Appeal No. 95-4799
Application 07/996,516
This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection
of claims 11, 12, 16 and 17. Claims 1 through 10 have been
cancelled. The examiner has withdrawn the final rejection of
claims 13 through 15 and 18 through 20, indicating them to be
allowable.
The invention is directed to a radiation detector
employing superconductors rather than the semiconductors employed
in prior art detection devices. The problem with
superconductors, i.e., that increasing surface area for more
efficient detection operation causes a decrease in detection
signal quality due to an increase in capacitance of the tunnel
junction, is said to be solved by the invention by providing an
optimal number of series-connected superconducting tunnel
junctions for a particular detector. The number of these tunnel
junctions is said to be optimal for a fixed area of the detector
when certain relationships between the total area of the
superconducting tunnel junctions and the capacitance per unit
area of the superconducting tunnel junctions are established.
Representative independent claim 11 is reproduced as
follows:
11. A radiation detection device comprising:
-2-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007