| KENT STATE UNIVERSITY Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
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| 20110309305 | Flexible aqueous soluble conductive polymer compositions - A conductive, durable, peelable and flexible polymeric composition such as a coating can be utilized as an electrode sheet or substrate for organic and polymer light emitting diodes, for organic transistors, medical electrodes, and the like. The conductive polymeric composition is a blend of a conductive polymer blend and a peelable polymer blend wherein the conductive polymer comprises a negative-charged accepting polymer and a positive-charged accepting polymer and wherein the peelable polymer blend comprises a water soluble polymer, a polyalkylene oxide, and an alkyl glycol. | 12-22-2011 |
| 20110170039 | Photo-patterned pre-tilt liquid crystal cells, lenses and methods - Liquid crystal cells and lenses having a variable resulting pre-tilt across two or more areas of the cell, and in particular, cells and lenses are provided wherein a resulting pre-tilt is varied across the cell according to any desired birefringence profile that can be utilized in liquid crystalline optical elements and liquid crystal displays. Methods of fabrication of the liquid crystal cells with variable resulting pre-tilt are disclosed. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110160301 | ASCORBATE, VITAMIN K3 AND HYDROXYTOLANS IN THE TREATMENT OF CANCER - The combination of compounds of the hydroxytolan family with ascorbate plus naphthoquinone (Vitamin K3; VK3), or a quinone or semiquinone analogue of VK3, kill tumor cells, inhibit tumor growth and development, and treat cancer in subjects in need thereof. | 06-30-2011 |
| 20110130468 | HYDROXYLATED TOLANS AND RELATED COMPOUNDS IN THE TREATMENT OF A CANCER - Compounds of the hydroxytolan family kill tumor cells, inhibit tumor growth and development, and are thus useful in method for treating a tumor or cancer in subjects in need thereof. These compounds are also active in preventing or treating a variety of skin diseases and conditions. The most preferred hydroxytolan compounds are 4,4′-dihydroxytolan. (KST-201), 4 hydroxy 4′ trifluoromethyltolan or 4′ hydroxy 4 trifluoromethyltolan (KST-213), 3,4′,5-trihydroxytolan or 3′,4,5′-trihydroxytolan (KST-301) and 3,3′,5,5′-tetrahydroxytolan (KST-401). The compounds and methods of using them alone and in combination with ascorbate and certain cyclic compounds to inhibit the development, growth or metastasis of tumor/cancer or preneoplastic cells, or to prevent or treat skin disorders in a subject are disclosed. | 06-02-2011 |
| 20110089382 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR MONITORING AND CONTROLLING SURFACTANT CONCENTRATION IN LIQUID CRYSTAL COLLOIDAL DISPERSIONS - There are provided methods and systems for precisely controlling the surfactant concentration and character of ferroelectric nanoparticles in a ferroelectric liquid crystal dispersion. In an aspect, the invention provides an efficient FTIR technique to characterize the status and measure the distribution of the surfactant in ferroelectric particle dispersion. This allows for establishing a reproducible fabrication process for ferroelectric nanoparticle liquid crystal dispersions. The methods also maintain the nanoparticles ferroelectricity, which is provided by the addition of surfactant during a comminution process. The invention therefore optimizes both the milling time (to achieve small particle size and narrow size distribution) and surfactant concentration (to maintain the ferroelectricity during milling). | 04-21-2011 |
| 20110085229 | Methods and Apparatus for Controlling Dispersions of Nanoparticles - Electrically reconfigurable metamaterial with spatially varied refractive index is proposed for applications such as optical cloaks and lenses. The apparatus and method comprises a metamaterial in which the refractive indices are modified in space and time by applying one or more electric fields. The metamaterials are electrically controllable and reconfigurable, and consist of metal (gold, silver, etc.) particles of different shapes, such as rods, with dimension much smaller than the wavelength of light, dispersed in a dielectric medium, for example, fluids such as water, toluene, oil, glycerine, thermotropic liquid crystal, lyotropic liquid crystal, polymer, elastomer, and other suitable materials placed in a non-uniform electric field. The metamaterial is controlled by applying a non-uniform electric field that causes two effects: (1) It aligns the metallic anisometric particles with respect to the direction of the applied electric field and (2) It redistributes particles in space, making their local concentration position dependent. Both effects modify the local value of the dielectric permittivity of the composite meta-material, thus modifying its effective optical refractive index (or indices, as the material is often birefringent). | 04-14-2011 |
| 20110068493 | Stimuli responsive liquid crystal-polymer composite fibers - A process for making a stimuli responsive liquid crystal-polymer composite fiber comprising mixing a liquid crystal, a polymer, and a solvent; processing the mixture in the presence of an electric potential across a collection distance; phase separating a polymer and said liquid crystal; and encapsulating said liquid crystal within said polymer. The fiber generally comprises a liquid crystal core and a polymer shell wherein the liquid crystal is responsive to chemical changes, thermal and mechanical effects, as well as electrical and magnetic fields. A liquid crystal containing fiber can be utilized as optical fibers, in textiles, and in optoelectronic devices. | 03-24-2011 |
| 20110063564 | LIQUID CRYSTAL COMPOSITE, CELL, DEVICE, AND METHOD THEREOF - The invention provides a liquid crystal (LC) composite, a LC cell, a LC device, and a method thereof. The LC composite comprises (i) a liquid crystal material, and (ii) a copolymer polymerized from LC monomers and non-LC-monomers; and the LC composite is mechanically stressed/sheared. The invention exhibits numerous merits such as high transmittance in visible and IR range, hysteresis free, and a simple fabrication process; and may be utilized in LC device applications such as adaptive optics e.g. beam steering devices and fast tip-tilt wavefront correctors; and general optical applications such as eye wears, compact cameras and compact telescopes. | 03-17-2011 |
| 20110025955 | Tunable electro-optic liquid crystal lenses and methods for forming the lenses - Electro-optic lenses, including liquid crystals, wherein the power of the lenses can be modified by application of an electric field. In one embodiment, the liquid crystal-based lenses include ring electrodes having a resistive bridge located between adjacent electrodes, and in a preferred embodiment, input connections for several electrode rings are spaced on the lens. In a further embodiment, liquid crystal-based lenses are provided that can increase optical power through the use of phase resets, wherein in one embodiment, a lens includes ring electrodes on surfaces of the substrates on opposite sides of the liquid crystal cell such that a fixed phase term can be added to each set of electrodes that allows for phase change across each group of electrodes to be the same and also be matched with respect to a previous group. | 02-03-2011 |
| 20110017949 | Methods and apparatus to produce aligned film of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals - The present invention comprises a device and method for ordering molecules of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals to aligned structure of a dried film. An example of an aligned film may be transparent to visible light but not transparent to polarized light in the ultraviolet and/or infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A shearing device having a shearing tool and a repelling pad may repel the solvent and provide a shear force to shear the LCLC dissolved in the solvent as a film on the surface of a substrate. A method of making an aligned lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal-based film comprises providing a mixture of a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal material in a solvent for the liquid crystal material, applying the mixture to a substrate, shearing the lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal with a shearing device and removing the solvent to produce an aligned lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal-based film. | 01-27-2011 |
| 20100318652 | APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR REAL-TIME MULTIMEDIA NETWORK TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT & CONTROL IN WIRELESS NETWORKS - The invention is directed to network management systems and methods that provide substantially real-time network management and control capabilities of multimedia streaming traffic in telecommunications networks. The invention provides pre-emptive and autonomous network management and control capabilities, and may include shared intelligence of embedded systems—Heterogeneous Sensor Entities (HSE) and the Sensor Service Management (SSM) system. HSEs are distributed real-time embedded systems provisioned in various network elements. HSEs performs fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security network management functions in real-time; and real-time network management control activations and removals. SSM facilitates automated decision making, rapid deployment of HSEs and real-time provisioning of network management and control services. The service communication framework amongst various HSEs and the SSM is provided by the Heterogeneous Service Creation system. The proposed network management procedure provides real-time network management and control capabilities of multimedia traffic in wireless networks and clusters of independent networks respectively. | 12-16-2010 |
| 20100315568 | Liquid crystal devices and methods providing fast switching mode - A liquid crystal device includes carbon nanotube-doped liquid crystal materials that have a fast switching mode. The liquid crystals may be nematic liquid crystals contained in an optically controlled birefringence cell, with a small amount of nanotubes relative to the liquid crystals. The cell may operate between an optical bend state and homeotropic state, where the liquid crystals aligning in a bend state in response to low voltage and transform to a homeotropic state in response to high voltage. The cell may capable of a large change in effective birefringence, or variable effective birefringence enabling self-compensated optical retardation. The liquid crystals may be included with an electro-optical film, which may be formed with polymer encapsulated liquid crystals with the inclusion of at least a small amount of nanotubes sufficient to induce homogeneous liquid crystal dispersion. The electro-optical film may be fabricated by lamination or otherwise onto a substrate. | 12-16-2010 |
| 20100254912 | Gadolinium containing prussian blue nanoparticles as nontoxic MRI contrast agents having high relaxivity | 10-07-2010 |
| 20100225868 | TRANSPARENT CONDUCTING ELECTRODES AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING - The invention relates to flexible liquid crystal devices and methods, and the electrically conducting backplane of a liquid crystal display for example. A substrate is provided that supports components of a liquid crystal display including a liquid crystal layer that is electrically addressed to produce images. The substrate can be flexible or drapable. An electrode arrangement is formed on the substrate, which includes a plurality of small islands or zones of highly conductive material. The highly conductive islands or zones may be dimensioned to be smaller than the dimensions of the electrode pattern, and are electrically isolated from one another. The plurality of islands or zones are then connected in a predetermined pattern by a conducting polymer layer having a predetermined configuration to provide the desired electrode pattern. | 09-09-2010 |
| 20100215587 | MATERIALS AND METHODS FOR MRI CONTRAST AGENTS AND DRUG DELIVERY - A material useful as a MRI contrast agent used for medical imaging, drug delivery platform or other functions are provided as a class of non-gadolinium and non-iron oxide based materials that comprise Prussian blue materials or analogue materials. The materials may be used as T | 08-26-2010 |
| 20100207493 | ELECTRO-MECHANICAL ENERGY CONVERSION DEVICES AND SYSTEMS - There are provided methods for creating energy conversion devices based on the giant flexoelectric effect in non-calamitic liquid crystals. By preparing a substance comprising at least one type of non-calamitic liquid crystal molecules and stabilizing the substance to form a mechanically flexible material, flexible conductive electrodes may be applied to the material to create an electro-mechanical energy conversion device which relies on the giant flexoelectric effect to produce electrical and/or mechanical energy that is usable in such applications as, for example, power sources, energy dissipation, sensors/transducers, and actuators. | 08-19-2010 |
| 20100182026 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR DETERMINING FLEXOELECTRIC EFFECT IN A LIQUID CRYSTAL - There are provided methods for creating energy conversion devices based on the giant flexoelectric effect in non-calamitic liquid crystals. By preparing a substance comprising at least one type of non-calamitic liquid crystal molecules and stabilizing the substance to form a mechanically flexible material, flexible conductive electrodes may be applied to the material to create an electro-mechanical energy conversion device which relies on the giant flexoelectric effect to produce electrical and/or mechanical energy that is usable in such applications as, for example, power sources, energy dissipation, sensors/transducers, and actuators. | 07-22-2010 |
| 20100115764 | STRESSED LIQUID CRYSTALS MATERIALS FOR LIGHT MODULATION - A new light modulating material using interconnected unidirectionally oriented microdomains of a liquid crystal, dispersed in a stressed polymer structure, is provided. The light modulating material is prepared by dissolving the liquid crystal in an uncured monomer and then curing the monomer so that the polymer forms a well-developed interpenetrating structure of polymer chains or sheets that is uniformly dispersed through the film. When the film is subjected to stress deformation the liquid crystal undergoes a change in its unidirectional orientation. The concentration of the polymer is high enough to hold the shear stress, but is as low as possible to provide the highest switch of the phase retardation when an electric field is applied. The new materials are optically transparent and provide phase modulation of the incident light opposed to the low driving voltage, linear electro-optical response, and absence of hysteresis. It has been shown that these new materials may be successfully used in display applications, optical modulator, and beam steering devices. | 05-13-2010 |
| 20100099076 | SENSITIVE AND RAPID DETECTION OF VIRAL PARTICLES IN EARLY VIRAL INFECTION BY LASER TWEEZERS - The present system and methods allow for low level detection of as little as single pathogen particles, such as viral or bacterial particles, during the early stage of infection. An optical trapping system, such as laser tweezers, are used to trap a substrate to which an analyte has been bound to detect and record the thermal motion of an antibody-antigen interaction that may occur between an anti-viral antibody-coated microsphere and a viral particle for example. The system may be equipped with a detection system such as a position sensitive photodetector (PSD) to record the thermal motion of a trapped microsphere and particle at a certain frequency. The thermal motion data may be Fourier transformed into a power spectrum, which may be transformed into an output value using a Lorentzian equation. The power spectrum of the trapped microsphere may be recorded before and after binding of the pathogenic particle to determine the presence thereof. | 04-22-2010 |
| 20100051194 | POLYMER ENHANCED CHOLESTERIC ELECTRO-OPTICAL DEVICES - The present invention provides liquid crystal devices comprised of a composite of an internal polymer network localized on the substrate surfaces and short-pitch dual-frequency switchable cholesteric liquid crystal that operate in two different modes including in-plane switching (amplitude modulation) and out-of-plane switching (phase modulation). The invention further provides a method of making a liquid crystal device demonstrating uniform lying helical axis where the device comprises a composite of an internal spatially ordered polymer network localized by in-situ photo-polymerization at the surface of the substrate. The invention can be used for flat panel displays, as well as spatial light modulators for applications such as optical waveguides, optical beam scanners, computer-generated holograms, and adaptive optics. | 03-04-2010 |
| 20100029952 | Fluorogenic compounds converted to fluorophores by photochemical or chemical means and their use in biological systems - Fluorophores derived from photoactivatable azide-pi-acceptor fluorogens or from a thermal reaction of an azide-pi-acceptor fluorogen with an alkene or alkyne are disclosed. Fluorophores derived from a thermal reaction of an alkyne-pi-acceptor fluorogen with an azide are also disclosed. The fluorophores can readily be activated by light and can be used to label a biomolecule and imaged on a single-molecule level in living cells. | 02-04-2010 |
| 20100002177 | LIQUID CRYSTAL ALIGNMENT USING INKJET PRINTED POLYMERS - A method of preparing liquid crystal alignment films using an inkjet printer to control liquid crystal alignment is disclosed. The alignment ink is formulated from a single alignment material or combination of alignment materials to realize desired pretilt angle. The alignment films can be applied with designed patterns of alignment films of different pretilt angle on at least one substrate to achieve pattern-aligned liquid crystal devices. | 01-07-2010 |
| 20090290078 | BISTABLE SWITCHABLE LIQUID CRYSTAL WINDOW - A bistable switchable liquid crystal device is provided in which the device can be switched between a transparent and an opaque state by a predetermined voltage pulse. The device is based on polymer stabilized cholesteric materials. No additional amount of voltage has to be applied to the device in order to sustain the optical states. Therefore, the device is energy-saving. | 11-26-2009 |
| 20090255327 | Broad-range nanoliter rheometer - A nanoliter rheometer is capable of operating over a wide range of temperatures and permits visual observation of extremely small amounts of various often complex and/or expensive small nanoliter size fluids over a wide viscoelastic regime. The nanoliter rheometer comprises two very thin fibers, the ends of which are in close proximity to one another and desirably parallel to one another with one fiber being moved by a drive system and the remaining fiber desirably being stationary and capable of measuring a force transferred through a nanoliter size fluid located between the two fibers ends. The transferred force can be measured either by an LCR meter or a piezoelectric crystal and recorded as by a lock-in amplifier. | 10-15-2009 |
| 20090170195 | CURCUMIN-HYALURONAN COMPOUNDS - A dissociable complex is disclosed. The dissociable complex includes at least one molecule of curcumin, at least one molecule of hyaluronic acid, and at least one linker molecule, wherein a first portion of the linker molecule is bonded to the curcumin and a second portion of the linker molecule is bonded to the hyaluronic acid. | 07-02-2009 |
| 20090040453 | Method of plasma beam bombardment of aligning films for liquid crystals - Methods for treating aligning substrates produces uniform alignment of liquid crystals in at least two modes. The method is based on the treatment of liquid crystal aligning substrates with a collimated or partially collimated plasma beam. In one embodiment, the method comprises a step of bombarding an aligning substrate with at least one plasma beam from a plasma beam source at a designated incident angle to align the atomic/molecular structure or the surface profile of the aligning substrate in at least one aligned direction. | 02-12-2009 |
| 20090027676 | MEASUREMENT OF THE ABSORPTION COEFFICIENT OF LIGHT ABSORBING LIQUIDS AND THEIR USE FOR QUANTITATIVE IMAGING OF SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY - An optical measurement system for obtaining information such as the absorption coefficient of a light-absorbing liquid, or a surface profile of an object immersed in a light-absorbing liquid having a known absorption coefficient. The system includes a light source that transmits light through the liquid, a detector that records an image of the light transmitted through the sample and a processor or other means adapted to analyze the intensity distribution found on the image to generate information about the sample. | 01-29-2009 |
| 20080303376 | DEVICES AND METHODS FOR ENERGY CONVERSION BASEDON THE GIANT FLEXOELECTRIC EFFECT IN NON-CALAMITIC LIQUID CRYSTALS - Devices and methods for energy conversion based on the giant flexoelectric effect in non-calamitic liquid crystals. By preparing a substance comprising at least one type of non-calamitic liquid crystal molecules and stabilizing the substance to form a mechanically flexible material, flexible conductive electrodes may be applied to the material to create an electro-mechanical energy conversion device which relies on the giant flexoelectric effect to produce electrical and/or mechanical energy that is usable in such applications as, for example, power sources, energy dissipation, sensors/transducers, and actuators. The ability to directly and accurately measure the giant flexoelectric effect for different types of non-calamitic liquid crystal molecules is important for identifying molecules that may be effective for particular applications. | 12-11-2008 |
