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:
Apr. 18, 2000
Filed:
Nov. 05, 1998
John C Tsai, Saratoga, CA (US);
Excel Precision, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention is a laser system (10, 100, 200) employing paired simple lasers (12, 16) or paired Zeeman type lasers (102, 112 or 202, 204). Systems of beambenders (20, 108, 210, 212, 214), half-wave plates (106, 116), and polarizing beamsplitters (22, 104, 114, 118, 216) pair the frequency component of one laser (12, 16, 102, 112, 202, 204) with that of another to produce one or more measurement beams (24, 150, 160, 228, 230) having orthogonally polarized frequency components. Systems of beamsplitters (26, 120, 124, 218, 220) and photodetectors (30, 122, 126, 206, 208) provide reference information about the frequency difference (196, 198) between the respective frequency components in the measurement beams (24, 150, 160, 228, 230). The frequency difference (196, 198) is tunable across a wide range, specifically including 4 MHz to 40 MHz when the lasers (12, 16, 102, 112, 202, 204) are conventional He--Ne types.