World's Smallest Radio and More: Carbon nanotube radio, detector, modulator, demodulator, mixer, diode, antenna, amplifier, actuator, resonator, and multiplier invented in 1997

Here are links to my patents from the mid and late 90s when I invented the carbon nanotube antenna array and in doing do discovered that we could make mixers, diodes, amplifiers, resonators, demodulators, modulators, mixers and all kinds of functional components on silicon with nanotubes grown from specific points on the silicon.

Two of these patents were rated in the "Top Ten Nanotech Patents for 2006" by ex patent examiner and publisher Blaise Moutett, and several have been cited by Harvard, MIT, IBM, NEC, Samsung and others who all came later to the nanotube RF and optical device field.  Moutett talks about the importance of the invention here.

Who owns carbon nanotube patents, and which ones are "the good ones"?  I believe this collection, with its clear and original thinking, provides the basis for an important field of use in nanotechnology, namely the arrangement of long thin and small elements near or on semiconducting or other energy absorbing or radiating substrates. That means that super efficient solar thermal systems to warm houses, antennas for light that create seeing surfaces, lenseless cameras, and more could be practical realities, not to mention faster computing, all optical computers, and electronic components with much desired "DC to light" bandwidth.

The earliest one that issued is at the bottom of the column, as the USPTO does things that way and this brings you to the patent office, where a new law "America Invents" has raised the fees individual inventors must pay for patents. As usual, the large corporations benefit from many of these rule changes.

This is the fundamental set of patents with claims that cover many basic and important uses of nanotubes on silicon and on sol-gel, on semiconducting junctions, and for RF and optical operation. No other patents in that field predate the original filings and the work is quite original, useful, practical, and not at all obvious at the time - in fact it was thought to be impossible. But I did not think so, and when I wrote the patents I foresaw a new class of nanoelectronics that is just emerging, more than a dozen years later. I would like to further develop this for photonic and possibly communications applications and welcome any inquiries.

						PAT. NO.		Title
1	7,899,301		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
2	7,535,627		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
3	7,486,434		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
4	7,330,299		Optical amplifying arrangement using carbon nanotubes
5	7,259,903		Optical switching arrangement using carbon nanotubes
6	7,205,021		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
7	7,132,994		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
8	7,099,071		Method of moving a carbon nanotube
9	6,700,550		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
10	6,258,401		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification
11	6,038,060		Optical antenna array for harmonic generation, mixing and signal amplification