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:
Jan. 10, 2006
Filed:
Jul. 27, 2004
David Tsu, Auburn Hills, MI (US);
David Tsu, Auburn Hills, MI (US);
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., Rochester Hills, MI (US);
Abstract
An element for steering electromagnetic beams. The element includes a phase change material in combination with dielectric and other layers in a multilayer optical stack. The phase change material that is reversibly transformable between two or more structural states, where different structural states differ with respect to refractive index and/or extinction coefficient. The structural state of the phase change material establishes a phase angle state for the element that dictates the direction of propagation of an output beam produced from an incident electromagnetic beam. Depending on the structural state, the element adopts one of two principal phase angle states and a binary beam steering capability is achieved in which an incident electromagnetic beam can be redirected in either of two directions. In a preferred embodiment, the output beam is a reflected beam and the element includes a phase change material sandwiched between two dielectric materials and supported by a metal layer.