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. 22, 2005
Filed:
Nov. 24, 2003
James J. Allen, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Michael B. Sinclair, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Jeffrey L. Dohner, Albuquerque, NM (US);
James J. Allen, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Michael B. Sinclair, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Jeffrey L. Dohner, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Sandia Corporation, Albuquerque, NM (US);
Abstract
A microelectromechanical (MEM) device for redirecting incident light is disclosed. The MEM device utilizes a pair of electrostatic actuators formed one above the other from different stacked and interconnected layers of polysilicon to move or tilt an overlying light-reflective plate (i.e. a mirror) to provide a reflected component of the incident light which can be shifted in phase or propagation angle. The MEM device, which utilizes leveraged bending to provide a relatively-large vertical displacement up to several microns for the light-reflective plate, has applications for forming an electrically-programmable diffraction grating (i.e. a polychromator) or a micromirror array.