DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of claims 1-25 in the reply filed on 5/7/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the search and examination of all currently pending claims would not pose an undue burden on the examiner.
This is not found persuasive because the search and examination of Group I and Group II are different and distinct from each other.
Group I is a method of making mixed-kernel heterojunction transistor.
Group II is an apparatus for arrhythmia and using of a mixed-kernel support vector machine.
Since Group I and Group II is distinct and the search and examination of claims will pose an undue burden.
Claims 26-36 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected group II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 5/7/2026.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hersam et al. (WO2021133772, published on Jul. 1, 2021, hereafter using US 12406179 as WO20211337752).
Regarding claim 1, Hersam discloses that a mixed-kernel heterojunction (MKH) transistor, comprising:
a monolayer film 130 formed of an atomically thin material, and a network of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) 150 vertically stacked over the monolayer film to define an overlap region of the CNT network with the monolayer film, and non-overlap regions of the monolayer film and the CNT network, wherein the overlap region is a mixed-kernel van der Waals heterojunction (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 2, Hersam discloses that a bottom gate electrode, a top gate electrode, a source electrode, a drain electrode, a first dielectric layer, a second dielectric layer, and a third dielectric layer, wherein the bottom gate electrode is formed on a substrate; the first dielectric layer is formed on the bottom gate electrode; the monolayer film is formed on the first dielectric layer; the source electrode is formed on a part of the monolayer film; the second dielectric layer is formed on the source electrode; the drain electrode is formed on the second dielectric layer on the top of the source electrode; the CNT network is formed on the drain electrode and the monolayer film to define the overlap region comprising the CNT network and the monolayer film, and the non-overlap regions each of which comprising a respective one of the CNT network and the monolayer film; the third dielectric layer is formed on the CNT network, the monolayer film and the drain electrode over the substrate; and the top gate electrode is formed on the third dielectric layer and overlapping with the overlap region and the non-overlap regions (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 3, Hersam discloses that the atomically thin material comprises a two- dimensional (2D) semiconductor material (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 4, Hersam discloses that the 2D semiconductor material comprises MoS2, MoSe₂, WS2, WSe₂, InSe, GaTe, black phosphorus (BP), or related 2D materials (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 5. , Hersam discloses that the bottom and top gate electrodes and the source and drain electrodes comprise a same conductive material or different conductive materials.
Reclaim 6, Hersam discloses that each of the bottom and top gate electrodes and the source and drain electrodes is formed of gold (Au), titanium (Ti), aluminum (Al), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), or other conductive materials (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 7, Hersam discloses that the first, second and third dielectric layers comprise a same dielectric material or different dielectric materials (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 8. The MKH transistor of claim 7, wherein each of the first, second and third dielectric layers is formed of Al₂O₃, HfO₂, ZrO₂, ZnO, SiO₂, or dielectrics including alumina, hafnia, or zirconia (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 9, Hersam discloses that the monolayer film comprises a monolayer MoS₂ grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), mechanical exfoliation, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), or atomic layer deposition (ALD) as an n-type material, and the CNT network comprises solution-processed semiconducting CNT thin film as a p-type material (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 10, Hersam discloses that the overlap region in combination with the MoS2 and CNT transistors in series in the non-overlapping regions enables highly tunable anti- ambipolar transfer characteristics (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 11, Hersam discloses that the overlap region of the MoS2/CNT heterostructure forms a p-n junction diode with nanomaterial-enabled partial electric-field screening in the overlap region (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 12, Hersam discloses that the overlap region of the MoS2/CNT heterostructure controls the degree of electric-field screening of the top and bottom gates (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 13, Hersam discloses that Gaussian kernel functions with tunable mean, amplitude and standard deviation are yielded under different dual-gating conditions (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 14, Hersam discloses that the Gaussian behavior is both symmetric and shows significant width tunability, which is enabled by the weak screening in the overlap region (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 15, Hersam discloses that the network density of the solution-processed CNTs is tunable over a wide range, thereby allowing precise control over the degree of screening (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 16, Hersam discloses that the network density comprises a linear density of about 7 CNTs/µm, which avoids the n-type arm in the CNT ambipolar response compared to higher CNT densities and provides the optimal level of top-gate screening (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 17, Hersam discloses that by tailoring the degree of electric-field screening through control over CNT density and overlap area, dual-gated MoS2/CNT heterojunctions enable the MKH transistor with tunable Gaussian, sigmoid, and mixed kernel functionality (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 18, Hersam discloses that a 10 µm overlap region of the MoS2/CNT heterojunction yields optimal sigmoid functions in comparison with smaller overlap sizes (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 1918, Hersam discloses that precise control over electric-field screening in MKH transistor enables the generation of a complete set of fine-grained Gaussian, sigmoid, and mixed-kernel functions using only a single device (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 20, Hersam discloses that the MHK transistor for generating mixed kernels enables efficient and effective SVM classification for personalized arrhythmia detection from electrocardiogram (ECG) data (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 21, Hersam discloses that being amenable to personalized kernels that enable arrhythmia detection accuracies approaching 95% for diverse patient profiles (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 22, Hersam discloses that in conjunction with Bayesian optimization, the MKH transistor provides effective and efficient hyperparameter searching, which further enhances classification performance (Fig. 1E).
Reclaim 23, Hersam discloses that being configured such that the number of circuit elements for mixed-kernel SVM is reducible by approximately two orders of magnitude, thereby enabling high classification accuracy in a scalable and energy-efficient manner.
Reclaim 24, Hersam discloses that the self-aligned, semi-vertical device geometry enables to achieve a complete set of mixed Gaussian/sigmoid kernels simply by varying the biases to the top and bottom gates (Fig. 1E).
Regarding claim 25, Hersam discloses that a circuit, comprising at least one MKH transistor according to claim 1 (Fig. 1E).
Conclusion
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/SU C KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2899
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