ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,696,686, issued on July 28, was assigned to Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg (Freiburg, Germany).
"Piezoelectric actuator and microfluidic device" was invented by Ardavan Shabanian (Freiburg, Germany), Hans Rainer Stork (Schallstadt, Germany), Anjan Bhat Kashekodi (Freiburg, Germany), David Stork (Freiburg, Germany), Peter Woias (Freiburg, Germany) and Frank Goldschmidtboing (Ortenberg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A piezoelectric actuator includes a deflectable membrane and a piezoelectric element attached to a part of the deflectable membrane for exerting a mechanical force on the deflectable membrane. The piezoelectric el...