Metal and semimetal sensors near the metal insulator transition regime
AssigneeAngelo Gaitas
InventorAngelo Gaitas
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
This invention generally relates to sensors made of granular thin films in the discontinuous phase. More particularly, the invention relates to microbolometers and displacement sensors fabricated from thin films that are close to the metal insulator transition (MIT) or metal semiconductor transition (MST) regime. Sensors of various designs have been fabricated according to the invention and may be used for deflection measurements, nano-indentation, visco-elastic measurements, topographical scanning, explosive detection, low abundance biomolecular detection, electromagnetic radiation detection and other similar detection and measurement systems.
Claims10
An apparatus comprising:
- an insulating substrate;
- a bolometer detector element deposited on said insulating substrate, said detector element possesses the following properties:
- a) said detector element is a metal or a semimetal thin film, b) said detector element has a negative temperature coefficient of resistance below −0.007 per Kelvin, c) said detector element has a thickness below 5 nanometers, d) said detector element has a sheet resistance larger than 50 kilo-ohms per square, e) said detector element is at the crossover of the metal-insulator-transition regime, f) the plot of current (in the vertical axis) and voltage (in the horizontal axis) of said detector element is superlinear;
- and
- electrical conductors connecting to said detector element.
An apparatus comprising:
- an insulating substrate;
- a displacement detector element deposited on said insulating substrate;
- said detector element possesses the following properties:
- a) said detector element is a metal or a semimetal thin film, b) said detector element has a thickness below 10 nanometers, c) said detector element has a sheet resistance larger than 0.5 kilo-ohms per square, d) said detector element is at the crossover of the metal-insulator-transition regime, e) the plot of current (in the vertical axis) and voltage (in the horizontal axis) of said detector element is superlinear;
- and
- electrical conductors connecting to said detector element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.