US Patent Issued to The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Purdue Research Foundation on April 22 for "Electrothermal manipulator" (Illinois, Indiana Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,280,492, issued on April 22, was assigned to The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Urbana, Ill.) and Purdue Research Foundation (West Lafayette, Ind.).

"Electrothermal manipulator" was invented by Hyunjoon Kong (Urbana, Ill.), Byoungsoo Kim (Urbana, Ill.), Jonghwi Lee (Urbana, Ill.), Chi Hwan Lee (West Lafayette, Ind.) and Min Ku Kim (Lafayette, Ind.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided herein are manipulators for handling fragile layers and related methods of handling using the manipulators. The manipulators comprise a contact surface with thermally responsive recess features and a microelectric heater in thermal contac...