ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,631,557, issued on May 19, was assigned to Picoyune LLC (Berkeley, Calif.).
"Equilibrium plasmonic analyte sensing apparatus and methods" was invented by Jay James (Berkeley, Calif.) and Jeffrey Scott Crosby (Richmond, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Apparatus and methods are provided for quantitative detection of mercury vapor in gas samples using a film of nanoparticles. The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of an amalgam nanoparticle is sensitive to adsorbed mercury mass. The equilibrium mass of mercury on a gold nanoparticle is a function of the surrounding vapor concentration and the temperature of the gold. A device t...