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. 18455975 filed on 08/25/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgment is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO-1449. These IDS has been considered.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-2, 4-17, 19 in the reply filed on 12/22/025 is acknowledged.
Allowable subject matter
Claim 2 is 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: Zhang et al. (CN 110459660 A).
With respect to dependent claim 2, the cited prior art does not anticipate or make obvious, inter alia, the step of: “wherein said diffusion barrier layer is disposed inside said through holes of said light-transmissive dielectric layer”.
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, 5-17, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (CN 110459660 A) in view of Choi et al. (TW 200707811 A).
Regarding Independent claim 1, Zhang et al. teach a light-emitting device, comprising:
a semiconductor epitaxial stack (Fig. 1, elements 106, 107 & 108) that has a first surface (top surface of 108) and a second surface (bottom surface of 106) opposite to said first surface, and
that includes a first semiconductor layer (Fig.1, element 106),
an active layer (Fig.1, element 107), and
a second semiconductor layer (Fig.1, element 108) sequentially stacked on one another in such order in a direction from said second surface to said first surface, said first surface being a light-exiting surface;
a light-transmissive dielectric layer (Fig.1, element 104) that is disposed on said second surface of said semiconductor epitaxial stack, and that has a plurality of through holes (Fig. 1);
an ohmic contact layer (Fig.1, element 105) that is formed in said through holes of said light-transmissive dielectric layer, and that is in contact with said first semiconductor layer;
an adhesion layer (Fig.1, element 103) that is disposed on said light-transmissive dielectric layer opposite to said semiconductor epitaxial stack;
a metal reflection layer (Fig.1, element 102) that is disposed on said adhesion layer opposite to said semiconductor epitaxial stack.
Zhang et al. do not explicitly disclose a diffusion barrier layer that is disposed between said ohmic contact layer and said adhesion layer.
Choi et al. teach a light emitting device comprising a diffusion barrier layer (Fig. 3, element 14) that is disposed between said ohmic contact layer (Fig. 3, element 13) and said adhesion layer (Fig. 3, element 17).
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 Zhang et al. according to the teachings of Choi et al. with the motivation to prevent components of the adhesion layer from diffusing into the ohmic contact metal layer.
Regarding claim 5, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein each of said diffusion barrier layer (Choi et al. teach diffusion barrier layer comprising of transition metal like Ni, Ru, Ta, W etc.) and said ohmic contact layer (Zhang et al. discloses ohmic contact layer comprising nickel, germanium, beryllium, gold-nickel etc.) includes metal atoms, said metal atoms of said diffusion barrier layer having an atomic mobility lower than that of said metal atoms of said ohmic contact layer.
Regarding claim 6, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said diffusion barrier layer (106) includes Pt, Ti, Ni, Cr, or combinations thereof (Choi et al. teach diffusion barrier layer comprising of transition metal like Ni, Ru, Ta, W etc.).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said light-transmissive dielectric layer has a thickness greater than that of said ohmic contact layer (Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 8, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said diffusion barrier layer has a thickness ranging from 30 nm to 120 nm (The thickness of the barrier layer can be varied to decrease the migration. Therefore, the thickness is an art recognized variable. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to vary, through routine optimization, the thickness and arrive at the claimed limitation. Furthermore, the applicant has not presented persuasive evidence that the claimed thickness is for a particular purpose that is critical to the overall claimed invention.
Regarding claim 9, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said ohmic contact layer is made of a metal alloy that includes at least one of Au, Ag, or Al, and at least one of Zn, Be, Ge, or Ni (Zhang et al. discloses ohmic contact layer comprising nickel, germanium, beryllium, gold-nickel etc.).
Regarding claim 10, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said light-transmissive dielectric layer has a thickness ranging from 100 nm to 500 nm (Zhang et al. teach transparent dielectric layer is more than 50nm, such as from 50 to 500nm).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said adhesion layer is disposed between said light-transmissive dielectric layer and said metal reflection layer (Fig. 1) and is made of a light-transmissive material (Zhang et al. disclose adhesion layer 103 typically is an IZO or ITO).
Regarding claim 12, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said adhesion layer is made of one of IZO and ITO (Zhang et al. disclose adhesion layer 103 typically is an IZO or ITO).
Regarding claim 13, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said adhesion layer has a thickness ranging from 1 nm to 10 nm (Zhang et al. teach “Preferably, wherein at least 0.1nm to 10nm of the thickness of the adhesion layer”.
Regarding claim 14, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said light-transmissive dielectric layer has one of a single-layered structure and a multi-layered structure, and is made of one of nitride, oxide, fluoride, and combinations thereof (Zhang et al. teach “Preferably, the transparent dielectric layer is single layer or multiple layers, wherein each layer is magnesium fluoride or silicon oxide layer”).
Regarding claim 15, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said metal reflection layer has a reflectivity no smaller than 70% (Zhang et al. teach Ag/Cu/Pd).
Regarding claim 16, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said metal reflection layer (102) is made of one of Ag, Ni, Al, Rh, Pd, Ir, Ru, Mg, Zn, Pt, Au, Hf, and combinations thereof (Zhang et al. teach Ag/Cu/Pd).
Regarding claim 17, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach wherein said light-emitting device emits light having a wavelength of one of red light and infrared light (specification discloses red/infrared).
Regarding claim 19, Zhang et al. modified by Choi et al. teach a light-emitting apparatus, comprising the light-emitting device as claimed in claim 1 (Fig 1).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (CN 110459660 A) in view of Choi et al. (TW 200707811 A) and further in view of West et al. (US 2022/0045236).
Regarding claim 4, Zhang et al. teach wherein said ohmic contact layer include metal atoms (specification discloses ohmic metal layer comprising “nickel, germanium, beryllium, gold-nickel”).
Zhange et al. modified by Choi et al. do not explicitly disclose wherein said ohmic contact layer and said adhesion layer include same metal atoms.
Before the effective filling date of the invention it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to select a known nickel material for an adhesive layer as shown by West et al. in paragraph 0036, 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.
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