ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,363,927, issued on July 15, was assigned to SHINDENGEN ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING Co. LTD. (Tokyo).

"Wide gap semiconductor device" was invented by Yusuke Maeyama (Saitama, Japan), Shunichi Nakamura (Saitama, Japan) and Jin Onuki (Saitama, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A wide gap semiconductor device has a wide gap semiconductor layer 10; and a metal electrode 20 disposed on the wide gap semiconductor layer 10. The metal electrode 20 has a monocrystalline layer 21 having a hexagonal close-packed (HCP) structure in an interface region between the metal electrode 20 and the wide gap semiconductor layer 10. The monocrystalline layer 21 h...