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. 18136148 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.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Allowable subject matter
Claims 7-9 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: Joynt et al. (US 11,133,388).
With respect to dependent claim 7, the cited prior art does not anticipate or make obvious, inter alia, the step of: “wherein the average concentration of germanium in the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon is in the range from 1 atomic percent to 10 atomic percent, the shear strain is in the range from 0.1% to 10%, or both”.
With respect to dependent claims 8-9, the cited prior art does not anticipate or make obvious, inter alia, the step of: “wherein the shear strain is induced by one or more trenches formed in the heterostructure and aligned along a crystallographic direction or a crystallographic direction of the silicon”.
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.
Claims 1-6, 10-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Joynt et al. (US 11,133,388) in view of Takayama et al. (US 2020/0067267).
Regarding Independent claim 1, Joynt et al. teach a heterostructure comprising:
a first quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 204, Col. 4, line 45) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium;
a second quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 206, Col. 4, lines 45-46) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium; and
a quantum well (Fig. 2, element 202, Col. 4, line 44) comprising a layer of germanium-seeded silicon (Col. 5, lines 29-32) disposed between the first quantum barrier and the second quantum barrier,
wherein the layer of germanium-seeded silicon has an oscillating germanium concentration along its thickness direction (z) (Figs. 1-2, 3A-3B, Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2).
Joynt et al. do not explicitly disclose a quantum well comprising a layer of a shear strain, ε.sub.xy, in a plane normal to the thickness direction.
Takayama et al. teach a quantum well with a shear stress in the xy plane (paragraph 0325-0326).
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 Joynt et al. according to the teachings of Takayama et al. with the motivation to affect the band structure of the quantum well layer (paragraph 0325).
Regarding claim 2, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 100 μeV (Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2).
Regarding claim 3, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 200 μeV (Col. 4, lines 21-25).
Regarding claim 4, Joynt et al. teach wherein the oscillating germanium concentration has a sinusoidal profile (Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 5, Joynt et al. teach wherein the sinusoidal profile has a wavelength in the range from 1.2 nm to 2.5 nm (Col. 5, lines 65-67).
Regarding claim 6, Joynt et al. teach wherein the sinusoidal profile has a wavelength in the range from 1.4 nm to 2.3 nm (Col. 5, lines 65-67).
Regarding claim 10, Joynt et al. teach wherein the first quantum barrier and the second quantum barrier comprise the layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46).
Regarding Independent claim 11, Joynt et al. teach a gate-controlled quantum dot (Col. 6, line 16) comprising: a heterostructure comprising:
a first quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 204, Col. 4, line 45) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium;
a second quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 206, Col. 4, lines 45-46) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium; and
a quantum well (Fig. 2, element 202, Col. 4, line 44) comprising a layer of germanium-seeded silicon (Col. 5, lines 29-32) disposed between the first quantum barrier and the second quantum barrier,
wherein the layer of germanium-seeded silicon has an oscillating germanium concentration along its thickness direction (z) (Figs. 1-2, 3A-3B, Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2); and
one or more electrostatic gates in electrical communication with the heterostructure, wherein the one or more electrostatic gates are configured to apply a controllable potential to the quantum well that confines electrons in the quantum well in three dimensions (Col. 1, line 67, Col. 2, lines 1-6, Col. 6, lines 33-36).
Joynt et al. do not explicitly disclose a quantum well comprising a layer of a shear strain, ε.sub.xy, in a plane normal to the thickness direction.
Takayama et al. teach a quantum well with a shear stress in the xy plane (paragraph 0325-0326).
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 Joynt et al. according to the teachings of Takayama et al. with the motivation to affect the band structure of the quantum well layer (paragraph 0325).
Regarding claim 12, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 100 μeV (Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2).
Regarding claim 13, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 200 μeV (Col. 4, lines 21-25).
Regarding claim 14, Joynt et al. teach herein the oscillating germanium concentration has a sinusoidal profile (Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 15, Joynt et al. teach wherein the sinusoidal profile has a wavelength in the range from 1.2 nm to 2.5 nm (Col. 5, lines 65-67).
Regarding Independent claim 16, Joynt et al. teach a quantum computing system for performing quantum computation (Col. 6, lines 57-60), the system comprising: a heterostructure comprising:
a first quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 204, Col. 4, line 45) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium;
a second quantum barrier (Fig. 2, element 206, Col. 4, lines 45-46) comprising a layer of silicon-germanium alloy (Col. 4, lines 44-46) or a layer of germanium; and
a quantum well (Fig. 2, element 202, Col. 4, line 44) comprising a layer of germanium-seeded silicon (Col. 5, lines 29-32) disposed between the first quantum barrier and the second quantum barrier,
wherein the layer of germanium-seeded silicon has an oscillating germanium concentration along its thickness direction (z) (Figs. 1-2, 3A-3B, Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2);
one or more electrostatic gates in electrical communication with the heterostructure, the one or more electrostatic gates being configured to apply controllable potentials to the quantum well, wherein the controllable potentials define one or more gate-controlled qubits in the heterostructure (Col. 1, line 67, Col. 2, lines 1-6, Col. 6, lines 33-36);
a controller (Fig. 4, element 406) for controlling the potentials applied by the one or more electrostatic gates; and
a sensor (Col. 2, lines 24-25) for reading out a state of the one or more gate-controlled qubits.
Joynt et al. do not explicitly disclose a quantum well comprising a layer of a shear strain, ε.sub.xy, in a plane normal to the thickness direction.
Takayama et al. teach a quantum well with a shear stress in the xy plane (paragraph 0325-0326).
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 Joynt et al. according to the teachings of Takayama et al. with the motivation to affect the band structure of the quantum well layer (paragraph 0325).
Regarding claim 17, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 100 μeV (Col. 3, lines 66-67, Col. 4, lines 1-2).
Regarding claim 18, Joynt et al. teach wherein the shear-strained germanium-seeded silicon has a valley splitting of at least 200 μeV (Col. 4, lines 21-25).
Regarding claim 19, Joynt et al. teach herein the oscillating germanium concentration has a sinusoidal profile (Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 20, Joynt et al. teach wherein the sinusoidal profile has a wavelength in the range from 1.2 nm to 2.5 nm (Col. 5, lines 65-67).
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