Founded in Year 2000 (“Y2K”) and incorporating previous work of NRI’s founder, New Renaissance Institute has repeated established a demonstrative date-specific track record of innovation pre-dating many commercial products and celebrated academic and patent work of other individuals and institutions.
Fifteen examples demonstrating NRI’s Innovation Track Record spanning several technical fields, product marketplaces, and time-frames include:

1. Early NRI Innovations later found in Present Day Commercial Products:

• 1.1 Touchscreen “Flick,” “Squeeze,” and “Stretch” Touch Gestures
• 1.2. Free-Hand Video Gestures for Mobile Devices
• 1.3 Cleanable/Reusable Microfluidic Systems
• 1.4 Microplate Nearest-Neighbor Fluidic Exchange
• 1.5 Microplate Environment Stabilization
• 1.6 Moog Guitar Instruments
• 1.7 Touchpad-based Musical Instrument Controllers

2. Early NRI Innovations later found in Nearly-Commercialized Products:

• 2.1 Lensless Light-Field Imaging
• 2.2 Single Finger 6D-Touch

3. Early NRI Innovations later found in Academia with Likely Near-Term Commercial Appearance:

• 3.1 (Multi-channel) Timbre-Based Data Sonification
• 3.2 Small-Format Lensless Optical Microscopy
• 3.3 Microscopic Lensless Optical Tomography

4. Early NRI Innovations later found in Research with Important Longer-Term Commercialization Paths:

• 4.1 Fractional Fourier Property of Lenses
• 4.2 Human Auditory and Perceptual Eigenfunctions
• 4.3 Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Differential Amplifiers.

These and other significant NRI innovations are discussed throughout the NRI website (particularly in the twenty-four R&D / New Technologies overview pages) and are briefly summarized in the subsequent sections presented below.

Past-to-present NRI has a strong track record in creating important new technologies and patents of commercial value. The now-commercialized technologies (Section 1) and near-commercialized technologies (Section 2) could have been inexpensively commercialized far earlier and captured the new product, OEM, and licensing marketplace at the beginning. Further, only a small fraction of the features and capabilities technologies described in this section have been commercialized, leaving large commercial opportunities available for very profitable licensing and small-investment.

Prior to the founding of NRI, its founder had for two decades established a similar track record, making significant commercialized contributions to communications, multimedia computing, and mobile devices, and developed original patents that were well-respected and widely licensed by industry.
NRI welcomes partner, licensing, investor, and other forms of financial support for its work.

1. Original NRI Innovations later found in Present Day Commercial Products

This first group of example NRI innovations that were later interpedently developed by others pertain to powerful capabilities and features found in important present day commercial products. In most cases NRI developed and patents the technologies with far more features and capabilities many years before the commercial products appeared. In some cases, commercial products and NRI patents were filed about the same time, but the NRI technologies and patents were developed far earlier and provide far more features and capabilities than are available in those commercial products. Features and capabilities of the cited NRI technology and patents that are not yet found in commercial products are ready for immediate commercialization without competition.

Mass-Market Commercialized Consumer Electronics

1.1 Touchscreen “Flick,” “Squeeze,” and “Stretch” Touch Gestures

NRI’s touchscreen, touch-sensor, and gesture technology 1999 patent filing included extensive patent coverage of many touchscreen single finger and multi-touch gestures that are now pervasive in consumer electronics, including the finger-flick, stretch, and squeeze gestures. NRI’s 1999 patent filing predate the Apple iPod^TM and iPhone^TM as well as Jeff Han’s famous and celebrated 2006 TED talk on touchscreen-based multitouch user interfaces. The iPhone gesture touchscreen was independently developed from early opaque touchpad work developed by Westerman and others of FingerWorks^TM. The Westerman implementation available at the time of NRI’s patent filings and for years afterwards could not be implemented as a touchscreen; pairs of transistors collocated with every touch sensor element in the touch sensor array were required, and the first invention of transparent transistors did not occur until four years later in 2003. The US patent office allowed NRI’s touchscreen finger-flick, stretch, and squeeze gesture patents over all pre-dating Westerman patents.

In addition to the use of touch sensor arrays such as used in the iPhone, NRI’s 1999 touch technology patents included recognition of the famous iPhoneTM gestures (flick, stretch, squeeze, swipe, tap, double tap, and drag) gestures with simple inexpensive resistive touchscreens and touchpads, allowing these celebrated game-changing touchscreen gestures to have been implemented in mobile devices many years prior to the commercial release of the iPhone with far-cheaper then-available technologies.

The NRI touchscreen, touch-sensor, and gesture technology and associated 1999 patent filing include many powerful additional capabilities and features that have yet to be commercialized. See Touch, Gesture, and HDTP for more information.

1.2. Free-Hand Video Gestures for Mobile Devices

NRI video-camera “free-space gesture” technology (see the early US 8,519,250 and more general-industry  US 8,878,807, both with 1999 inventorship rights) is a multiple-year precursor to the features provided many years later in at least Android smart phones, and was a topic broadly featured on the front cover and feature article of Communications of the ACM Volume 54 Issue 2, February 2011. New hands-free gestures used to control mobile device features continue to appear in the mobile devices marketplace.

Important Commercialized Life Sciences Microfluidic and Microplate Innovations

1.3 Cleanable/Reusable Microfluidic Systems

NRI’s microfluidic technologies include capabilities for cleanable/reusable microfluidic systems with patents filed featuring these capabilities in 2006 (see for example US 9,636,655). In 2010, Fluidigm Corporation (which that same year MIT Technology Review magazine selected as one of the top 50 most innovative companies in the world) introduced their reusable FR48.48 Dynamic Array Integrated Fluidic Circuit which was touted as “the world’s first reusable bio-chip device for the SNP genotyping market.”

NRI microfluidic technologies technology and associated 2006 and 2007 patent filings include many powerful additional capabilities and features that have yet to be commercialized. For example, although Fluidigm implemented an architecture that facilitated cleaning and reuse, cleaning of the FR48.48 product requires hand-pipetting. In contrast, NRI’s cleaning and reuse architectures facilitate automatic operation and does not require removal of the microfluidic system from the operating environment. See Microfluidic and Lab-On-A-Chip Systems for additional information on these and a vast number of other important microfluidic technologies.

1.4 Microplate Nearest-Neighbor Fluidic Exchange

NRI’s microplate technologies include a vast number of next-generation capabilities and innovations. One of these includes nearest-neighbor fluidic exchange between neighboring microplate wells within rows, columns, or rows and columns, patented in 2012 and 2013.

Recently Sigma-Aldrich introduced its consequential SciFlow^TM 1000 microplate microplate product line which passively connect row-adjacent microplate wells together through capillary channels in the microplate shell with flows induced by gravity in a staircase arrangement. NRI’s patented technology is more sophisticated and can include controllable 1-dimensional (row or column) and 2-dimensional (row and column) nearest-neighbor topology transport and simply-specified software-configured features. No staircase arrangements are needed.

See Next-Generation Microplate Technologies for additional information on these and a great number of other important next-generation microplate technologies. Some of these are being commercialized and further developed by startup Advanced Microplate Technologies.

1.5 Cell-Culture Microplate Environment Stabilization

Originating with innovations and insights from its supported work with cancer cell cultures, NRI has developed an integrated a family of technologies involving gas exchange, fluidics, and instrumentation built into either (ANSI-compliant) cell culture microplate lids and/or built into custom microplates themselves to prevent the need for removal of environmentally-sensitive living cell culture microplates from closely regulated incubator environments. In addition to disrupting essential experimental conditions and even precluding some times of important experiments, opening of the incubator and handling of the microplate exposes all cell cultures in the incubator to experiment-destroying contamination by pathogens Since NRI’s patent filings the important value of not removing living cell culture microplates from closely regulated incubator environments has become increasing recognized, and years later several companies have adapted their existing and legacy technology bases to serve these same needs (albeit in a far more expensive ways).

• The BioTek 2013 (Cytation 3^TM) through 2016 (Lionheart^TM) product line of robotic microscopes outfitted with limited CO₂/O₂ incubation capabilities, illustrating a functionality convergence and recognition that removal of cell-culture microplate during experiment is detrimental.
• Thermo-Fisher now offers offering an option to equip their Varioskan LUX multimode microplate reader with an “an integrated gas module, offering a means of regulating carbon dioxide and oxygen levels during their cell-based kinetic assay” so as to “regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide levels as well as temperature during their assay measurements, without removing their microplate cultures from the reader.” “This allows for full automation of assays and reduces the risk of varying the conditions the cultures are exposed to by opening equipment doors” which “creates the ability for less assay variation and improved data through continuous acquisition, leading to better results.” “What is more, that data can be collected continuously over long experiments without researchers needing to be constantly present at the instruments.”
• The Essen BioScience IncuCyte® S3 live-cell analysis platform is positioned within a standard (third-party) large-format CO₂ incubator (rather than providing incubator functions itself), and has been configured to provide “real-time, automated measurements of cell health, proliferation, movement and function directly inside a standard incubator” and “automates data capture and cell assessment;” “Cells can be continuously monitored, and data collected around-the-clock and at precise, regularly scheduled sampling intervals for days, weeks, or months, while remaining unperturbed in a physiologically relevant environment.”

NRI’s approach of addressing the live cell culture microplate protocol problem with inexpensive technology has not, however, been embraced by life science manufacturers. See Next-Generation Microplate Technologies for additional information on these and a great number of other important next-generation microplate technologies.

NRI is pleased that startup company Advanced Microplate Technologies will seek to commercialize NRI’s important next-generation step in cell-culture microplates to which they will be adding their own original commercialization, integration, and new feature innovations in addition to licensing relevant NRI technologies and patents.

Respected Commercialized Electronic Music Instrument Products

1.6 Moog Guitar Instruments

In various forums, unrelated parties have associated NRI’s patents with the famous “Moog Guitar^TM.” Moog Music has additionally adapted the celebrated 2008 Moog Guitar multichannel independent and simultaneous string sustaining feedback loop technology to steel guitars (The Moog Lap Steel^TM). NRI’s 1999 patents in both types of instruments (US 6,610,917 and US 6,852,919) do pre-date the Moog Guitar and Moog Lap Steel products by many years, and do teach and claim many associated features of these Moog instruments, but NRI’s technology in this area is far more advanced and involved, and produces more sophisticated effects and degrees of intuitive expressive control than is possible with the Moog Guitar and Moog Lap Steel. See Music Instruments for additional information.

1.7 Touchpad-based Musical Instrument Controllers

Earliest versions of the wildly-popular Korg KAOSS^TM Pad was apparent released in 1999, probably in March 1999, and as such was thus contemporaneous with NRI’s 1999 patent filing (US 6,570,078). NRI’s touch-based musical instrument controller technology was, however, developed considerably earlier, included many more capabilities, and was deemed fully patentable by the US Patent Office over the Korg product. In addition to the core popularity of the Korg product, many additional competing and more evolved products have emerged (including the LinnStrument^TM, QuNeo 3D Multi-Touch Pad Controller^TM, Seaboard Rise^TM keyboards, Titan Reality Pulse^TM, Misa Digital Guitar Synthesizer^TM, and celebrated Buchla Thunder^TM), and a Google team recently adapted this same type of touch interface as the preferred controller for Google’s “Magenta” NSynth Super which employs neural networks to generate new sounds from mathematical characteristics of real instrument sounds. Despite all this, many significant additional features of NRI’s touch-based musical instrument controller technology have yet to be commercialized. Especially interesting and powerful is the use of NRI’s touch-based musical instrument controller technology on each key of a conventional musical instrument keyboards (US 7,408,108); the Seaboard Rise^TM keyboards have “4D” and “5D” touch-sensing similar to NRI’s but with unmovable keys; NRI’s technologies will work with usual displaceable-key keyboard actions. See Music Instruments for additional information.

(Because of the close relation to common touchscreen gestures now pervasive in the consumer electronic industry and NRI’s patent assets in that area, NRI has transferred these and related touch and gesture patent asset to NRI spinout company Advanced Touchscreen and Gesture Technologies, LLC (ATGT); NRI’s touch-based musical instrument controller technology can be licensed there.)

2. Important Nearly-Commercialized Products

This second group of example NRI innovations pertain to powerful disruptive technologies that are near commercialization in various ways. In most cases NRI developed and patents the technologies with far more features and capabilities many years before the commercial products appeared. In some cases, commercial products and NRI patents were filed about the same time, but the NRI technologies and patents were developed far earlier and provide far more features and capabilities than are available in those commercial products. Features and capabilities of the cited NRI technology and patents that are not yet found in commercial products are ready for immediate commercialization without competition.

2.1 Lensless Light-Field Imaging

Although light-field imaging cameras date back to the 1908 work of Lippmann and coded-aperture (Gamma-Ray and X-Ray) imaging date back to the 1965 modulation collimator work of Oda and 1968 coded mask work of Dicke, the NRI visible-light lensless light-field imaging camera technology dates back to NRI’s founder’s work and patents filed in 1999 and 2008-2011. This work predated the 2011 Lytro plenoptic light-field imaging camera and the many emerging coded-aperture, phase-grading, and related lensless imaging cameras (circa 2011-2013 Cornell/Rambus “Fourier-Domain Microscale” and “Ultraminiature” imaging cameras, circa 2015 Rice University “FlatCam,” 2016 Hitachi Moire-Pattern lensless camera, the 2017 CalTech Phase-Array lenseless camera, 2017 “DiffuserCam,” among others).

The Rambus lensless camera has been commercially available for several years, and Hitachi Moire-Pattern lensless camera is slated for 2018 product release.

These and the NRI visible-light lensless light-field imaging camera technologies form images in software and can be made from very small and flat. However, NRI’s lensless light-field imaging technologies are in comparison extremely more advanced and can include a vast number of powerful mind-bending additional capabilities, formats, and features (imaging and light-emitting elements can be flat, curved, encapsulating, concave-facing, convex-facing, cylindrical, near-spherical, and even flexible, focus can be made at zero-separation distance, algorithms can render 3D and binocular live video, and image sensors can be made to be self-illuminating). These are discussed in Lensless Light-Field Imaging. Many of the capabilities and features of the NRI visible-light lensless light-field imaging technology hold a promise to potentially completely redefine optoelectronic imaging and which are be independently identified by other companies and institutions.

NRI is presently working to secure funding for a new spinout company (NoLens, Inc.) to commercialize the broader additional capabilities, formats, and features as discussed in Lensless Light-Field Imaging.

2.2 Single Finger 6D-Touch

In addition to touchscreen single finger and multi-touch gestures that are now pervasive in consumer electronics, NRI’s touchscreen, touch-sensor, and gesture technology 1999 patent filing included capabilities for gestures that additionally comprise finger angles (roll, pitch, and yaw), part-of-hand recognition, and user training capabilities to improved performance. Rudimentary finger-angle sensing employing use of opaque (non-touchscreen) fingerprint sensor was explored in a 2002 IBM US 6,400,836 patent by Senior with 1998 priority date exactly to the day one year earlier than NRI’s 1999 parent utility patent filing, although NRI’s founder had developed this capability earlier than this IBM patent filing. These features can add new value to many devices – such as smartphones, medical devices, mapping systems, virtual environmental systems, 3D design tools, musical instruments, and a wide range of additional applications.

In late 2015 Qeexo, independently developed and publicized finger angle capabilities very similar to NRI’s 6DTouch^TM technologies; some of those videos are still available on the internet, for example the short “Qeexo’s FingerAngle” video. Qeexo’s FingerSense^TM technology also features part-of-hand recognition and user training to improve performance, both described in NRI’s 1999 patent filing.

The NRI touchscreen, touch-sensor, and gesture technology and associated 1999 patent filing include many powerful additional capabilities and features that have yet to be commercialized, including powerful “gesture grammar” capabilities. NRI spinout company Advanced Touchscreen and Gesture Technologies, LLC (ATGT) is currently working to commercialize some of these and those commercialized forms and patents are available for licensing. See Touch, Gesture, and HDTP for more feature and technology information.

3. Academic with Likely Near-Term Commercial Appearance

This third group of example NRI innovations that were later interpedently developed by others pertain to applications that have become independently noticed within academia several years after NRI’s work and patent filings but which are likely to break-out into near-term commercialization due to “market pull” and effective value. Features and capabilities of the cited NRI technology and patents are ready for immediate commercialization without competition.

3.1 (Multi-channel) Timbre-Based Data Sonification

Data sonification can be defined as the use of non-speech audio to convey or perceptualize quantitative data. Powerful specifics of human auditory perception (temporal and pitch resolution, timbral parsing, melodic parsing, cocktail-party effect, and many others) permit sonification offers an interesting alternative or complement to data visualization techniques. The exciting promise of data sonification has been discussed in The Economist. A high-level overview is provided in the on-line excerpt “Theory of Sonification” from Principles of Sonification: An Introduction to Auditory Display and Sonification. Several data sonification Toolkits are available, for example U.C. Santa Cruz’s Listen: A Data Sonification Toolkit and Georgia Institute of Technology’s Sonification Sandbox. Although there has been much work and interest, most proposed techniques and applications have not turned out to be overly useful or very compelling.

NRI’s work in sonification, patented in 2009, focuses on the use of timbre (sound-aspect attributes one might associate with sounds of musical instrument expression or emanating from operating machinery) as the vehicle for effectively carrying multiple independent channels of discernable quantitative data for use practical applications. NRI’s vision is for its sonification technology to be integrated into business dashboards, spreadsheets, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to valuably and synergistically supplement established visual capabilities, and in addition be employed in plant control consoles and integrated into automotive, medical, and industrial diagnostic systems.

Beginning circa 2012 the academic world has begun to independently recognize the value of timbre information-carrier aspects of NRI sonification approaches (see for example Toward an effective use of timbre in data sonification (2012)) and has validated them in meaningful applications (see for example The sound of migration: exploring data sonification as a means of interpreting multivariate salmon movement datasets (2018)). See Data Visualization And Sonification for additional information.

3.2 Small-Format Lensless Optical Microscopy

NRI‘s small-format lensless optical microscopy technologies (initial patent filing 2009) incorporate a number of capabilities and implementation approaches for inexpensively providing surprising degrees of color image quality in small-size implementations and of arbitrarily wide observations fields. Transmission microscopy, light-field software-focusing (and self-illuminating) reflective microscopy, and fluorescent microscopy can be supported, and no laser illumination is needed. In some implementations the imaging elements and light-emitting elements can be printed/deposited with (utilizing semiconducting inks as in OLED fabrication) and rendered disposable. Although these can be implemented in stand-alone microscope configurations, they can also be integrated into larger systems and inexpensive arrays to monitor every well of a cell-culture microplate. As explained in the initial 2009 patent filing, these can also be configured to implement color optical tomography (see Section 3.3 below), fluidic-channel microscopes, and flow cytometry systems. Utilizing NRI lensless imaging light sensing array technologies (see ,a href=”https://newrenaissanceinstitute.com/?page_id=29″>Lensless Light Field Imaging>), the imaging elements and light-emitting elements can be flat, curved, encapsulating, concave-facing, convex-facing, cylindrical, near-spherical, and even flexible wherein imaging algorithms can be configured to provide accurate imaging. See Proximate Microscopic Imaging and Tomography for further information.

Some years after NRI’s initial 2009 patent filing, highly celebrated and award-winning work appeared from UCLA validating the value of a few aspects of the NRI small-format lensless optical microscopy technologies: these UCLA publications include:

• Lensfree Computational Microscopy Tools for On-Chip Imaging of Biochips (2012)
• Imaging Without Lenses: Achievements and Remaining Challenges of Wide-Field On-Chip Microscope (2012)
• Lensfree On-Chip Fluorescence Microscopy for High-throughput Imaging of Bio-Chips (2013)
• Opto-fluidics based Microscopy and Flow-cytometry on a Cellphone for Blood Analysis (2015, chapter 12)

The company Holomic LLC (formerly Micoskia Inc.) is reportedly commercializing some aspects of the UCLA lensless microscopy work under the brand name CELLMIC^TM.

It is noted the NRI small-format lensless optical microscopy technologies can be made considerably smaller, simpler, and far less expensive than the systems described in these papers. For example in a microplate system each simple transmission microscopy sensing arrangement can be implemented in full color with 110X magnification at 30 frames/sec for approximately $1, thus fully imaging cell cultures in every well of a standard 96 well microplate for a total of approximately $100.

3.3 Microscopic Lensless Optical Tomography

NRI‘s microscopic-scale lensless optical tomography technology (initial patent filing 2009) creates a 3D lattice (voxel) representation of a translucent object computed from light transmitted and scattered through an object. Individual light-emitting elements of a sequentially-illuminated light source array emits a spreading light pattern in various locations within the image sensor. NRI optical tomography approaches represent the translucent object as a 3-dimensional array of adjacent contiguous spatially-quantizing voxels, each voxel abstracted as having a homogenous opacity for the wavelength of light emitted from light source. Imaging can be done at various wavelengths and can render color and hyper-color tomographic translucent volume and slice images.

In some implementations the imaging elements and light-emitting elements can be printed/deposited with (utilizing semiconducting inks as in OLED fabrication) and rendered disposable. Although the NRI optical tomography technology can be implemented in stand-alone configurations, it can also be integrated into larger systems and inexpensive arrays to monitor every well of a cell-culture microplate. As explained in the initial 2009 patent filing, these can also be configured to implement color optical tomography (see Section 3.3 below), fluidic-channel microscopes, and flow cytometry systems. Utilizing NRI lensless imaging light sensing array technologies (see Lensless Light Field Imaging), the imaging elements and light-emitting elements can be flat, curved, encapsulating, concave-facing, convex-facing, cylindrical, near-spherical, and even flexible wherein imaging algorithms can be configured to provide accurate imaging. See Proximate Microscopic Imaging and Tomography for further information.

A couple of years after NRI’s initial 2009 patent filing, highly celebrated and award-winning work appeared from UCLA validating the value of a few aspects of the NRI optical tomography technology (see for example UCLA team shows lens-free 3D optical tomography and Lens-Free Optical Tomographic Microscope with a Large Imaging Volume on a Chip.

It is noted that unlike the UCLA systems, the NRI optical tomography technology has no moving parts or fiber optic lightguides and thus can operate at video rates and be made considerably smaller, simpler, and far less expensive than the systems described in the UCLA papers.

4. Recognized Research with Important Longer-Term Commercialization Paths

This fourth group of example NRI innovations that were later interpedently developed by others pertain to research areas that have with longer-term important commercialization paths. Features and capabilities of the cited NRI technology and patents are ready for immediate commercialization without competition.

4.1 Fractional Fourier Property of Lenses

NRI’s Founder is credited as the first to discover and (1988) report (pp. 173-176) the fractional Fourier transform properties of lenses in the (2001) benchmark text The Fractional Fourier Transform with Applications in Optics and Signal Processing (p. 386). Some five years later, the fractional Fourier transform properties of lenses was reported by others as an original finding with great fanfare, beginning direct lineage of many hundreds of academic papers on the topic.

NRI continues active work in fractional Fourier transforms in the contexts of computational imaging, electron microscopy, coherent optics, formal mathematical operator theory, fractional Hilbert-space operators, finite-dimensional representations, and visible-light lens-based imaging. NRI has also been working to develop commercial applications for fractional Fourier transform properties of lenses and other quadratic-phase optics.

4.2 Human Auditory and Perceptual Eigenfunctions

Dynamical modeling of human hearing anatomy date back to at least as early as the 1950 work Peterson and Bogert (and arguably to at least as early as the 1924 work of Wegel and Lane). Filter and filter-bank modeling derived from this work date back to at least as early as the 1974 work of Patterson (and arguably to at least as early as the 1946 vacuum-tube work of Tucker) and have been dominated by the gammatone basis-function representation (see for example History and Future of Auditory Filter Models (2010)). As truly impressive as this historic and heroic “bottom-up” work is, however, the effects of the human nervous system and other aspects of hearing perception and cognition are not captured by these models and systems.

In past, recent, and continuing work of the NRI founder, a “top-down” (perception being the top) “auditory eigenfunction” approach has been devised for sophisticated basis-function modelling of the fundamental functional structure of human auditory perception (namely the empirical frequency range and time duration correlation window of human hearing). Human perceptual “auditory eigenfunctions” result as solutions to an integral operator (finite duration, bandpass kernel) eigenfunction equation representing a model of human hearing, and provide perception-oriented basis functions for mathematically representing audio information in an audio signal space model of human auditory perception. In addition to applications to perception-oriented encoding auditory filter banks, the NRI auditory eigenfunctions have applications in language design and perception-oriented auditory recognition, and may have applications in hearing aids.

Review of contemporary efforts such as The Auditory Modeling Toolbox show an shift towards incorporation and emphasis on perception based models, and the widespread use of wavelets for encoding of audio signals provides the footing for implementation of auditory eigenfunction systems. Both these trends foreshadow the independent development and opportunity for academic (and later industry) acceptance of perception-based auditory eigenfunctions. Should NRI’s perception-based auditory eigenfunctions prove as effective as believed, it is possible such perception-based auditory eigenfunctions could displace wavelets in audio encoding. See Advanced Signal Processing for further information.

4.3 Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Differential Amplifiers

NRI’s original work with different amplifiers was done in 2007 and included explicit designs for fully-nanoscale single (FET) nano-transistor constant-current sources. Several years later Army ARL Technical Report ARL-TR-5151 “Differential Amplifier Circuits Based on Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors (CNTFETs)” by M. Chin and S. Kilpatrick was published (April 2010). The Army ARL’s work did not employ an active constant-current source, using a resistor instead which limits performance (as stated in the report and a known property of any two-transistor differential amplifier). NRI’s early patent work in the area of nanoelectronic differential amplifiers and related circuits implemented on a segment of a graphene nanoribbon was cited in the survey book “Fullerenes—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition” (ISBN 1490100199, 9781490100197) pp.707-708.

More broadly, NRI’s work in this area shows how to make differential amplifiers, and from these operation amplifier circuits, all on a single carbon/graphene nanotube or nanoribbon, by using a novel “chain-leapfrog” circuit design technique. It is shown that standard differential amplifier and operation amplifier circuit configurations are naturally implementable with this technique. Accordingly, a single carbon/graphene nanotube or nanoribbon can be draped over a metalized pad contact array to make operational amplifiers, comparators, and A/D and D/A converters. The same technique can be used with printed semiconductor electronics on a far larger physical scale. NRI’s work in this area was sold in 2011.