Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-2, 6-11, 13, 16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoffman et al. US 2016/0178569 in view of Andersson et al. US 2014/0070170.
Re claim 1, Hoffman teaches a field effect transistor (fig1) comprising:
a substrate (Si/SiO2 36/37, fig1 and 1a, [56, 64]);
a material layer (graphene, fig1) on a surface of the substrate (Si/SiO2 36/37, fig1 and 1a, [56, 64]) and including a two-dimensional material (graphene, fig1) or carbon nanotubes;
a source electrode (left Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]) on the surface of the substrate and electrically connected to the material layer (graphene, fig1); and
a drain electrode (right Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]) on the surface of the substrate and spaced apart from the source electrode electrically connected to the material layer (graphene, fig1).
Hoffman does not explicitly show bonding the graphene layer to the S/D substrate with particles interposed between the substrate and the material layer; wherein at least some of the particles are directly on the substrate.
Andersson teaches bonding the graphene layer (2a, fig1a and 2b, [54, 55]) to the S/D substrate (5/6, fig1a, [39, 55]); particles (2C, fig2b, [54]) interposed between the substrate (9-8, fig1a, [46]) and the material layer (2a, fig1a and 2b, [54]);
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman and Andersson to bond the metal decorated graphene layer with a supporting substrate to the substrate with S/D region with the side of graphene decorated by particles directly bonded to the substrate with S/D. The motivation to do so is to reduce the risk of damage to the graphene layer and increase sensitivity (Andersson, [12, 54]).
Re claim 2, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the particles are metal particles (Andersson, 2C, fig2b, [54]).
Re claim 6, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the material layer includes the two-dimensional material, and the two-dimensional material is graphene (Hoffman, graphene, fig1).
Re claim 7, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the surface of the substrate in contact with the material layer includes silicon oxide (Hoffman, SiO2 37, fig1 and 1a, [56]) or aluminum oxide.
Re claim 8, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, further comprising a gate electrode (Hoffman, 36 or 39, fig1a, [64]) to apply an electric field to the material layer (Hoffman, graphene on a support substrate with decorated particles facing to be bonded SiO2 37, fig1) from outside.
Re claim 9, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the field effect transistor is operable in liquid (Hoffman, fig1A).
Re claim 10, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 1, wherein the substrate includes an exposed portion (Hoffman, space between SiO2 well, fig1 and 1A) in a space between the source electrode (Hoffman, left Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]) and the drain electrode (Hoffman, right Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]).
Re claim 11, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 10, wherein the material layer (Hoffman, graphene, fig1) covers an end portion of the source electrode (Hoffman, left Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]), the exposed portion of the substrate (Hoffman, part of SiO2 37 in contact with SiO2 well, fig1 and 1A), and an end portion of the drain electrode (Hoffman, right Cu 34, fig1 and 1a, [55]).
Re claim 13, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 1 wherein the substrate includes at least one of silicon oxide (Hoffman, SiO2 37, fig1 and 1a, [56, 64]), silicon nitride, aluminum oxide, titanium oxide, calcium fluoride, acrylic resins, polyimides, or fluorocarbon resins.
Re claim 16, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 1, wherein the particles includes at least one of metal particles (Anderson, 2C, fig2b, [54]), ceramic particles, glass particles, or resin particles.
Re claim 18, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 1 wherein each of the source electrode and the drain electrode has a multilayer structure including titanium and gold (Anderson, 5/6 as Ti/Au to achieve low resistance and strong bonding, fig1a, [45]).
Re claim 19, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to claim 1, wherein each of the source electrode and the drain electrode includes a single layer including gold, platinum, titanium, or palladium (Anderson, 5/6 as Ti/Au with single layer of Au attached to layer 8 by the adhesive Ti layer to achieve low resistance and strong bonding, fig1a, [45]).
Re claim 20, Hoffman modified above teaches the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the material layer is directly on the surface of the substrate (Hoffman, graphene on a support substrate with decorated particles facing to be bonded SiO2 37, fig1).
Claim(s) 3 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoffman et al. US 2016/0178569 in view of Andersson et al. US 2014/0070170 and Yu et al. US 2016/0091447.
Re claim 3, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the particles are metal particles including at least one of gold, platinum, or titanium.
Yu teaches wherein the particles are metal particles including at least one of gold, platinum, or titanium (graphene 415 decorated with Ti 417 and 425 decorated with Au used to detect donor or acceptor molecules, fig4, [43, 51, 55]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Yu to select the metal nanoparticle for the kind of molecule used to detect (Yu, [45]).
Re claim 17, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to claim 1, wherein the particles include at least one of gold, platinum, or titanium.
Yu teaches wherein the particles are metal particles including at least one of gold, platinum, or titanium (graphene 415 decorated with Ti 417 and 425 decorated with Au used to detect donor or acceptor molecules, fig4, [43, 51, 55]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Yu to select the metal nanoparticle for the kind of molecule used to detect (Yu, [45]).
Claim(s) 4-5 and 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoffman et al. US 2016/0178569 in view of Andersson et al. US 2014/0070170 and Subrahmanyam et al. “A study of graphene decorated with metal nanoparticles” chemical physics letters 497 (2010) 70-75).
Re claim 4, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the particles have a particle diameter of about 1 nm to about 10 nm inclusive.
Subrahmanyam teaches metal nanoparticle in the range of 7-12nm (results and discussion, right col page 71).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Subrahmanyam to adjust the metal nanoparticle size. The motivation to do so is to open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration to achieve better sensitivity to detect the target molecule (Subrahmanyam, left col page 75).
Re claim 5, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the particles have an in-plane number density of about 833/µm2 to about 1740/µm2 inclusive.
Subrahmanyam teaches metal nanoparticle in the range of 7-12nm (results and discussion, right col page 71) decorated on graphene sheet (TEM image, fig2).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Subrahmanyam to adjust the metal nanoparticle density to tune the density of the state of graphene layer with metal decorated to boundary and defect of the film. The motivation to do so is to open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration to achieve better sensitivity to detect the target molecule (Subrahmanyam, left col page 75).
Re claim 14, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the material layer includes 10 or less layers.
Subrahmanyam teaches metal nanoparticle decorated single layer graphene open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration and density of state (fig5 and 6).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Subrahmanyam to decorated to boundary and defect of single layer graphene film. The motivation to do so is to open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration to achieve better sensitivity to detect the target molecule (Subrahmanyam, left col page 75).
Re claim 15, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to Claim 1, wherein the material layer includes five or less than five layers.
Subrahmanyam teaches metal nanoparticle decorated single layer graphene open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration and density of state (fig5 and 6).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Subrahmanyam to decorated to boundary and defect of single layer graphene film. The motivation to do so is to open the band gap near the fermi energy and tune the carrier concentration to achieve better sensitivity to detect the target molecule (Subrahmanyam, left col page 75).
Claim(s) 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoffman et al. US 2016/0178569 in view of Andersson et al. US 2014/0070170 and Hao et al. US 2007/0218663.
Re claim 12, Hoffman does not explicitly show the field effect transistor according to claim 1, wherein the substrate is a thermally oxidized silicon substrate.
Hao teaches thermal oxidized silicon dioxide form high quality silicon dioxide ([22]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Hoffman, Andersson and Hao to form a thermal oxidized silicon dioxide gate dielectric layer. The motivation to do so is to form a high quality oxide (Hao, [22]).
Response to Arguments
Regarding arguments about all the claims applicant's arguments have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/XIAOMING LIU/Examiner, Art Unit 2812