut glass sheets with a laser is the subject of patent application WO 2004/060823. A Korean firm believes the first step is to irradiate the glass plate with a 0.05-2 J/mm2 spot from a carbon dioxide laser. The plate is then cooled with water to generate a scribe line. A second 0.1-0.5 J/mm2 carbon dioxide beam follows the scribe line to cut the glass. The inventors say that the optimal laser spot size in both cases is between 20 to 200 mm2.
Author
Jacqueline Hewett is technology editor on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
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