US Patent Issued to ASML Netherlands on May 6 for "Fluid purging system, projection system, illumination system, lithographic apparatus, and method" (Dutch, German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,292,696, issued on May 6, was assigned to ASML Netherlands B.V. (Veldhoven, Netherlands).

"Fluid purging system, projection system, illumination system, lithographic apparatus, and method" was invented by Jose Nilton Fonseca Junior (Hamburg, Germany), Franciscus Johannes Leonardus Heutz (Dommelen, Netherlands), Zhuangxiong Huang (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Ferdy Migchelbrink (Veldhoven, Netherlands).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a fluid purging system (100) for an optical element (30), comprising a ring and a fluid supply system (40). The ring being formed of a body entirely surrounding the optical element...