ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,584,726, issued on March 24, was assigned to Zygo Corp. (Middlefield, Conn.).
"Interferometric method for measuring optical distance" was invented by Leslie L. Deck (Middletown, Conn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a method and corresponding apparatus for determining an absolute optical distance between two reflecting surfaces that make up an interferometric cavity, the method comprising: moving an illumination spot in a back focal plane of an interferometer along a trajectory that has a nonzero radial component relative to an optical axis to cause different radial positions for the illumination spot along the trajectory wh...