US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on Aug. 11 for "Air bearing shaft with wide operating temperature range" (Massachusetts Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,706,271, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Air bearing shaft with wide operating temperature range" was invented by Roger B. Fish (Bedford, Mass.) and Jeffrey E. Krampert (Topsfield, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system that reduces the amount of contaminants that enters a process chamber or air bearing via a movable shaft is disclosed. The movable shaft includes an outer shell made from a material having a low coefficient of thermal expansion. This allows the outer shell to be heated to sufficiently high temperatures to avoid condensation of contaminants on the shaft, while minimi...