The U.S Patent and Trademark Office has awarded patent No. 8527226, “Signal Measurement Apparatus and Beam Modulation Apparatus Used Therin” to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
According to the background information supplied by the inventors, the new patent “relates to signal measurement, and more specifically to an apparatus for signal measurement and beam modulation and signal recovery devices used therein.”
“In a first embodiment of the invention, an apparatus for modulating an incident beam is provided,” the inventors say in their patent summary. “The apparatus includes at least one body consisting of a composition that is non-transmissive with respect to the incident beam, the body being rotatable about an axis perpendicular to a surface of the body, the body having a first set of features and at least a second set of features on the surface, the first set of features includes one or more transmissive features with respect to the incident beam along a first radial path at a first radial distance from the axis, and the second set of features includes a plurality of data storage features along a second radial path at a second radial distance from the axis.”
“In a second embodiment of the invention, a signal measurement apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes at least one body consisting of a composition that is non-transmissive with respect to the incident beam, where the body is rotatable about an axis perpendicular to a surface of the body and has a first set of features and at least a second set of features on the surface.”
“In a third embodiment of the invention, a method of operating a signal measurement apparatus is provided. The apparatus includes at least one rotatable body having a first set of features traveling in a first radial path at a first radial distance for modulating an incident beam and at least a second set of features traveling in a second radial path at a second radial distance, at least one reference sensor disposed over a first position along the second radial path to generate a reference signal based on the second features and, at least one beam input device for sampling a modulated incident beam.”
