Patent issued to K-State physicists for lighting advance

MANHATTAN -- The U. S. Patent Office has issued Patent No. 6,410,940 (June 25, 2002) to a physics team at Kansas State University for its invention of a micro-size optical element capable of both producing and detecting light.

Inventors Hongxing Jiang, Jingyu Lin, Sixuan Jin and Jing Li have developed an optically-active structure at a diameter smaller than a human hair based on III-nitride wide bandgap semiconductors.

When the structure is forward-biased, it forms a micro-size light emitting diode; when reverse-biased, it forms a micro-size detector. The tiny structures in array can be used as a miniature display, a detector, a sensor, or as a hyper-bright LED.

The patent, assigned to the KSU Research Foundation, is for "Micro-size LED and detector arrays for mini-display, hyper-bright light emitting diodes, lighting, and UV detector and imaging sensor applications."

According to the invention summary, this new technology has as its objectives to provide micro-size light-emitting diodes and LED arrays for hyper-bright LED and lighting applications and mini-displays, and to provide micro-size detector arrays for use in high spatial resolution detector arrays and imaging sensors.

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The following article gives an overview of the new technology: http://www.mediarelations.ksu.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/led100201.html

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