MSE Project is Runner-up for UMD Invention Award

Professor Ichrio Takeuchi (MSE) and collaborators W. Yang, K.-S. Chang, R. D. Vispute, T. V, Venkatesan were runners-up for the invention of the year (2004) in the physical sciences from the University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization. Their invention, titled "Continuously Graded Thin Films for Functionally Broadband Device Arrays," improves on device arrays for microelectonics. In current arrays each device performs a function with a slightly different specification relative to the adjacent device in the array. This new technology assembles functionally changing device arrays from composition spread thin films. Existing technology requires production of functionally varying devices separately, then physically integrating them to create the array. This new, more compact and elegant technology has varying physical properties pre-embedded in individual chips. The technology provides compact monolithic chips where relevant parameters, such as the energy band gap, continuously change across the chip. Such chips provide novel means for constructing compact device arrays at reduced expense. A single chip has been created where different wavelength light signals can be detected and distinguished. Such a detector has medical, environmental and military applications. A U.S. patent application is pending.

Published January 15, 2005