Purdue Research Foundation

The United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of the

Howard University

Michael Gregg Spencer

Jerry M Woodall

Joseph Maserjian

Kevin Tyrone Kornegay

Energy conversion among heat or electricity and incandescent light is achieved, in the case of incandescent light emission, with the emission having reduced IR content, using a high band gap semiconductor element that is tailored in structure and in energy conversion physics to suppress free carrier absorption so as to be transparent or reflecting of photon energy that is below the band gap of the semiconductor and to only emit photon energy above the band gap of the semiconductor. A filament of lightly 'N' doped 3C-SiC, at about 900 degrees C., will incandesce and radiate in the visible range for energies greater than about 2 eV and will exhibit inefficient emission of photons for energies less than about 2 eV.

Incandescent light energy conversion with reduced infrared emission

A submillimeter wave-generating integrated circuit includes an array of N photoconductive switches biased across a common voltage source and an optical path difference from a common optical pulse of repetition rate f.sub.0 providing a different optical delay to each of the switches. In one embodiment, each incoming pulse is applied to successive ones of the N switches with successive delays. The N switches are spaced apart with a suitable switch-to-switch spacing so as to generate at the output load or antenna radiation of a submillimeter wave frequency f on the order of Nf.sub.0. Preferably, the optical pulse has a repetition rate of at least 10 GHz and N is of the order of 100, so that the circuit generates radiation of frequency of the order of or greater than 1 Terahertz.

Growing community of inventors

Washington, DC, United States of America

Michael Gregg Spencer