Physicist Siu-Tat Chui acknowledged for patent with wireless applications

Wireless communication is used for everything from smart devices, such as phones, thermostats and voice controlled personal assistants, to GPS systems, satellite television, driverless cars and more.

Society’s increasing dependence on wireless technology is crowding the frequency highway, leading researchers to search for access to higher frequencies above the “noise” of the current communication spectrum.

University of Delaware Professor Siu-Tat Chui, a physicist in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), recently patented an idea he said he thinks can overcome this bottleneck using a very simple, inexpensive electromagnetic detector that leverages the power of light to access a band of radio frequencies known as millimeter waves (MMWs). These waves are a mostly untapped part of the communication bandwidth that operates at extremely high frequencies.

Delaware U.S. Sen. Chris Coons and Andrei Iancu, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), recognized UD’s Chui during a reception about the importance of protecting American innovation and intellectual property on Friday, Sept. 21, at Agilent Technologies.

Sponsored by the Delaware Bioscience Association (DelawareBio), the event was designed to open a constructive dialogue between industry, researchers and policy makers. In today’s global economy, protecting America’s intellectual property from infringement and trade secret theft is considered critical to sustained innovation and economic growth.