ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,782,789, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Silicon Light Machines Corp. (San Jose, Calif.).
"Mirror-enhanced MEMS-based spatial light modulator" was invented by Olav Solgaard (Stanford, Calif.) and Stephen Sanborn Hamann (Sunnyvale, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A micromechanical systems (MEMS)-based spatial light modulator (SLM) incorporates a mirror to increase the travel path of light. Light incoming to the MEMS-based SLM is incident on a modulation element of a phased-array. The modulation element reflects the light to a mirror, which reflects the light back to the modulation element. The modulation element reflects the light ...