Pattern buffer

The pattern buffer is a key component of the transporter system.

The buffer is used to temporarily store the matter stream, following dematerialization, but prior to sending the stream to its target whilst the other systems function.

This is done because of the relative motion of transporter and target. By temporarily storing the matter stream, the Doppler compensators have the time to adjust the targeting scanners. Once a pattern is in the buffer, transport can no longer be blocked.

A matter stream cannot be stored indefinitely in the buffer; after roughly 420 seconds, the stored pattern will degrade and the object will be lost.

• The only known record of a person surviving in a buffer longer than the expected figure was Captain Montgomery Scott on board the USS Jenolan.
  Following the Jenolan's crash-landing on a Dyson sphere, the engineer-turned-Captain was able to store his pattern in the buffer for 75 years.
• Captain Scott's pattern suffered less than 0.003% degradation, and was successfully recovered by Geordi La Forge of the USS Enterprise-D in 2369.

Starships can also transfer patterns from one pattern buffer to another by "locking on" to the target buffer and energizing.

To eliminate the medical condition called transporter psychosis, Federation transporters are equipped with multiplex pattern buffers.