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:
Feb. 21, 2006
Filed:
Aug. 02, 2002
Lawrence H. Domash, Conway, MA (US);
Adam M. Payne, Conway, MA (US);
Eugene Y. MA, Brookline, MA (US);
Nikolay Nemchuk, North Andover, MA (US);
Ming Wu, Princeton, NJ (US);
Robert Murano, Malden, MA (US);
Steven Sherman, Arlington, MA (US);
Matthias Wagner, Boston, MA (US);
Lawrence H. Domash, Conway, MA (US);
Adam M. Payne, Conway, MA (US);
Eugene Y. Ma, Brookline, MA (US);
Nikolay Nemchuk, North Andover, MA (US);
Ming Wu, Princeton, NJ (US);
Robert Murano, Malden, MA (US);
Steven Sherman, Arlington, MA (US);
Matthias Wagner, Boston, MA (US);
Aegis Semiconductor, Inc., Woburn, MA (US);
Abstract
An optical instrument including: a thermo-optically tunable, thin film, free-space interference filter having a tunable passband which functions as a wavelength selector, the filter including a sequence of alternating layers of amorphous silicon and a dielectric material deposited one on top of the other and forming a Fabry-Perot cavity structure having: a first multi-layer thin film interference structure forming a first mirror; a thin-film spacer layer deposited on top of the first multi-layer interference structure, the thin-film spacer layer made of amorphous silicon; and a second multi-layer thin film interference structure deposited on top of the thin-film spacer layer and forming a second mirror; a lens for coupling an optical beam into the filter; an optical detector for receiving the optical beam after the optical beam has interacted with the interference filter; and circuitry for heating the thermo-optically tunable interference filter to control a location of the passband.