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. 10, 2001
Filed:
Jul. 20, 1999
David L. Lunt, Ballasalla, GB;
Blue Sky Research, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A thermally stable etalon Fabry-Perot etalon and method for making such etalons is disclosed. Particularly, a re-entrant etalon having an etalon gap which may be several times thicker than the etalon riser is presented. The riser and a spacer have differing dimensions and are constructed of materials having different coefficients of thermal expansion such that as the spacer expands increasing the etalon gap the riser expands a corresponding amount to keep the etalon gap in a thermally stable equilibrium. It is required that the etalon gap be formed to a very high degree of precision. In a preferred method of fabrication etalon plates and risers are provided. The etalon plates and risers are manufactured to ordinary precision optical standards. The riser and etalon plate are kept in a spaced apart relationship by spacers. To increase etalon gap precision, the spacer thicknesses are adjusted to high degrees of precision using special coatings. Once a coating of appropriate thickness is formed on the spacers, a plurality of thermally stable highly precise etalons having a free spectral range of 100 GHz and a thermal expansion coefficient of less than 5×10,may be assembled. The method of the present invention may also be used to adjust the etalon gap of telescopic etalon filters.