US Patent Issued to Carl Zeiss SMT on July 15 for "Optical assembly, method for deforming an optical element, and projection exposure system" (German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,360,459, issued on July 15, was assigned to Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH (Oberkochen, Germany).

"Optical assembly, method for deforming an optical element, and projection exposure system" was invented by Tim Hoffmann (Aalen, Germany), Vladimir Mitev (Aalen, Germany), Eva Schneider (Aalen, Germany), Ruediger Mack (Oberkochen, Germany), Johannes Schurer (Heidenheim, Germany) and Maike Lorenz (Aalen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An optical assembly has an optical element for influencing the beam path in a projection exposure apparatus and an actuator device for deforming the optical element. The actuator device has at least one photostrict...