Surface catalyst infra red laser

• US 6,678,305 B1
• Filed: 10/19/2000
• Issued: 01/13/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: NeoKismet, LLC
• Original Assignee: Noekismet LLC
• Inventors: Gidwani, Jawahar M., Zuppero, Anthony C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jackson, Jerome
• Assistant Examiner(s): Landau, Matthew C
• Application Number:
  US09/691,948
• Time in Patent Office: 1,181 Days
• Field of Search: 372/55, 372/89, 372/90, 372/60, 423/219
• US Class Current: 372/89
• CPC Class Codes: B01J 23/34 Manganese
• CPC Class Codes: B01J 23/40 of the platinum group metals
• CPC Class Codes: C01B 3/386 Catalytic partial combustion
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 29/66 Types of semiconductor device ; Multistep manufacturing processes therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/095 using chemical or thermal pumping
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/0953 Gas dynamic lasers, i.e. with expansion of the laser gas medium to supersonic flow speeds
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/22 Gases
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/223 the active gas being polyatomic, i.e. containing two or more atoms H01S3/227 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02S 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 10/50 Photovoltaic [PV] energy
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 20/52 using catalysts, e.g. selective catalysts

Abstract

An energy converter reacts hydrocarbons and air on a catalyst configuration to produce a population inversion. A photovoltaic system may extract the radiating energy, and a laser system may extract a significant fraction of the reaction energy in the form of coherent radiation. The flooding of the catalyst adsorption sites with fuel and the choice of catalyst predisposes the adsorbing oxygen molecules to create mono-atomic oxygen hot-atoms, which deposit the considerable energy of oxygen adsorption directly into a reaction channel of adjacent, adsorbed and simple fuel radicals, thereby producing simple, energetic product molecules, concentrating the energy in one or a few modes, and strongly favoring inverted populations. A solid state method to stimulate precursor chemisorbed specie dissociation accelerates the reaction rates, providing a method to greatly intensify pulsed power output, increase efficiency, and to facilitate nano-scale and micro-scale thermal energy heat rejection processes.

Claims

1. A method of stimulating emission of radiation, comprising:

providing a catalyst having a dissociation energy barrier for one or more reactants, the catalyst having a surface with step site formations;

providing one or more reactants on the catalyst surface to produce hot atoms from the one or more reactants and cause simple vibrationally energetic molecules to be generated from the hot atoms reacting with the one or more reactants;

providing a frequency chirped time sequenced stimulation radiation near the surface of the catalyst to stimulate emission; and

enabling cooling of the catalyst to induce condensation and concentration on the catalyst surface.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing one or more reactants includes:

providing one or more reactant molecules to flood the surface of the catalyst with the one or more reactant molecules.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more reactant molecules include one or more of oxygen and fuel.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the catalyst surface is provided with fuel to cause a bias of a dissociative chemisorption process toward creation of hot atom oxygen free radicals, wherein a collision partner of the hot atom is the fuel.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the reactants comprise at least oxygen and fuel and the catalyst is selected such that oxygen dissociation energy is a fraction of energy resulting from reacting the reactants.

6. The method of claim 5, further including:

flooding the catalyst surface with oxidizer radicals to cause a bias of a dissociative chemisorption process toward a creation of hot atom fuel free radicals, wherein a collision partner of the hot atom is fuel.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a hot atom-containing molecule is fuel.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the catalyst is selected from one or a combination of platinum, palladium, iridium, Rhenium, Rhodium.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more reactant molecules include one or combination of hydrogen, methanol, ethanol, and a product of hydrocarbon reformers.

10. A method of stimulating emission of radiation, comprising:

providing a catalyst having a dissociation energy barrier for one or more reactants, the catalyst having a surface with step site formations;

providing one or more reactants on the catalyst surface to produce hot atoms from the one or more reactants and cause simple vibrationally energetic molecules to be generated from the hot atoms reacting with the one or more reactants;

providing a frequency chirped time sequenced stimulation radiation near the surface of the catalyst to stimulate emission;

forming a substrate comprising at least a diode in contact with the catalyst, wherein a distance from an adsorbate on the catalyst surface to the diode is less than 3 times energy mean free path associated with hot electron energy decay in a region between the adsorbate and the diode; and

providing a pulse of electrical energy to charge the diode.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the catalyst includes platinum, palladium, iridium, Rhenium, or Rhodium, or combination thereof.

12. The method of claim 10, further including:

stimulating the production of the hot atoms.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the substrate has a heat conductivity substantially lower than a heat conductivity of the catalyst.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the substrate includes thin oxide layers to control diode junction barrier heights.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the oxide layers have a thickness of 100 nanometers or less.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the stimulating includes stimulating using one of a pulsed light source, a pulsed laser, and pulsed electric field.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the stimulating is performed for a duration less than 20 nanoseconds.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the stimulating is performed at a temperature less than 300 Kelvin.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein the pulse of electrical energy includes a pulsed forward bias sufficient to emit hot electrons into the diode.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the pulsed forward bias is greater than 0.1 electron volts (“

eV”

).

21. The method of claim 10, further including causing the one or more reactants to acquire energy sufficient to surmount the dissociation energy barrier, but not sufficient to surmount a desorption barrier.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the energy is less than 1 eV.

23. The method of claim 10, wherein the diode includes a two terminal device.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the diode includes a metal-insulator-metal device.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the diode includes a metal-semiconductor-metal device.