USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Ulrich Strom

Stuart A Wolf

Leroy L Chang

Jeffrey M Pond

Kurt Weiser

James C Culbertson

Harvey S Newman

John J Quinn

Highly sensitive infrared detectors can be made from superconducting micrrip transmission lines, having a single ground plane, a dielectric substrate on the ground plane, and a thin film path of superconducting oxide on the substrate. These microstrip transmission lines can be fabricated into resonant or non-resonant structures. The detectors operate by detecting changes in a microwave signal transmitted through the microstrip, measures in the amplitude, frequency or time domains. An embodiment of this invention is an asymmetric ring interferometer, with or without a metal segment in the shorter leg of the interferometer. Another embodiment of this invention is a meander path transmission line, which, in certain configurations, may be used as a single element array with very high resolution in the direction parallel to the meander lines.

Microwave detection of a superconducting infrared sensor

An ultrasonic wave generator comprising a semiconductor superlattice with a periodic variation in its space charge and a far infrared laser for applying a transient electric field to the superlattice transverse to the direction of its periodic variation. The ultrasonic wave produced has a wavelength of the period of the superlattice which can result in 100 gigahertz ultrasonic waves. Structure is included for guiding these waves into an acoustic system.

Superlattice ultrasonic wave generator

A granular superconducting thin film bolometer made by anodizing a thin film of such materials as niobium nitride to form a thin granular film separated by and covered with the anodized oxide. The bolometer is cooled to its superconducting state and electrically connected to a biasing and detecting network. Its temporal response is better than 1 ns.

Fast granular superconducting bolometer

Growing community of inventors

Hyattsville, MD, United States of America

Ulrich Strom