US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on March 17 for "Two stage ion current measurement in a device for analysis of plasma processes" (Irish Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,580,166, issued on March 17, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Two stage ion current measurement in a device for analysis of plasma processes" was invented by David Gahan (Terenure Dublin, Ireland), JJ Lennon (Ballymun, Ireland), Paul Scullin (Dublin) and James Doyle (Wexford, Ireland).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods for obtaining ion energy distribution measurements in a plasma processing system are described. A substrate is placed in the system with an ion energy analyser embedded within it. The analyser consists of multiple conductive grids and a collection electrode, separated by insulating layers....