Back to results
US 5,234,594 AGranted
Nanochannel filter
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
InventorsRonald J. Tonucci, Brian L. Justus
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides a wafer-like glass filter having channels therethrough having an average diameter of less than 1 micron, and further provides methods of making the filter.
Claims11
A method for forming a filter comprising the steps of:
- inserting acid etchable glass rods into respective inert hollow glass tubes;
- heating said rods and tubes to fuse each respective rod to a respective tube;
- drawing each of said fused rods and tubes to reduce the diameter of the rods and tubes to thereby form a filament;
- stacking a plurality of said filaments together to form a stack of filaments;
- heating the stack of filaments to fuse the filaments together to form an elongated bar having a plurality of channels filled with etchable glass;
- drawing said bar until each of the channels has a diameter of less than 1 micron;
- cutting the elongated bar to form a wafer-like filter;
- annealing the filter at an elevated temperature;
- and
- acid etching the etchable glass in the wafer-like filter to form channels therethrough having an average diameter of less than about 1 micron.
7 more elements
A method for forming a filter comprising the steps of:
- stacking acid etchable glass filaments with acid inert glass filaments to form a stack of filaments having an oriented array of acid etchable glass filaments;
- heating the stack of filaments to fuse the filaments together to form an elongated bar having a plurality of channels filled with etchable glass;
- drawing said bar until each of the channels has a diameter of less than 1 micron;
- cutting the elongated bar to form a wafer-like filter;
- annealing the filter at an elevated temperature;
- and
- acid etching the etchable glass in the wafer-like filter to form channels therethrough having an average diameter of less than about 1 micron.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.