Ravenbrick LLC

Paul Ciszek

Richard M Powers

Wil McCarthy

A high-transparency, low-emissivity window film or coating is designed to maximize so-called greenhouse heating. This effect is achieved through the use of conductive grids and/or gratings whose width and spacing has been selected such that the grid appears as a uniform conductive film to long-wavelength infrared (blackbody) radiation. The conductive grid film reflects the blackbody radiation strongly, and such that the grid appears highly transparent to visible and near-infrared light, and therefore transmits it.

Low-emissivity window films and coatings incorporating nanoscale wire grids

A multispectral optical sensor incorporating quantum confinement devices is composed of a solid-state tunable filter, an optional lens, and a photodetector or plurality of photodetectors. The tunable filter is multilayered composite film of semiconducting materials, which includes a quantum well or other quantum confinement structure and barrier materials to ensure the proper confinement of charge carriers within the quantum well. The tunable filter is capable of acting as a long-pass filter. The approximate cut-on wavelength is established through selection of a well material with a bandgap near the desired energy, and barrier materials with a higher bandgap. For a given reference temperature the exact cut-on wavelength may be fixed through careful selection of the dimensions of the quantum confinement structures, whose quantum confinement energy is added to the bandgap energy to yield the cut-on energy. The operational cut-on wavelength at any given moment may be controlled through variation of the temperature of the tunable filter using onboard or external thermal control hardware and through control of an electric field applied across the filter.

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Denver, CO, United States of America

Paul Ciszek