Patents by Inventor Birgit Mellis

Birgit Mellis 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).

  • Optoelectronic component and method for controlling tunneling electron currents by means of photons
    Patent number: 7421177
    Abstract: An optoelectronic component with a photonic crystal, which also has an electronic band gap, and a method for controlling tunneling electron currents by means of photons are proposed. Essentially loss-free and very fast switching is enabled in that a photonic crystal has a defect mode in its photonic band gap for photons with such an energy that electron transitions, especially in the form of single-electron tunneling processes between adjacent ligand-stabilized metal clusters, can be induced by the irradiation of corresponding photons due to at least one defect site.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: September 2, 2008
    Assignee: Universitat Duisburg-Essen
    Inventors: Günter Schmid, Ulrich Simon, Günter Schön, Birgit Mellis
  • Optoelectronic component and method for controlling tunneling electron currents by means of photons
    Publication number: 20060251366
    Abstract: An optoelectronic component with a photonic crystal, which also has an electronic band gap, and a method for controlling tunneling electron currents by means of photons are proposed. Essentially loss-free and very fast switching is enabled in that a photonic crystal has a defect mode in its photonic band gap for photons with such an energy that electron transitions, especially in the form of single-electron tunneling processes between adjacent ligand-stabilized metal clusters, can be induced by the irradiation of corresponding photons due to at least one defect site.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 19, 2005
    Publication date: November 9, 2006
    Inventors: Gunter Schmid, Ulrich Simon, Gunter Schon, Birgit Mellis