US Patent Issued to APPLIED MATERIALS on Sept. 16 for "Methods and apparatus for in-situ protection of etched surfaces" (California, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,417,921, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to APPLIED MATERIALS Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Methods and apparatus for in-situ protection of etched surfaces" was invented by Shiva Rai (Fremont, Calif.) and Alfredo Granados (San Antonio).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods and apparatus for processing a photonic device are provided herein. For example, methods include etching, using a plasma etch process that uses a first gas, a first epitaxial layer of material of the photonic device comprising a base layer comprising at least one of silicon, germanium, sapphire, aluminum indium gallium arsenide (AlxInyGa1-x-yAs), aluminum indium galli...