ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,609,279, issued on April 21, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
"In-situ ion beam angle measurement" was invented by Daniel Distaso (Rowley, Mass.), Thomas Soldi (Somerville, Mass.) and Joseph C. Olson (Beverly, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A processing system that includes an ion source to direct an ion beam at a workpiece, and an angle measurement system, is disclosed. The angle measurement system includes a current measurement device, such as one or more Faraday sensors, that may be moved in at least two orthogonal directions. The current measurement device scans in a first direction, seeking the la...