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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to application No. 18229542 filed on 08/02/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgment is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO-1449. These IDS has been considered.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the limitationa “wherein a triangular quantum well is formed adjacent to the tunneling barrier” in claim 1 & “wherein a triangular quantum well is formed by polarization fields at an interface of the emitter stack and the tunneling barrier “ in claim 10 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Allowable subject matter
Claims 3-5 (pending resolution of drawing objections) are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim (independent claim 1), but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The closest prior art known to the Examiner is listed on the PTO 892 forms of record.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Walter (US 2013/0126825).
With respect to dependent claims 3-5, the cited prior art does not anticipate or make obvious, inter alia, the step of: “wherein the nominally undoped portion is adjacent to the tunneling barrier”.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-20 (pending resolution of drawing objections) are allowed.
The following is an examiner' s statement of reasons for allowance:
Claims 9-20: The primary reason for the allowance of the claims is the inclusion of the limitation “a tunneling barrier comprising AlN, adjacent to the nominally undoped portion; a base comprising undoped GaN”, in all of the claims in combination with the remaining features of independent claim 9.
Kalman et al. (US 2021/0151623) teach a hot electron transistor (HET), comprising: an emitter stack (Fig. 2, elements 219 & 221), comprising: a highly doped GaN layer (Fig. 2, element 221) adjacent to a surface of a substrate (Fig. 2, substrate comprises elements 211-219); and a AlGaN emitter (Fig. 2, element 219); and a collector (Fig. 2, element 215) comprising a wide bandgap material. Furthermore, Moise (US 5,442,194) teaches a graded emitter (InAlAs) comprising a doped portion and a nominally undoped portion (Col. 4, lines 28-48) adjacent to a tunneling barrier comprising AlAs with the motivation to form a HET operating at room temperature (Col. 2, lines 1-2).
However, Kalman et al. modified by Moise do not teach or render obvious the above-quoted features recited in independent claim 9.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walter (US 2013/0126825) in view of Reed et al. (US 7,956,369).
Regarding independent claim 1, Walter teaches a hot electron transistor (HET), comprising:
an emitter (Fig. 6, element 160, paragraph 0030);
a base (Fig. 6, element 140, paragraph 0030);
a collector (Fig. 6, element 130, paragraph 0030); and
a tunneling barrier (Fig. 6, element 150, paragraph 0030) disposed between the emitter and the base,
wherein a quantum well (Fig. 6 discloses quantum well QW in the base region 140 adjacent to tunneling barrier 150, paragraph 0013, 0031, 0024) is formed adjacent to the tunneling barrier, and is thermionically filled with electrons.
Walter does not explicitly disclose a triangular quantum well.
The shape of the quantum well is a matter of choice which a person skilled in the art would have found obvious as shown by Reed et al. (Col. 16, lines 26-30 discloses a triangular quantum well).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walter (US 2013/0126825) in view of Reed et al. (US 7,956,369) and further in view of Gill et al. (US 6,480,365).
Regarding claim 2, Walter modified by Reed et al. teach all of the limitations as discussed above.
Walter modified by Reed et al. do not explicitly disclose wherein the tunneling barrier comprises aluminum nitride.
Before the effective filling date of the invention it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to select aluminum nitride for a tunnel barrier layer shown by Gill et al. (“The second tunnel barrier layer is aluminum oxide, aluminum nitride, titanium oxide or zinc oxide”), since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select a known material on the base of its suitability, for its intended use involves only ordinary skill in the art. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walter (US 2013/0126825) in view of Reed et al. (US 7,956,369) and further in view of Brown et al. (US 2016/0315211).
Regarding claim 6, Walter modified by Reed et al. teach all of the limitations as discussed above.
Walter modified by Reed et al. do not explicitly disclose wherein a common-emitter gain β is greater than 30.
Brown et al. teach a common-emitter gain β is greater than 30 (paragraph 0055). “In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. MPEP 2144.05.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walter (US 2013/0126825) in view of Reed et al. (US 7,956,369) and further in view of Obu et al. (US 2017/0359030).
Regarding claim 7, Walter modified by Reed et al. teach all of the limitations as discussed above.
Walter modified by Reed et al. do not explicitly disclose wherein a collector current density is greater than 350 kA/cm.sup.2.
Obu et al. teach wherein a collector current density is greater than 350 kA/cm.sup.2. (Fig. 9, paragraph 0080).
“In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. MPEP 2144.05.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walter (US 2013/0126825) in view of Reed et al. (US 7,956,369) and further in view of Hirata et al. (US 5,949,097).
Regarding claim 8, Walter modified by Reed et al. teach all of the limitations as discussed above.
Walter modified by Reed et al. do not explicitly disclose wherein a 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) forms in the base.
Hirata et al. teach a semiconductor device comprising a 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) forms in the base (Col. 9, lines 38-42).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the teachings of Walter and Reed et al. according to the teachings of Hirata et al. with the motivation to increase mobility.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHAHED AHMED whose telephone number is (571)272-3477. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/SHAHED AHMED/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2813