US Patent 8069688 - Nanostructured gemstones

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8069688.html

This patent from the California Institute of Technology includes some broad claims for gemstones having improved brilliance based on the etching of non-periodic nanometer of micrometer features. Claim 1 reads:

1. A gemstone comprising a plurality of facets, wherein one or more of the facets have a hazy white-colored appearance, said appearance associated with non-periodic nanometer and/or micrometer sized features on said facets.

US Patent 8021967 - Nanoscale wicking methods

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8021967.html

Wicking is the process by which liquids are transported across or along fibers by capillary action. This patent from the California Institute of Technology teaches how to perform wicking on the nanoscale which may be useful to control biomolecular processes. Claim 1 reads:

1. A guided fluid transport method comprising:

providing a plurality of nanoscale fibers disposed in a patterned configuration; and

transporting fluid along the nanoscale fibers,

wherein the nanoscale fibers are disposed in a patterned configuration adapted to allow transport of the fluid in absence of an external power.

US Patent 7955644 - Selective anchoring of nanoscale structures

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7955644.html

This patent from the California Institute of Technology discloses a new method of  patterning nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes on a substrate which may have use in fabricating field emission displays. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for fastening a plurality of nanoscale structures within an anchoring layer, comprising acts of:

providing a first fluid layer on an anchoring substrate;

providing a plurality of nanostructures on a growth substrate on which the nanostructures were grown, the nanostructures each having a defined height and orientation with respect to the growth substrate; and

introducing the plurality of nanostructures to a desired depth in the first fluid layer, such that the orientation of the nanostructures relative to the growth substrate is substantially maintained.

US Patent 7834530 - Nanotube bundle field emitters

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7834530.html

Carbon nanotubes have been shown to produce superior electron emission at low electric field strength than other materials but when formed in high density arrays a field screening effect occurs that can diminish the emission density. This patent from CalTech teaches forming an optimized high field emission geometry based upon ordered arrays of nanotube bundles. Claim 1 reads:

1. A high density field emitter comprising:

a plurality of nanotube bundles disposed on a substrate each of said bundles comprising a plurality of individual nanotubes and being characterized by a nanotube bundle dimension defining the spatial cross-section of the individual nanotube bundles,

said bundles being arranged on said substrate in an ordered array characterized by an array dimension defining the edge-to-edge spacing between each said nanotube bundle,

wherein the array dimension is about 5.0 μm and a ratio of the bundle dimension to the array dimension ranges from about 0.2:100 to about 5:2.

US Patent 7547881 - Nanowire electron scattering spectroscopy

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7547881.html

Nanotubes and nanowires offer enhanced sensitivity in molecular detectors but often require functionalization of the nanotube or nanowire surfaces to tailor the sensor to a particular molecular structure to be detected which can make manufacture more difficult. This patent from the California Institute of Technology instead teaches using an analysis of vibrational energy modes from molecules bound to nanowires as a basis for the detection. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for spectroscopic identification of molecules, comprising:

providing a nanoscale wire;

injecting electrons into the nanoscale wire; and

measuring inelastic electron scattering via excitation of low-lying vibrational energy levels of molecules bound to the nanoscale wire.

US Patent 7514214 - Functionalized CNT probe tip

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7514214.html

This patent from Caltech with priority going back to 2003 includes some basic claims to a carbon nanotube molecular sensor formed on an atomic force microscope tip. Claim 1 reads:

1. A device comprising:

a nanostructure having a surface and a passivation layer coating all but a unique site on the surface, the unique site exhibiting at least one of chemical, biological, electrical, and physical activity, wherein the nanostructure comprises a carbon nanotube, wherein a material is attached to the unique site, and wherein a moveable probe is connected to the nanostructure.

US Patent 7500213 - Nanoscale drivers for molecular electronics

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7500213.html

This patent based on a collaboration between Caltech and Harvard teaches reconfigurable nanoscale crossbar circuit architectures providing both decoding and signal restoration capabilities. Claim 1 reads:

1. A circuit comprising:

a plurality of arrays having first and second sets of address lines and connections between the first and second sets of address lines; and

a plurality of driving devices for the plurality of arrays, the driving devices having third and fourth sets of address lines and connections between the third and fourth sets of address lines, wherein the second set of address lines is connected with the fourth set of address lines, wherein the driving devices have a first condition in which they act as decoders for the arrays, and a second condition in which they act as signal restoring devices for the arrays, and wherein the driving devices comprise nanoscale driving devices.

US Patent 7449758 - Organic piezoresistive MEMS resonator

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7449758.html

Piezoresistive sensing is quite common to micromechanical sensors but is usually carried out using metal or semiconductor materials. This patent from researchers at CalTech teaches a biocompatible version using pentacene. Claim 1 reads:

1. A MEMS system comprising:

a micromechanical resonator; and

a piezoresistive sensing element comprising an organic semiconductor.

US Patent 7416911 - Manufacture of molecular probes with hydrogenated surfaces

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7416911.html

This patent from CalTech teaches forming a template which is possibly useful for the formation of molecular electronic devices using hydrogenated nanostructured surfaces including Si-H bonds. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for manufacturing molecular probes on semiconductor microstructures or nanostructures, the method comprising:

providing at least one microstructures or nanostructure, the microstructures or nanostructure comprising a surface region;

processing the surface region to form a hydrogenated surface on a portion of the surface region of the microstructure or nanostructure;

forming one or more electro active molecules overlying the surface region of the microstructure or nanostructure, selecting one or more microstructures or nanostructures by applying an electrical voltage from an external source with respect to a reference electrode to the one or more selected microstructures or nanostructures; and

forming one or more reactive sites on a portion of the one or more of the selected microstructures or nanostructures.

US Patent 7407814 - Molecular detection nanoresonator array

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7407814.html

This patent from Caltech has relatively early priority and claims a nanoelectromechanical resonator system for detecting plural analytes in solution. Claim 1 reads:

1. A molecular detector capable of detecting an analyte in solution comprising:

a solution reservoir;

at least one first nanometer-scale mechanical resonator which is disposed within the reservoir, wherein the at least one first resonator is biofunctionalized with a first receptor or a first ligand;

a substrate or a second mechanical resonator which is disposed within the reservoir, wherein the substrate or the second resonator is biofunctionalized with a second receptor or a second ligand, and wherein the first receptor or ligand and the second receptor or ligand are capable of binding to the analyte in solution such that the analyte binds to both the first receptor or ligand and to the second receptor or ligand at a same time; and

a detector in signal communication with the at least one first resonator for measuring a mechanical displacement of the resonator for detection of the analyte.

US Patent 7367505 - Quantum dot dispensing and detecting

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7367505.html

This patent from Caltech (priority June 12, 2003) teaches methodology for using quantum dots for optical coding. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of dispensing and detecting fluorescent quantum dots, comprising:

dispensing said dots on a surface at a plurality of locations where each location includes quantum dots of a plurality of center wavelengths;

exciting said dots with a UV light until said dots fluoresce; and

analyzing said fluorescence with a spectrometer.

Unfortunately some pertinent prior art may have been overlooked such as:

US Patent 6617583- "A novel encoding system and methods for determining the location and/or identity of a particular item or component of interest is provided. In particular, the present invention utilizes a "barcode" comprising one or more sizes of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) having characteristic spectral emissions, to either "track" the location of a particular item of interest or to identify a particular item of interest. " (from abstract)

US Patent 7351601 - Fabrication of nanocavity laser

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7351601.html

This method of solid state laser fabrication teaches optically trapping a quantum dot bead in the laser cavity to provide optical gain for the laser. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of fabricating a nanocavity laser, said method comprising:

pumping a laser cavity that supports an optical mode having an optical field concentrated in a region of said laser cavity; and

optically trapping a light emitter in said region of said laser cavity, the light emitter configured to provide optical gain for said laser cavity.

US Patent 7336412 - Micromirror adaptive optics using piezoelectric actuation

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7336412.html

Micromirrors have found numerous applications in displays, fiber optic switching, and 3D imaging. Typically the micromirrors are electrostatically actuated but this patent proposes a piezoelectric actuator for driving the micromirror in adaptive optics applications to generate a higher actuation stroke with smaller voltage. Claim 1 reads:

1. A microcontrollable, deformable mirror comprising: a mirror membrane to which a two dimensional pixel map is assigned; and a plurality of controllable piezoelectric microactuators forming two dimensional pixel map, each of the microactuators being coupled to the mirror membrane and separately controllable to selectively deform at least a portion of the mirror membrane corresponding to a pixel in the two dimensional pixel map.

US Patent 7301172 - Sequentially charged nanocrystal LED

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7301172.html

In order to produce more efficient LEDs using quantum dots this patent from CalTech teaches separating the electrons and holes injections by using an AC excitation method. Claim 26 reads:

26. A method of emitting light from a light emitting device including a transistor structure formed on a semiconductor substrate and having a source region, a drain region, a channel region between the source and drain regions, a gate oxide on the channel region, and a plurality of nanocrystals embedded in the gate oxide, the method comprising: injecting first type charge carriers into the nanocrystals; and after injecting the first type charge carriers, injecting second type charge carriers into the nanocrystals, such that the first and second type charge carriers form excitons used to emit the light.

US Patent 7242601- Microscale to nanoscale memory addressing

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7242601.html

A variety of memory and logic systems are currently being developed by companies such as Hewlett packard and Nantero using nanoscale crossbars. One difficulty in working with nanoscale crossbars is addressing the nanowires using microscale wires. Andre DeHon is an inventor at CalTech working on realizing a variety of solutions to this problem. This solution uses a particular coding system for microscale to nanoscale wiring interfaces. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for addressing a memory comprising: selecting a nanoscale wire from a plurality of nanoscale wires through a first set of microscale inputs; associating a code to the selected nanoscale wire through a second set of microscale inputs; repeating the selecting and associating steps in accordance with a number of nanoscale wires to be programmed; associating memory addresses of the memory to codes associated with the selected nanoscale wires; and selecting memory addresses of the memory by means of the second set of microscale inputs.

US Patent 7175762 - Nanocarpet bacteria trap

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7175762.pdf

This invention from CalTech exploits the use of vertical nanotube arrays as actuators to trap bacteria, spores or other microscale biomatter for later analysis. Claim 1 reads:

1. A nanotrap comprising: a substrate; and a plurality of densely packed self-assembled nanofeatures disposed on said substrate, each of said nanofeatures having first and second ends, wherein each of said first ends are independently attached to said substrate, and wherein the nanofeatures are at least 10 microns long such that said second ends are curled and randomly oriented above said substrate to create a collective Van der Waals force capable of attracting and trapping particulates; and a voltage source having a controllably oscillating polarity in independent and direct electrical communication with each of said nanofeatures such that application of the oscillating polarity of a voltage from the voltage source to the nanofeatures induces said plurality of nanofeatures to contract and expand to produce an electromechanical actuation of the Plurality of nanofeatures to dislodge any trapped particulates within said nanotrap.