US Patent 7710235 - Spiral nanocoil inductor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7710235.html

This patent from Northrop Grumman teaches the manufacture of inductive microstructures fabricated from silicon nitride/silicon nanocoils and applied to RF-MEMS. Claim 6 reads:

6. An inductor comprising:

a spiral nanocoil tube with a plurality of spiral coils adjacent to each other, in which the spiral coils have a substantially constant pitch, the spiral nanocoil tube defines an air core, and the spiral nanocoil tube is fabricated from material providing inductance when a current is applied to the spiral nanocoil tube;

wherein the nanocoil tube has a radius of approximately 7 microns.