Patents Assigned to Ecole Polytechnique
-
Publication number: 20140060641Abstract: The present invention provides an improved redox couple for electrochemical and optoelectronic devices. The redox couple is based on a complex of a first row transition metal, said complex containing at least one mono-, bi-, or tridentate ligand comprising a substituted or unsubstituted ring or ring system comprising a five-membered N-containing heteroring and/or a six-membered ring comprising at least two heteroatoms, at least one of which being a nitrogen atom, said five- or six-membered heteroring, respectively, comprising at least one double bond. The invention also relates to electrolytes and to the devices containing the complex, and to the use of the complex as a redox couple. The invention further provides electrochemical and/or optoelectronic devices comprising a first and a second electrode and, between said first and second electrode, a charge transport layer, said a charge transport layer comprising tetracyanoborate ([B(CN)4]?) and a cationic metal complex functioning as redox-couple.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 24, 2012Publication date: March 6, 2014Applicant: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de LausanneInventors: Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Michael Graetzel, Etienne Baranoff, Florian Kessler, Jun-Ho Yum, Aswani Yella, Hoi Nok Tsao, Shaik Mohammad Zakeeruddin
-
Patent number: 8667046Abstract: A Generalized Programmable Counter Array (GPCA) is a reconfigurable multi-operand adder, which can be reprogrammed to sum a plurality of operands of arbitrary size. The GPCA is configured to compress the input words down to two operands using parallel counters. Resulting operands are then summed using a standard Ripple Carry Adder to produce the final result. The GPCA consists of a linear arrangement of identical compressor slices (CSlice).Type: GrantFiled: February 20, 2009Date of Patent: March 4, 2014Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne/Service des Relations IndustriellesInventors: Philip Brisk, Alessandro Cevrero, Frank K. Gurkaynak, Paolo Ienne Lopez, Hadi Parandeh-Afshar
-
Patent number: 8652936Abstract: A method of forming an optoelectronic device comprising growing a first multi-layer 2 representing a reflector on a first substrate and a second multilayer 4 representing an active region on a second substrate, the first and second substrates being lattice mismatched, fusing the first multi-layer 2 to a third substrate 3, wherein the material of the third substrate 3 is lattice matched with respect to the material of the second multi-layer 4, removing the first substrate to expose the first multi-layer 2, and fusing the first multi-layer to the second multi-layer 4.Type: GrantFiled: July 1, 2010Date of Patent: February 18, 2014Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de LausanneInventors: Alexei Sirbu, Alexandru Mereuta, Andrei Caliman
-
Patent number: 8652944Abstract: Fabricating semiconductor nanowires (5) on a substrate (1) having a metallic oxide layer (2), includes: a) exposing the metallic oxide layer to a hydrogen plasma (11) of power P for a duration t suitable for reducing the layer and for forming metallic nanodrops (3) of radius (Rm) on the surface of the metallic oxide layer; b) low temperature plasma-assisted deposition of a thin layer (4) of a semiconductor material on the metallic oxide layer including the metallic nanodrops, the thin layer having a thickness (Ha) suitable for covering the metallic nanodrops; and c) thermal annealing at a temperature T sufficient to activate lateral growth of nanowires by catalysis of the material deposited as a thin layer from the metallic nanodrops. Nanowires are obtained by this method and nanometric transistors including a semiconductor nanowire.Type: GrantFiled: October 9, 2009Date of Patent: February 18, 2014Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique, Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueInventors: Pere Roca I Cabarrocas, Linwei Yu
-
Patent number: 8654344Abstract: A device for generating a secondary source from a primary optical source emitting a first optical beam focused onto a surface in movement, with which said first beam interacts so as to generate a secondary beam, includes an optical device for controlling the orientation and position of said surface to determine the orientation and position of the emission point of said secondary source on said surface. The device comprises: a control laser beam split into two branches, a fixed reference beam and a mobile analysis beam reflected by the surface in movement; means for making said reference and analysis beams interfere to generate interference fringes; means for imaging the interference fringes carrying information about the orientation and position of said surface; means for analyzing said interference images; and means for generating a feedback loop for controlling the orientation and position of said surface in movement based on the analysis.Type: GrantFiled: January 13, 2012Date of Patent: February 18, 2014Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole Nationale Superieure de Techniques AvanceesInventors: Antonin Borot, Rodrigo Lopez-Martens, Jean-Paul Geindre, Denis Douillet
-
Patent number: 8649445Abstract: In bus communications methods and apparatus, a first set of physical signals representing the information to be conveyed over the bus is provided, and mapped to a codeword of a sparse signaling code, wherein a codeword is representable as a vector of a plurality of components, some of which are quiescent components and some of which are non-quiescent components, wherein the number of quiescent components and non-quiescent components meet a sparseness requirement.Type: GrantFiled: February 17, 2011Date of Patent: February 11, 2014Assignee: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Harm Cronie, Amin Shokrollahi, Armin Tajalli
-
Patent number: 8635972Abstract: A plasma excitation device is described for use in depositing a film on a substrate from a plasma formed by distributed electron cyclotron resonance. The device comprises a microwave antenna having an end from which microwaves are emitted, a magnet disposed in the region of the said antenna end and defining therewith an electron cyclotron resonance region in which a plasma can be generated, and a gas entry element having an outlet for a film precursor gas or a plasma gas. The outlet is arranged to direct gas towards a film deposition area situated beyond the magnet, as considered from the microwave antenna.Type: GrantFiled: October 26, 2007Date of Patent: January 28, 2014Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique, Dow Corning CorporationInventors: Pere Roca I Cabarrocas, Pavel Bulkin, Dmitri Daineka, Patrick Leempoel, Pierre Descamps, Thibault Kervyn De Meerendre
-
Patent number: 8633697Abstract: A method for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy of a sample involves excitation of long lived coherences (LLC) between the singlet state S0 and the central triplet state T0 of nuclei of the sample by initiating irradiation of the sample with an rf-field with carrier frequency ?rf; sustaining of the LLC by maintaining the rf-irradiation during an interval ?2; converting the LLC temporarily into observable magnetization by interrupting the rf-irradiation during an observation interval ?3; detecting NMR-signals during the observation interval ?3 and reconversion of the observable magnetization back into LLC after the observation interval ?3. These steps are repeated n times, wherein n is a positive integer. The method allows ultra high-resolution spectra of long-lived coherences to be obtained.Type: GrantFiled: May 8, 2012Date of Patent: January 21, 2014Assignees: Bruker BioSpin AG, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de LausanneInventors: Sami Jannin, Aurélien Bornet, Geoffrey Bodenhausen
-
Publication number: 20140016724Abstract: In bus communications methods and apparatus, a first set of physical signals representing the information to be conveyed over the bus is provided, and mapped to a codeword of a spherical code, wherein a codeword is representable as a vector of a plurality of components and the bus uses at least as many signal lines as components of the vector that are used, mapping the codeword to a second set of physical signals, wherein components of the second set of physical signals can have values from a set of component values having at least three distinct values for at least one component, and providing the second set of physical signals for transmission over the data bus in a physical form.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 16, 2013Publication date: January 16, 2014Applicant: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Harm Cronie, Amin Shokrollahi
-
Patent number: 8631464Abstract: Method of detecting anomalous behavior in a computer network comprising the steps of—monitoring network traffic flowing in a computer network system,—authenticating users to which network packets of the network traffic are associated,—extracting parameters associated to the network packets for each user, said parameters including at least the type (T) of network services,—forming symbols based on a combination of one or more of said parameters, and—modeling and analyzing individual user behavior based on sequences of occurrence of said symbols (S).Type: GrantFiled: April 19, 2005Date of Patent: January 14, 2014Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Omar Belakhdar, Pedro Bados, Boi Faltings
-
Patent number: 8617180Abstract: The system comprises at least three anchors (2,2?,2?) intended to be attached to the patient and equipped with markers (5,5?,5?), an insertion guide device (6) with an insertion guide (7) intended to be attached to said anchors (2,2?,2?), an external calibration device (8) with at least three calibration markers (10,10?,10?) corresponding to said markers (5,5?,5?) and a planning and imaging software. The planning and imaging software is used to determine the position of a target point in the patient with respect to the markers (5,5?,5?), the calibration device is used to calibrate and orient the insertion guide (7) of the insertion guide device (6) mounted on said calibration markers (10,10?,10?) using the determination of the software before the insertion guide device is mounted on said markers (5,5?,5?) attached to the patient.Type: GrantFiled: November 5, 2008Date of Patent: December 31, 2013Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Université de LausanneInventors: Jean-Philippe Thiran, Claudio Pollo
-
Patent number: 8615107Abstract: Trajectories of objects are estimated by determining the optimal solution(s) of a tracking model on the basis of an occupancy probability distribution. The occupancy probability distribution is the probability of presence of objects over a set of discrete points in the spatio-temporal space at a number of time steps. The tracking model is defined by the set of discrete points, a virtual source location and a virtual sink location, wherein objects in the tracking model are creatable in the virtual source location and are removable in the virtual sink location.Type: GrantFiled: January 11, 2012Date of Patent: December 24, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: François Fleuret, Jérôme Berclaz, Engin Türetken, Pascal Fua
-
Patent number: 8610958Abstract: The present invention enables creating authenticable continuous tone color multi-ink multi-halftone images offering means of verifying their authenticity. The invention relies on color halftones, color separation into different ink surface coverages for different halftoning methods, mapping of an input gamut into a gamut defined by a set of inks, calculating the optimal boundary between region halftones created with different halftoning methods, and color multi-halftone image generation. The basic authentication is performed by examining the color multi-halftone image under a reference illumination and verifying that the message incorporated within the color multi-halftone is hidden and revealed under a different illumination. Authentication can further be performed by observing the color multi-halftone image both in reflection and transmission modes and verifying that in one of these modes the message is hidden and that in the other mode the message is revealed.Type: GrantFiled: February 21, 2012Date of Patent: December 17, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Romain Rossier, Roger D. Hersch
-
Patent number: 8599477Abstract: A system for homogenizing a laser pulse emitted by a laser source in order to illuminate a target homogeneously, the system having, between the laser source and the target: a phase plate constituted by a plurality of subpupils capable of generating a plurality of delayed laser beams towards the target, the path difference ?d between two adjacent delayed laser beams being greater than or equal to the length of the temporal coherence Tc of the laser pulse, and focusing device; wherein the subpupils and the focusing device are adjusted so that the delayed laser beams are superimposed on the target in a homogeneous spot.Type: GrantFiled: October 10, 2008Date of Patent: December 3, 2013Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique, Silios TechnologiesInventors: Federico Canova, Jean-Paul Chambaret, Stéphane Tisserand, Fabien Reversat
-
Patent number: 8592364Abstract: Chemokines may be administered to a patient for immunotolerization. Chemokines include CCL19 and CCL21. Materials and methods for accomplishing tolerization and described.Type: GrantFiled: February 10, 2011Date of Patent: November 26, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (“EPFL”)Inventors: Melody A. Swartz, Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Alice A. Tomei, Jacqueline D. Shields, Iraklis Kourtis
-
Patent number: 8594320Abstract: Acoustic echo control and noise suppression in telecommunication systems. The proposed method of processing multi-channels audio loudspeakers signals and at least one microphone signal, comprises the steps of: transforming the input microphone signals (y1 (n), y2 (n), . . . , yM (n)) into input microphone short-time spectra, computing a combined loudspeaker signal short-time spectrum [X(i,k)] from the loudspeaker signals, (x1 (n), x2 (n), . . . , xL (n)), computing a combined microphone signal short-time spectrum [Y(i,k)] from the input microphone signal, (y1 (n), y2 (n), . . . , yM (n)), estimating a magnitude or power spectrum of the echo in the combined microphone signal short-time spectrum, computing a gain filter (G(i,k)) for magnitude modification of the input microphone short-time spectra, applying the gain filter to at least one of the input microphone spectra, converting the filtered input microphone spectra into the time domain (e1 (n), e2 (n), . . . , eM (n)).Type: GrantFiled: April 19, 2006Date of Patent: November 26, 2013Assignee: (EPFL) Ecole Polytechnique Federale de LausanneInventor: Christof Faller
-
Patent number: 8592949Abstract: The invention relates to a method for texturing the surface of a gaseous phase silicon substrate, and to a textured silicon substrate for a solar cell. The method includes at least a step a) of exposing the surface to an SF6/O2 radiofrequency plasma for a duration of 2 to 30 minutes in order to produce a silicon substrate having a textured surface having pyramidal structures, the SF6/O2 ratio being 2 to 10. During step a) the power density generated using the radiofrequency plasma is greater than or equal to 2500 mW/cm2, and the SF6/O2 pressure in the reaction chamber is lower than or equal to 100 mTorrs, so as to produce a silicon substrate having a textured surface having inverted pyramidal structures.Type: GrantFiled: August 23, 2010Date of Patent: November 26, 2013Assignees: Ecole Polytechnique, Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueInventors: Pere Roca I Cabarrocas, Mario Moreno, Dimitri Daineka
-
Patent number: 8588509Abstract: We presented an approach for speeding-up image acquisition when tasked with localizing specific structures in FIB-SEM imagery. It exploits the fact that low-quality images can be acquired faster than higher-quality ones and yet be sufficient for inference purposes. We have demonstrated greater than five-fold speed-ups at very little loss in accuracy in the context of mitochondria and synapse detection. Furthermore, the algorithm we propose is generic and applicable to many imaging modalities that allow trading quality for speed.Type: GrantFiled: June 28, 2012Date of Patent: November 19, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Pascal Fua, Graham Knott, Raphael Sznitman, Aurelien Lucchi
-
Patent number: 8574158Abstract: It is disclosed an acoustic tomography method to improve the time of flight estimation, said method comprising the steps of: sequentially triggering a set of N transmitters so as to generate a sequence of N acoustic waves through a volume being scanned; receiving each of said acoustic waves after transmission through said volume with a set of M receivers, which are called received signals; delaying by varying delays the N different said received signals that each receiver receives from the N different transmitters, and adding them together to form a new received signal, which is called transmit-beamformed signal for that receiver; delaying by varying delays the M different said transmit-beamformed signals for each receiver and adding them together at each receiver to form a new signal, which we call transmit-receive-beamformed signal.Type: GrantFiled: July 14, 2009Date of Patent: November 5, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de LausanneInventors: Ivana Jovanovic, Ali Hormati, Oliver Roy, Martin Vetterli
-
Patent number: 8567183Abstract: Multistage hydraulic systems and methods for converting the potential energy of a pressurized gas, particularly air, into mechanical work when operating in motor, and for producing compressed gas from the mechanical work of the rotating shaft when rotating when operating in compressor mode, by performing a successive expansion/compression of the said gas. Each of the systems comprises: a multistage Compression-Expansion Unit made of several hydraulic Compression-Expansion Modules having different capacity and integrating a gas/liquid separating heat exchanger, designed to convert pressure power into a hydraulic power and vice-versa, by performing an essentially isothermal compression/expansion of the gas; a single stage or multistage, direct or indirect, external forced-air Heat Exchanger for maintaining the active liquid at ambient temperature; and a multi-circuit, multi-displacement Hydraulic Motor/Pump for converting hydraulic power into mechanical power and vice-versa.Type: GrantFiled: September 12, 2008Date of Patent: October 29, 2013Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)Inventors: Sylvain Lemofouet, Alfred Rufer