The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 24, 2002
Filed:
Aug. 15, 2000
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A photo-detector comprises a photo-absorptive region ( ) which absorbs individual incident photons to produce corresponding electron-hole pairs. A bias (V ) applied by an electrode ( ) to the region separates the oppositely charged electrons and holes such that the individual electrons apply a gate field to an electrometer ( ) in the form of a single electron transistor which has a source-drain path ( ) along which carrier charged transport is limited Coulomb blockade. The charge of the individual, photo-induced electrons (e) modulate charge carrier transport through the single electron transistor and the resulting current is detected by amplifier (A ) to produce an voltage output (V ) so as to detect incident photons individually.