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:
Oct. 23, 2007
Filed:
Feb. 28, 2005
Milton Feng, Champaign, IL (US);
Nick Holonyak, Jr., Urbana, IL (US);
Richard Chan, Champaign, IL (US);
Gabriel Walter, Champaign, IL (US);
Milton Feng, Champaign, IL (US);
Nick Holonyak, Jr., Urbana, IL (US);
Richard Chan, Champaign, IL (US);
Gabriel Walter, Champaign, IL (US);
The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Urbana, IL (US);
Abstract
A method for producing controllable light pulses includes the following steps: providing a heterojunction bipolar transistor structure including collector, base, and emitter regions of semiconductor materials; providing an optical resonant cavity enclosing at least a portion of the transistor structure; and coupling electrical signals with respect to the collector, base, and emitter regions, to switch back and forth between a stimulated emission mode that produces output laser pulses and a spontaneous emission mode. In a form of the method, the electrical signals include an AC excitation signal, and part of each excitation signal cycle is operative to produce stimulated emission, and another part of each excitation signal cycle is operative to produce spontaneous emission.