The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 15, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 14, 1997
Applicant:
Inventors:
Zong-Long Liau, Belmont, MA (US);
Richard C Williamson, Sudbury, MA (US);
Assignee:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
B32B / ; G02B / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
428156 ; 428120 ; 428213 ; 359570 ; 359573 ; 359575 ; 359741 ; 359743 ;
Abstract
A smooth contoured structure is formed from a planar surface by etching mesas of equal height into the surface and heat treating the structure to mass transport material above the desired contour to fill in voids below the desired contour. In an alternate embodiment, an optical element is formed using a patterned layer of sacrificial material and thermally treating the sacrificial layer to form a precursor contour line. The line is then transformed onto a substrate and smoothed to form the optical element.