Patents by Inventor Wallace M. Manheimer

Wallace M. Manheimer has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5182496
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for forming plasma sheets of preselected planar curvature, which can be used as mirrors for X-Band microwaves and above. A plasma is created using a shaped cathode. Confining magnetic fields maintains the plasma in the shape of the cathode. Additional magnetic fields can provide additional curvature to the plasma sheet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 7, 1992
    Date of Patent: January 26, 1993
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Wallace M. Manheimer, Anthony E. Robson, Robert A. Meger
  • Patent number: 5089742
    Abstract: A field emitter array comprises an array of aligned metallic, conductive rotubules extending from a conductive base. The array is typically made by cutting a matrix comprising the aligned microtubules into sections, usually normal to the tubule alignment axis. One end surface of a section is etched or otherwise treated to remove the matrix, but not the tubules. That end surface is then provided with a conductive coating and fixed to a contact. The other end surface of that section is then also treated to remove the matrix material and leave the tubules extending from the conductive metal base. Field emitter arrays made according to the present invention provide a greater brightness than conventional field emitter arrays.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 1990
    Date of Patent: February 18, 1992
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Douglas A. Kirkpatrick, Joel M. Schnur, Paul E. Schoen, Ronald R. Price, Wallace M. Manheimer
  • Patent number: 4754196
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for generating high power electro magnetic radiation in the millimeter or submillimeter range axial injection and adiabatic compression of an electron beam using large electric fields in an evacuated AXIOM (Axial Injection Orbitron Maser).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 1986
    Date of Patent: June 28, 1988
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: John M. Burke, Wallace M. Manheimer
  • Patent number: 4548782
    Abstract: An intense, space-charge-neutralized, pulsed ion beam is used to heat a magnetically-confined plasma, such as tokamak plasma, by injecting the ion beam into the plasma along a trajectory that is generally tangential to the confining magnetic field. The intense ion beam is injected into the tokamak before the plasma is fully formed, the remainder of the plasma is formed around the beam, and the beam transfers its energy to the plasma by classical collisions with the electrons and ions of the plasma. Heating of the plasma can be sufficient to produce breakeven or ignition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 1980
    Date of Patent: October 22, 1985
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Wallace M. Manheimer, Niels K. Winsor
  • Patent number: 4491765
    Abstract: A quasioptical gyroklystron for generating high power quasioptical radiation. A mildly relativistic electron beam gyrating in a static magnetic field is passed through a first open mirror resonator where a small change in the transverse electron energy takes place (either an increase or decrease depending on the relative phase between the electron gyration and the resonator wave fields). This small change than leads to slower (or more rapid) gyration of those electrons that have gained (or lost) energy in the first resonator. The length of the drift region between the first and a second open mirror resonator is adjusted so that rapidly gyrating electrons overtake slowly gyrating ones at the entrance to the second resonator. Thus the particles arrive at the second resonator strongly bunched in gyration phase. The fields in the first resonator are generated by feedback of a small amount of energy from the wave mode in the second resonator with a .pi.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 1982
    Date of Patent: January 1, 1985
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Wallace M. Manheimer, Edward Ott, Anders Bondeson
  • Patent number: 4421713
    Abstract: An intense, space-charge-neutralized, pulsed ion beam is used to heat a metically-confined plasma, such as a tokamak plasma, by injecting the ion beam into the plasma along a trajectory that is generally tangential to the confining magnetic field. The ion beam inductively generates a plasma return current so that no net current is produced. As the ion beam drifts in the plasma, the confining magnetic field is transformed into one which can trap the ion beam at the center of the plasma. Once the ion beam is trapped, the plasma return current is cancelled by transformer action to produce a net current which is carried by the ion beam alone. The beam transfers its energy to the plasma by classical collisions with the electrons and ions of the plasma. Heating of the plasma can be sufficient to produce a breakeven condition or ignition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 1981
    Date of Patent: December 20, 1983
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Wallace M. Manheimer, Niels K. Winsor
  • Patent number: 4143299
    Abstract: An electron beam and collective ion-electron beam accelerating apparatus in hich a relativistic electron beam and ions moving with it are accelerated in speed by passing them through a converging waveguide (i.e., a drift tube) of gradually decreasing diameter. The ions are separated from the electrons upon leaving the waveguide.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 1978
    Date of Patent: March 6, 1979
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Phillip A. Sprangle, Adam T. Drobot, Wallace M. Manheimer
  • Patent number: 4115191
    Abstract: An intense, space-charge-neutralized, pulsed ion beam is used to heat a magnetically-confined plasma, such as a tokamak plasma, by injecting the ion beam into the plasma along a trajectory that is generally perpendicular to the confining magnetic field. For proper beam parameters, the ion beam will propagate across the magnetic field in the vacuum region, penetrate the confined plasma, and deposit its energy in the interior of the plasma.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 1977
    Date of Patent: September 19, 1978
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventors: Edward Ott, Wallace M. Manheimer
  • Patent number: H290
    Abstract: In a modified Betatron a low density background plasma is maintained in the vacuum chamber causing image charges in response thereto to form in the chamber wall. These image charges cause the self forces of the electron beam being accelerated in the betatron to be directed inward in the polodial plane thus eliminating injection problems, the diamagnetic to paramagnetic transition, and the l=2 resistive wall instability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 1985
    Date of Patent: June 2, 1987
    Assignee: United States of America
    Inventor: Wallace M. Manheimer