ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,436,336, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to NGK INSULATORS Ltd. (Nagoya, Japan).
"Optical scanning element" was invented by Jungo Kondo (Miyoshi, Japan), Kentaro Tani (Nagoya, Japan), Keiichiro Asai (Nagoya, Japan) and Tomoyoshi Tai (Inazawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided is an optical scanning element, which has a large scan angle, is quickly responsive, and can be downsized. The optical scanning element includes: a photonic crystal layer having holes periodically formed in an electro-optical crystal substrate; a line-defect optical waveguide formed in the photonic crystal layer; a diffraction grating arranged in at least ...