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
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.
Claims 1-4, 8, 19-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 20180358482 to Murase et al. (Murase) in view of “An investigation into the early stages of oxide growth on gallium nitride” by Wolter et al. (Wolter).
Regarding Claim 1, Murase teaches in Figs. 4-5 at least, a method of fabricating a device, the method comprising:
providing a substrate 101 of the device;
forming a structure 102 of the device, the structure being supported by the substrate, having a semiconductor composition [0136], and comprising a surface (facing up on page), wherein nitrogen is present at the surface [0139]; and
forming an oxynitride stabilizing layer 103 on the surface.
Murase does not explicitly teach incorporating oxygen into the surface to form the stabilizing layer on the surface; wherein incorporating the oxygen is implemented such that the stabilizing layer comprises a uniform distribution of an oxynitride material.
However, in analogous art, Wolter teaches throughout the formation of gallium oxynitride by introducing oxygen through thermal oxidation (Transmission electron microscopy revealed an overlayer approximately 1.5–3.0 nm thick with registry to the (0001) GaN after dry oxidation at 800°C for 1 h. Based on the data from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, this layer is believed to be a Ga(x+2)N3xO(3−3x) compound, abstract). It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of filing to modify the passivation layer 103 formation of Murase as thermal oxidation is a far more energy efficient process than the plasma oxidation taught by Murase; and further avoids the steps of formation of an oxide layer to be converted to an oxynitride.
Regarding Claim 2, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the stabilizing layer is configured as an activation layer (103 can be an activation layer).
Regarding Claim 3, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the stabilizing layer is configured as a passivation layer (103 can be a passivation layer).
Regarding Claim 4, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein incorporating the oxygen comprises implementing an oxidation reaction to form the stabilizing layer (thermal oxidation).
Regarding Claim 8, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein incorporating the oxygen comprises annealing the surface (thermal oxidation is a high temp process which reads on annealing).
Regarding Claim 19, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein:the substrate comprises silicon; and the semiconductor composition of the structure comprises gallium nitride such that the oxynitride material is GaOxN1-x. (Wolter throughout)
Regarding Claim 20, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the stabilizing layer has a thickness falling in a range from about one monolayer to a few monolayers (Murase teaches that the protective layer may be any desired thickness).
Regarding Claims 21 and 22, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, but are silent regarding the surface being oriented along a polar non-polar plane of the semiconductor composition. However, the person of ordinary skill may account for polar or non-polar thermal oxidation.
Regarding Claim 23, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the semiconductor composition is configured such that implementing the oxidation reaction results in partial oxygen substitution of the nitrogen (performed by thermal oxidation).
Regarding Claim 24, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the semiconductor composition has a Wurtzite crystal structure (GaN is Wurtzite).
Regarding Claim 25, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, wherein the nitrogen of the surface is disposed in a compound semiconductor arrangement of the semiconductor composition (GaN).
Claims 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Murase and Wolter as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of “III-nitride nanowires for solar light harvesting: A review” by Chatterjee et al.
Regarding Claim 16, Murase and Wolter teach the method of claim 1, but do not explicitly teach forming the structure comprises forming an array of conductive projections supported by the substrate and extending outwardly from the substrate, the array of conductive projections comprising the structure.
However, in analogous art, Chatterjee teaches throughout the formation of GaN nanopillars as the active structures usable for the electrolysis devices of Murase. It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of filing to include the teaching of Chatterjee to provide an increased surface area for electrolysis based generation of hydrogen.
Regarding Claim 16, Murase, Chatterjee and Wolter teach method of claim 16, wherein forming the array of conductive projections comprises implementing a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth procedure such that each conductive projection of the array of conductive projections comprises a respective nanowire (Chatterjee, 1004).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7, 9-15 and 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the cited prior art does not show these methods.
Conclusion
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/EVREN SEVEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2812