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US 7,405,637 B1Granted
Miniature tunable filter having an electrostatically adjustable membrane
AssigneeHRL Laboratories, LLC
InventorsSarabjit Mehta, Peter Petre
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A miniature tunable filter comprising filter poles disposed with a filter substrate. A moveable electrically conductive membrane is disposed above each filter pole and is spaced from the filter pole by an air or vacuum gap. The gap spacing is changed by deflecting the membrane with an electrostatic voltage. The change in gap spacing varies the capacitive loading at the pole, thus providing tuning of the filter. The electrically conductive membrane is preferably manufactured on a separate substrate that is bonded to the filter body containing the filter substrate.
Claims26
A filter comprising:
- a filter substrate;
- and
- one or more filter pole structures, each filter pole structure comprising:
- a filter pole disposed within the filter substrate;
- a gap disposed above the filter pole;
- a electrically conductive membrane disposed above the filter pole and spaced from the filter pole by the gap, the gap having a gap distance;
- and
- a tuning element disposed adjacent to the electrically conductive membrane, wherein the tuning element applies an electrostatic voltage to the electrically conductive membrane and the electrically conductive membrane changes the gap distance according to the applied electrostatic voltage.
5 more elements
A method comprising:
- disposing one or more filter poles through a filter substrate;
- disposing a respective electrically conductive membrane above each corresponding filter pole, wherein each electrically conductive membrane is spaced from the corresponding filter pole by a gap distance;
- and
- varying the capacitive loading of at least one filter pole of the one or more filter poles by applying an electrostatic voltage to the respective electrically conductive membrane to vary respective gap distance between the respective electrically conductive membrane and the at least one filter pole.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.