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:
Nov. 11, 2003
Filed:
Aug. 01, 2001
Chris Gudeman, Los Gatos, CA (US);
James Gill Shook, Santa Cruz, CA (US);
Silicon Light Machines, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
An optical MEM device is encapsulated with a dampening gas to reduce oscillatory vibrations of movable parts during the operation of the device. Preferably, the dampening gas comprises one or more noble gases, such as neon and/or krypton with a partial pressure in a range of 50 to 100% of the total dampening gas pressure. In further embodiments, the dampening gas comprises a mixture of one or more noble gases and an inert carrier gas, such as nitrogen. Preferably, the optical MEM device is sealed within a die with a dampening gas pressure between 0.5 to 3.0 atmospheres at 20 degree Celsius. The current invention is particularly useful for reducing oscillatory vibrations of optical MEM devices having a plurality of movable ribbon structures configured to modulate light with one or more wavelengths in the near infrared (800 to 4000 nanometers) and which operate at high switching rates (4-40 Volts/nano second) and at high switching frequencies (1 kHz and greater).