Patents by Inventor Igal Brener
Igal Brener 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).
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Patent number: 11749694Abstract: A theoretically perfectly absorbing photoconductive all-dielectric metasurface is provided. This metasurface can improve the efficiency and performance of ultrafast photoconductive switches and detectors. In an embodiment, the metasurface is incorporated in photoconductive THz switches or detectors. In embodiments, the metasurface is constituted by a network of gallium arsenide resonators. Each resonator supports two degenerate and critically coupled magnetic dipole modes. Simultaneous excitation of these two modes leads to theoretically close-to-perfect optical absorption near the resonant wavelength.Type: GrantFiled: July 30, 2020Date of Patent: September 5, 2023Assignees: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, UCL Business LtdInventors: Igal Brener, Polina Vabishchevich, Oleg Mitrofanov
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Patent number: 11314145Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided for generating harmonic light from a pump beam that is impinged on a metasurface comprising a plurality of all-dielectric resonator bodies. A multiple quantum well structure formed in each resonator body includes asymmetric coupled quantum wells having intersubband transition frequencies that couple to Mie resonances of the resonator bodies.Type: GrantFiled: May 26, 2021Date of Patent: April 26, 2022Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Raktim Sarma, Igal Brener, Michael B. Sinclair, Salvatore Campione, John F. Klem
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Patent number: 11017186Abstract: Dielectric resonators provide a building block for the development of low-loss resonant metamaterials because they replace lossy ohmic currents of metallic resonators with low-loss displacement currents. The spectral locations of electric and magnetic dipole resonances of a dielectric resonator can be tuned by varying the resonator geometry so that desired scattering properties are achieved.Type: GrantFiled: March 29, 2019Date of Patent: May 25, 2021Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Salvatore Campione, Michael B. Sinclair, Igal Brener, D. Bruce Burckel, Aaron J. Pung, Michael D. Goldflam
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Publication number: 20200249451Abstract: Dielectric resonators provide a building block for the development of low-loss resonant metamaterials because they replace lossy ohmic currents of metallic resonators with low-loss displacement currents. The spectral locations of electric and magnetic dipole resonances of a dielectric resonator can be tuned by varying the resonator geometry so that desired scattering properties are achieved.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 29, 2019Publication date: August 6, 2020Inventors: Salvatore Campione, Michael B. Sinclair, Igal Brener, D. Bruce Burckel, Aaron J. Pung, Michael D. Goldflam
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Patent number: 10393933Abstract: Tunable filters can use Fano metasurface designs having extremely narrow transmission bands. The Fano metasurface can comprise dielectric or semiconductor materials and can produce transmission bands with quality factors well in excess of 1000—at least a factor of 50 greater than typical metamaterial-based infrared resonances. Numerical simulations of these metasurfaces show that the spectral position of the passband can be changed by slightly changing the position of a small dielectric perturbation block placed within the near-field of the resonator by using simple electromechanical actuation architectures that allow for such motion. An array of independently tunable narrowband infrared filters can thereby be fabricated that only requires deep-subwavelength motions of perturbing objects in the resonator's near-field.Type: GrantFiled: June 15, 2017Date of Patent: August 27, 2019Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Michael B. Sinclair, Salvatore Campione, David Bruce Burckel, Igal Brener, Paul J. Resnick
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Patent number: 10361250Abstract: An array of dielectric resonators is formed on a substrate. Each resonator includes an active medium having an optical transition that is operative in a process of photodetection or photoemission. The active media each include a quantum well multilayer. The dielectric resonators in the array are each dimensioned to provide a resonance that lies substantially at the frequency of the optical transition.Type: GrantFiled: October 10, 2018Date of Patent: July 23, 2019Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Sheng Liu, Igal Brener, Michael B. Sinclair
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Publication number: 20190051770Abstract: An array of dielectric resonators is formed on a substrate. Each resonator includes an active medium having an optical transition that is operative in a process of photodetection or photoemission. The active media each include a quantum well multilayer. The dielectric resonators in the array are each dimensioned to provide a resonance that lies substantially at the frequency of the optical transition.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 10, 2018Publication date: February 14, 2019Inventors: Sheng Liu, Igal Brener, Michael B. Sinclair
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Patent number: 10128387Abstract: An array of dielectric resonators is formed on the substrate of an optoelectronic device. Each resonator includes an active medium having an optical transition that is operative in a process of photodetection or photoemission. The dielectric resonators in the array are each dimensioned to provide a resonance that lies substantially at the frequency of the optical transition.Type: GrantFiled: June 16, 2016Date of Patent: November 13, 2018Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Sheng Liu, Igal Brener, Michael B. Sinclair
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Patent number: 10054839Abstract: A method of nonlinear wavelength generation uses a nonlinear optical medium. An input flux of pump energy is applied to one or more dielectric optical resonators. Each resonator has an optical cavity comprising the nonlinear optical medium. Each resonator has at least one Mie resonance that is excited by the input flux of pump energy. The pump energy causes the generation of converted light containing at least one converted component having a frequency attainable only through a non-linear process.Type: GrantFiled: June 15, 2017Date of Patent: August 21, 2018Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Igal Brener, Sheng Liu, Michael B. Sinclair, Polina Vabishchevich
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Publication number: 20170276848Abstract: Tunable filters can use Fano metasurface designs having extremely narrow transmission bands. The Fano metasurface can comprise dielectric or semiconductor materials and can produce transmission bands with quality factors well in excess of 1000—at least a factor of 50 greater than typical metamaterial-based infrared resonances. Numerical simulations of these metasurfaces show that the spectral position of the passband can be changed by slightly changing the position of a small dielectric perturbation block placed within the near-field of the resonator by using simple electromechanical actuation architectures that allow for such motion. An array of independently tunable narrowband infrared filters can thereby be fabricated that only requires deep-subwavelength motions of perturbing objects in the resonator's near-field.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 15, 2017Publication date: September 28, 2017Inventors: Michael B. Sinclair, Salvatore Campione, David Bruce Berckel, Igal Brener, Paul J. Resnick
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Patent number: 9720151Abstract: A structure for broadband light funneling comprises a two-dimensional periodic array of connected ultrasubwavelength apertures, each aperture comprising a large sub-aperture that aids in the coupling of the incoming incident light and a small sub-aperture that funnels a significant fraction of the incident light power. The structure possesses all the capabilities of prior extraordinary optical transmission platforms, yet operates nonresonantly on a distinctly different mechanism. The structure demonstrates efficient ultrabroadband funneling of optical power confined in an area as small as ˜(?/500)2, where optical fields are enhanced, thus exhibiting functional possibilities beyond resonant platforms.Type: GrantFiled: October 8, 2013Date of Patent: August 1, 2017Assignees: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, University of ExeterInventors: Ganapathi Subramanian Subramania, Igal Brener, Stavroula Foteinopoulou
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Patent number: 9705311Abstract: A mid-infrared tunable metamaterial comprises an array of resonators on a semiconductor substrate having a large dependence of dielectric function on carrier concentration and a semiconductor plasma resonance that lies below the operating range, such as indium antimonide. Voltage biasing of the substrate generates a resonance shift in the metamaterial response that is tunable over a broad operating range. The mid-infrared tunable metamaterials have the potential to become the building blocks of chip based active optical devices in mid-infrared ranges, which can be used for many applications, such as thermal imaging, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring.Type: GrantFiled: December 10, 2010Date of Patent: July 11, 2017Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLCInventors: Igal Brener, Xiaoyu Miao, Eric A. Shaner, Brandon Scott Passmore
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Patent number: 9685765Abstract: A new monolithic resonator metasurface design achieves ultra-high Q-factors while using only one resonator per unit cell. The metasurface relies on breaking the symmetry of otherwise highly symmetric resonators to induce intra-resonator mixing of bright and dark modes (rather than inter-resonator couplings), and is scalable from the near-infrared to radio frequencies and can be easily implemented in dielectric materials. The resulting high-quality-factor Fano metasurface can be used in many sensing, spectral filtering, and modulation applications.Type: GrantFiled: August 3, 2016Date of Patent: June 20, 2017Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Michael B. Sinclair, Larry K. Warne, Lorena I. Basilio, William L. Langston, Salvatore Campione, Igal Brener, Sheng Liu
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Patent number: 9594266Abstract: A photonic apparatus includes a metamaterial resonator array overlying and electromagnetically coupled to a vertically stacked plurality of quantum wells defined in a semiconductor body. An arrangement of electrical contact layers is provided for facilitating the application of a bias voltage across the quantum well stack. Those portions of the semiconductor body that lie between the electrical contact layers are conformed to provide an electrically conductive path between the contact layers and through the quantum well stack.Type: GrantFiled: February 18, 2014Date of Patent: March 14, 2017Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Igal Brener, Michael Wanke, Alexander Benz
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Publication number: 20170063039Abstract: A new monolithic resonator metasurface design achieves ultra-high Q-factors while using only one resonator per unit cell. The metasurface relies on breaking the symmetry of otherwise highly symmetric resonators to induce intra-resonator mixing of bright and dark modes (rather than inter-resonator couplings), and is scalable from the near-infrared to radio frequencies and can be easily implemented in dielectric materials. The resulting high-quality-factor Fano metasurface can be used in many sensing, spectral filtering, and modulation applications.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 3, 2016Publication date: March 2, 2017Inventors: Michael B. Sinclair, Larry K. Warne, Lorena I. Basilio, William L. Langston, Salvatore Campione, Igal Brener, Sheng Liu
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Publication number: 20160341859Abstract: An optical device for generating narrow-band circularly and elliptically polarized radiation, either by conversion from externally incident light or through thermal emission of heated objects. The optical device includes a metasurface comprised of unit cells, where each unit cell contains structural elements or features that break two mirror inversion symmetries of the unit cell and couple bright and dark resonances. In this manner, the optical device emits circularly polarized radiation that does not exhibit a preference for right-hand circularly polarized light or left-hand circularly polarized light incident upon it. As a result, multiple of such optical devices with different unit cell sizes, geometries and dimensions of the intra-cell elements may be implemented as a tag that thermally emits different states of circularly polarized radiation confined to multiple spectrally-narrow bands.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 22, 2015Publication date: November 24, 2016Inventors: Gennady Shvets, Chih-Hui Wu, Igal Brener
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Patent number: 9190542Abstract: The efficiency of a photovoltaic cell is enhanced by light trapping using Mie-scattering nanostructures. In one embodiment, an array of nanocylinders is formed on the front surface of a silicon film to enhance forward scattering into the film, and an array of nanocylinders is formed on the back surface to enhance backscattering so that more light is absorbed within the silicon film. In an alternate embodiment, a mirror layer is formed on the back surface of the silicon film to reflect light within the film back toward the front-surface nanocylinder array.Type: GrantFiled: November 26, 2014Date of Patent: November 17, 2015Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Igal Brener, Nche Tumasang Fofang, Ting S. Luk
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Patent number: 9086510Abstract: A wavelength-tunable, depletion-type infrared metamaterial optical device is provided. The device includes a thin, highly doped epilayer whose electrical permittivity can become negative at some infrared wavelengths. This highly-doped buried layer optically couples with a metamaterial layer. Changes in the transmission spectrum of the device can be induced via the electrical control of this optical coupling. An embodiment includes a contact layer of semiconductor material that is sufficiently doped for operation as a contact layer and that is effectively transparent to an operating range of infrared wavelengths, a thin, highly doped buried layer of epitaxially grown semiconductor material that overlies the contact layer, and a metallized layer overlying the buried layer and patterned as a resonant metamaterial.Type: GrantFiled: June 3, 2013Date of Patent: July 21, 2015Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Igal Brener, Young Chul Jun
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Patent number: 9020005Abstract: A multicolor photonic crystal laser array comprises pixels of monolithically grown gain sections each with a different emission center wavelength. As an example, two-dimensional surface-emitting photonic crystal lasers comprising broad gain-bandwidth III-nitride multiple quantum well axial heterostructures were fabricated using a novel top-down nanowire fabrication method. Single-mode lasing was obtained in the blue-violet spectral region with 60 nm of tuning (or 16% of the nominal center wavelength) that was determined purely by the photonic crystal geometry. This approach can be extended to cover the entire visible spectrum.Type: GrantFiled: February 3, 2014Date of Patent: April 28, 2015Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Jeremy B. Wright, Igal Brener, Ganapathi S. Subramania, George T. Wang, Qiming Li
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Patent number: 9018642Abstract: A mid-infrared tunable metamaterial comprises an array of resonators on a semiconductor substrate having a large dependence of dielectric function on carrier concentration and a semiconductor plasma resonance that lies below the operating range, such as indium antimonide. Voltage biasing of the substrate generates a resonance shift in the metamaterial response that is tunable over a broad operating range. The mid-infrared tunable metamaterials have the potential to become the building blocks of chip based active optical devices in mid-infrared ranges, which can be used for many applications, such as thermal imaging, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring.Type: GrantFiled: December 17, 2012Date of Patent: April 28, 2015Assignee: Sandia CorporationInventors: Igal Brener, Xiaoyu Miao, Eric A. Shaner, Brandon Scott Passmore, Young Chul Jun