Apparatus for heating a small area of an object to a high temperature and for accurately maintaining this temperature
AssigneeCorning Incorporated
InventorQi Wu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A heating apparatus includes: (i) a laser providing at least one beam of light capable of heating a small area of an object; (ii) a laser driver adapted to adjust optical power of this beam of light; (iii) a photo-detector adapted to detect and measure thermal radiation from the small area; and (iv) a control loop operatively linked to the laser driver and the photo-detector, the control loop providing a signal to the laser driver to adjust optical power of the beam of light based on amount thermal radiation detected by the photo-detector. According to one embodiment of the present the laser is a CO2 laser and the small area is less than 0.25 mm in width. According to another embodiment it is a Nd: YAG laser.
Claims13
A heating apparatus for heating an object, the heating apparatus comprising:
- (i) a laser providing at least one beam of light capable of heating a small area of the object, said small area being less than 1 mm in width;
- (ii) a laser driver adapted to adjust the optical power of said beam of light;
- (iii) a photo-detector adapted to detect and measure thermal radiation from said small area;
- and
- (iv) a control loop operatively linked to said laser driver and said photo-detector, said control loop providing a signal to said laser driver to adjust the optical power of said beam of light based on the amount of thermal radiation detected by said photo-detector.
A heating apparatus comprising:
- (i) a laser providing at least one beam of light capable of heating a small area of an object, said small area that is than 1 mm2;
- (ii) a laser driver adapted to adjust optical power of said beam of light;
- (iii) a photo-detector adapted to detect and measure thermal radiation from said small area;
- and
- (iv) a control loop operatively linked to said laser driver and said photo-detector, said control loop providing a signal to said laser driver to adjust optical power of said beam of light based on amount thermal radiation detected by said photo-detector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.