US Patent Issued to CARL ZEISS SMT on Aug. 12 for "Reflective optical element, illumination optical unit, projection exposure apparatus, and method for producing a protective layer" (German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,386,263, issued on Aug. 12, was assigned to CARL ZEISS SMT GMBH (Oberkochen, Germany).

"Reflective optical element, illumination optical unit, projection exposure apparatus, and method for producing a protective layer" was invented by Sandro Hoffmann (Aalen, Germany), Valentin Jonatan Bolsinger (Aalen, Germany) and Sandra Haschke (Oberkochen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A reflective optical element (17), in particular for an illumination optical unit of a projection exposure apparatus includes: a structured surface (25a) that preferably forms a grating structure (29), and a reflective coating (36) that is applied to the struct...