US 2015/0028674 A1 · FOUR-TERMINAL CIRCUIT ELEMENT WITH PHOTONIC CORE

Abstract

A four-terminal circuit element is described that includes a photonic core inside of the circuit element that uses a wide bandgap semiconductor material that exhibits photoconductivity and allows current flow through the material in response to the light that is incident on the wide bandgap material. The four-terminal circuit element can be configured based on various hardware structures using a single piece or multiple pieces or layers of a wide bandgap semiconductor material to achieve various designed electrical properties such as high switching voltages by using the photoconductive feature beyond the breakdown voltages of semiconductor devices or circuits operated based on electrical bias or control designs. The photonic core aspect of the four-terminal circuit element provides unique features that enable versatile circuit applications to either replace the semiconductor transistor-based circuit elements or semiconductor diode-based circuit elements.

Claims30

Dependent claims

A four-terminal circuit element with a photonic core, comprising:

a first terminal that provides a first electrical contact;
a second terminal that provides a second electrical contact;
a third terminal that provides a third electrical contact;
a fourth terminal that provides a fourth electrical contact;
a light source coupled to the first and the second terminals to receive an electrical signal and operable to produce light in response to the electrical signal;
a wide bandgap material in contact with a first electrode coupled to the third terminal and a second electrode coupled to the fourth terminals to allow an electrical current to flow between the first and second electrodes, the wideband gap material positioned to receive the light produced by the light source and configured to exhibit a photoconductivity in response to the received light, wherein
one or both of the first and the second terminals are operable as input terminals to receive an input controlling signal, and one or both of the third and the fourth terminals are operable as output terminals to provide an output signal controlled at least in-part by the input controlling signal.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Four-terminal circuit element with photonic core

Life of this patent

Four-terminal circuit element with photonic core

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims30