US Patent Issued to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy on Sept. 30 for "Tunable photoalignment" (District Of Columbia Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,429,735, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy (Arlington, Va.).

"Tunable photoalignment" was invented by Christopher M. Spillmann (Washington), Colin P. McGinty (Washington), Jakub Kolacz (Washington) and Henry G. Gotjen (Washington).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The azo dye brilliant yellow operates to align liquid crystal molecules in three dimensions, for example to establish a desired in-plane alignment and pre-tilt angle. This technique provides a wide range selectable and re-writable pretilt angles from 0deg to nearly 90deg."

The patent was...