ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,487,396, issued on Dec. 2, was assigned to Nano Racks LLC (Webster, Texas), New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, N.J.), New York University (New York) and Universities Space Research Association (Columbia, Md.).

"Method and apparatus for fabrication of large three-dimensional single colloidal crystals for bragg diffraction of infrared light" was invented by Mary Murphy (Rockville, Md.), Qian Lei (Piscataway, N.J.), Boris Khusid (New Providence, N.J.), Andrew D. Hollingsworth (Princeton, N.J.), Paul Chaikin (New York) and William V. Meyer (Lakewood, Ohio).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A three-dimensional Bragg grating may include a ...