US Patent Issued to NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS on Sept. 23 for "Solid-state cooler device with grid point contacts" (Maryland Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,426,504, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS Corp. (Falls Church, Va.).

"Solid-state cooler device with grid point contacts" was invented by John X. Przybysz (Severna Park, Md.), Aaron Ashley Hathaway (Baltimore), Edward R. Engbrecht (Odenton, Md.) and Robert M. Young (Ellicott City, Md.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A solid-state cooler device is disclosed that includes a first portion having a normal metal heat sink layer and a plurality of first parallel ridges disposed over the normal metal heat sink layer, and a second portion having a normal metal layer, insulator layer, superconductor layer (NIS) junctio...