US Patent Issued to Apple on July 1 for "Self-mixing interference device for sensing applications" (Canadian, American, French Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,345,529, issued on July 1, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Self-mixing interference device for sensing applications" was invented by Fei Tan (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Arnaud Laflaquiere (Paris), Chin Han Lin (Santa Clara, Calif.), Keith Lyon (San Jose, Calif.), Marc A. Drader (Waterloo, Canada) and Weiping Li (Pleasanton, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed herein are self-mixing interferometry (SMI) sensors, such as may include vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) diodes and resonance cavity photodetectors (RCPDs). Structures for the VCSEL diodes and RCPDs are disclosed. In some embodiments, a VCSEL diod...