In the present paper, we solidified magnesium-based AZ91D alloys in a superconducting magnetic field when an alternating current flowed through the alloy. As the direction of the magnetic field is perpendicular to that of the alternating current, a periodic electromagnetic force is produced to activate an electromagnetic vibration (EMV) on the alloy during solidification. The microstructure formation and microtexture evolution processed by EMV were examined. A significant difference arises in electrical resistivity between a solid and a liquid in the mushy zone of the alloy, making the solid move faster than the liquid and thus generating uncoupled motion, from which melt flow is initiated. The texture evolution obtained by x-ray diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) mapping reveal a strong dependence of melt flow intensity versus vibration frequency. A further analysis reveals that melt flow is rather weak when the vibration frequency is too low and thus the segmentation of growing crystals cannot be thoroughly completed. At medium vibration frequencies, severe fluid flow occurs, which favors fragmentation and thus results in a refined microstructure and a random microtexture. When the vibration frequency is too high, the relative leading distance covered by the mobile solid is rather short and melt flow once again becomes weak. Meanwhile, the static magnetic field makes the crystals orient to their easy magnetization direction and thus yields highly aligned textures. Experimentally, the present systematic observation indicates that the role of melt flow is of substantial importance in revealing the origin of structure formation when the alloy is solidified at various vibration frequencies.

In this paper we propose and demonstrate micro patterning processes of single crystal diamond using thermochemical reaction of diamond with a sidero-metal and elucidate the reaction involved. Single crystal diamond processes a variety of excellent characteristics, such as hardness and wear resistance, and hence, is expected to be a new material for not only micro machining tools but also innovative micro devices. It is mandatory to develop a patterning process of diamond with high precision and at low cost. Laser processing is currently widely used, but it is a serial process and costly. Film deposition and plasma etching are other effective methods while they are time consuming. Thermochemical reaction between diamond and sidero-metals is well known in the field of mechanical machining. Diamond tools cannot machine sidero-metals, such as iron, nickel, and cobalt, when the diamond tools wear instead of the sidero-metals. We used this reaction to micro pattern single crystal diamond. We used nickel as the sidero-metal that was patterned either directly on a bulk of single crystal diamond or on a silicon substrate. We term the former and the latter processes as direct and indirect patterning processes, respectively. In the indirect patterning a bulk of single crystal diamond was placed on the substrate. The pattern was negatively transferred to the diamond after thermal treatment in the air at ˜1000K in both processes. The sidero-metal layer can be patterned by photolithography, which enables precise manufacturing and mass production. The direct and indirect patterning achieved etching rates of ˜0.5μm/min and ˜0.2μm/min, respectively, both of which increased as the annealing temperature increased while the indirect patterning did not require micro patterning of photoresist on a bulk diamond several millimeters squire and involved much less difficult processes than the direct patterning. The thermochemical reaction is reported to be caused by; diffusion of carbon from diamond into the sidero-metal, oxidation-reduction reaction between diamond and the metal, oxidation of diamond, and carbide formation. Carbide formation was not observed when we used nickel as the sidero-metal. When the direct and indirect patterning was conducted in nitrogen, the pattern transfer was observed but the etching rate was extremely low. Therefore, oxidation-reduction reaction is dominant in the direct patterning. In the indirect patterning, the etching continued even after the nickel and diamond was not in contact. The thickness of removed diamond was by far greater than the thickness of the nickel layer. Hence, we consider that diamond was etched by oxide-reduction reaction between the diamond and the metal while they were in contact at the beginning and then, the oxidation of diamond became dominant in the indirect patterning. The process proposed herein is readily applicable to manufacture micro devices that exploit excellent characteristics of single crystal diamond.

We report high-mobility rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors with ionic-liquid electrolytes used for gate dielectric layers. As the result of fast ionic diffusion to form electric double layers, their capacitances remain more than 1.0 μF/cm2 even at 0.1 MHz. With high carrier mobility of 9.5 cm2/Vs in the rubrene crystal, pronounced current amplification is achieved at the gate voltage of only 0.2 V, which is two orders of magnitude smaller than that necessary for organic thin-film transistors with dielectric gate insulators. The results demonstrate that the ionic-liquid/organic semiconductor interfaces are suited to realize low-power and fast-switching field-effect transistors without sacrificing carrier mobility in forming the solid/liquid interfaces.

South Africa initiated a program to significantly expand its total nuclear energy capacity by acquiring additional Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) and is currently researching Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMRs) as next generation nuclear energy sources. The result of such an expansion in the current nuclear program will be a need for the disposal of additional nuclear waste. However, as an alternative strategy for spent PBMR fuel, the separation of the spent fuel into TRISO particles for disposal and graphite for re-use in the nuclear industry could also be considered.

We propose a solid state heat pump based on photon assisted heat transfer between two large-area light emitting diodes coupled by the electromagnetic field and enclosed in a semiconductor structure with a nearly homogeneous refractive index. Ideally the thermophotonic heat pump (THP) allows heat transfer and electricity generation at the Carnot efficiency, but in reality there are several factors that limit the efficiency. We present a numerical model that accounts for the most important losses of the thermophotonic heat pump to study the operating regimes and the fundamental limitations of the THP structure. The results show that the thermophotonic heat pump has potential to outperform heat pumps based on the thermoelectric effect especially for heat transfer across large temperature differences. In energy harvesting applications the performance of the THP is good for small power densities, but drops at high power densities unless the losses in the structure can be efficiently minimized.

Boron carbon nitride (B-C-N) thin films are attractive due to their potential as hard coatings and as semiconductors with varying band gap. Both B-C-N (BC0.24N0.24) thin films and boron carbide (B4C) thin films were deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Also, the transition of boron carbide to B-C-N was studied by bombarding the boron carbide thin film by ∼1 uA/cm2 4 keV N+ ions. The results show that the UV-Vis transmittance of B-C-N thin films is better than that of amorphous boron carbide and both B-C and B-N bonds exist in our B-C-N thin films. The nitrogen in our B-C-N thin films bonded with boron causes the XPS B 1s core level to shift 2 eV from that in the B4C boron carbide thin film. Ion bombardment shows that the N+ ion primarily reacts with boron to form B-N and this reaction causes the environmental change of carbon in the thin film and then the XPS C 1s core level to shift to 283.5 eV from 282.8 eV.

Point Defect (PD) mediated diffusion of phosphorous in silicon is studied in order to address the long standing open problem of PD-Dopant pair lifetime. A novel experimental method is suggested to increase PD-P pair lifetime for better observability and experimental resolution. In the experiment, phosphorous is implanted, followed by low temperature poly-Si deposition with in-situ doped phosphorous. The P profile shows, after low temperature (<650°C) in-situ phosphorous doped poly-Si deposition, an exponential dependence of two orders of magnitude for a significant depth scale. This indicates that the PD-P pairs survive long-range diffusion before dissociating in the Si lattice. As a result, the lifetime of PD-P pair was extracted and this provides a physical basis for TCAD simulation at the atomic scale.

A two-dimensional finite element simulation model for the bi-layer heterostructure organic photovoltaic (PV) cell, based on copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and fullerene (C60) in the presence and absence of electron transport layers (ETLs) is presented. The effect of bathocuproine (BCP), tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato)aluminum (Alq3), and copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) as ETLs on short-circuit current (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc), and power conversion efficiency (PCE) is investigated. The Frenkel-Poole mobility model was employed in describing the conduction mechanisms in the active layers. Singlet exciton and Langevin recombination techniques were employed to describe excitonic generation and recombination, respectively. The obtained simulation results demonstrate that the efficiency of PV cells is primarily dependent on the short-circuit current, the absorption capability of the active layers, and the charge collection efficiency at the electrodes. In addition, significant reduction in power conversion efficiency is observed with increasing thickness of the ETL layer. From among the modeled device designs, PV cells containing a 50Å BCP layer result in the best power conversion efficiencies of 2.05%.

We report the real-time visualization method of surface plasmon resonance with the spectroscopic attenuated total reflection. Recently, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) had been studied for plasmonics devices to construct faster processor in the electronic microprocessors. SPR is strong interaction between light and free electron near metal surface, which cause absorption of light due to its resonance. The behavior can be explained with Fresnel’s equation. As the wave number of light with a certain frequency is not matched with that of surface plasmon, a prism or a grating is used in order to compensate this mismatching. In the prism case, the wave number is changed by changing the incident angle to the metal surface inside the prism as ksp=n*k0sinθ, where ksp and k0 is the wave numbers of surface plasmon and incident light, respectively, n is the refractive index of the prism and θ is the incident angle to the metal surface inside the prism. Therefore, the SPR can be observed by absorption of light as functions of the wavelength and the incident angle. This resonance behavior as functions of the wavelength and the incident angle can be observed directly with a two-dimensional detector such as a CCD camera. As the two-dimensional SPR images for 50nm-thick silver films on the prism surface have been observed experimentally, they have good agreement with calculated ones. Kretchmann configuration using a glass prism and an approximately 50-nm-thick silver or gold film was often used in order to evaluate the optical constants of the film. Most of SPR signals had been measured with either angular or spectral dependence with this geometry. In the case of angular dependence, the monochromatic laser, e.g. He-Ne laser at 632.8nm, is often used for the incident light. One can measure reflection loss as a function of an incident angle in the total reflection region. Increase in the resonance angle of SPR is well known when the thin oxide film on the metal film. The two-dimensional image of SPR is called “surface plasmon spectral fingerprint”, because it can inform conditions of metal films whether they are reacted or oxidized. Many fingerprints are expected by changing the thickness of the coating layer on the silver surface. In our method, thin metal film on a prism was excited by focusing beam of white light. SPR was clearly visualized with a spectrometer equipped with a two-dimensional CCD detector in the coordination of the incident angle and the wavelength. Various metal films could be distinguished even in partially oxidized condition. This real-time SPR visualization method would be useful not only for monitoring of surface reaction but for fabricating plasmonic devices.

Based on the focused ion beam (FIB) technology, we have prepared ZnO nanowires containing periodic nano-sized structures by an ultra thin Ga ion beam. ZnO nanowires can keep a good crystal quality after Ga ion bombardment. The cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy study of the Ga-doped ZnO nanowires at low temperatures shows that the Ga doping effect can largely suppress the green emission that may mainly originate from the defects on the surfaces of ZnO nanowires.

Infection due microbes on implant surfaces has a strong influence on healing and long term viability of dental implants. The prevention and control of biofilms can be achieved by reducing the bacterial adhesion on the surface. The coating of medical devices with silver, or the addition of silver nanoparticles, are two possible ways to prevent device-associated infections. On the other hand, amorphous carbon films, in its different forms and compositions, have been studied as beneficial surface modification for implant materials. However, the bacterial adhesion on these films by oral bacteria in comparison to standard surfaces (Ti and SS) has been seen to be relatively high. In the oral cavity, the microbial ecology is complex and consists of hundreds of bacterial species, and therefore it is recommendable to study bacteria adhesion using various strains. In this work, we tested the biocompatibility and the anti-microbial properties of amorphous carbon films with the addition of silver nanoparticles. The a-C:Ag films were deposited by co-sputtering in an Argon plasma using a target made of graphite with a small piece of pure silver. Biocompatibility tests were performed using osteoblast-like cells (MG63) and included: cell proliferation, alkaline phosphatase specific activity and OPG. The bacterial adhesion test was evaluated after 1, 3 and 7 days of incubation. We used nine oral bacteria strains: Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans serotype b, Actinomyces israelii, Campylobacter rectus, Eikenella corrodens, Fusobacterium nucleatum ss nucleatum, Parvimonas micra, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia and Streptococcus sanguinis. The effect of including silver in the a-C films was studied by X-ray Diffraction, Energy Dispersive spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy. The results showed that the films had silver nanoparticles (40-60 nm) uniformly distributed in the carbon matrix. The silver was crystalline with a maximum content of around 6 at%. The biological tests showed that a-C:Ag films had good biocompatibility properties, allowing the osteoblast to proliferate and produced osteogenic local factors. Concerning the antimicrobial properties of the a-C:Ag films, we did not observe an effect of the silver particles on bacterial adherence after 1 and 3 days of incubation; however, a significant reduction was observed after 7 days, compared to the a-C, Ti films or the bare SS substrate, suggesting that silver nanoparticles have a time-dependent antimicrobial effect.

Parasitic resistance, particularly source/drain contact resistance becomes one of the most serious problems to extend MOSFET scaling recently. Nickel silicide (NiSi), with advantages of low resistivity and high scalability, has been chosen as the material for source/drain formation. However, its Schottky barrier height (SBH) of 0.65eV for electrons is so high that it would block electrons from tunneling, therefore becomes an obstacle to further reduce the contact resistance, which is necessary to achieve the future scaling.Among several solutions, high concentration impurity-segregation layers have been introduced at NiSi/Si interfaces to reduce SBH of MS-MOSFETs. Sulfur (S) has been considered to be an efficient material for the segregation-layer to reduce SBH owing to Fermi-level pinning effect. Previous studies have investigated segregation by implanting S before NiSi formation. Because of the high diffusivity of S in Si, S profile becomes broad during silicidation process, which leads to loss of S concentration at the interface. Moreover, S ions spread into the substrate and channel region generate deep impurity levels that induce junction leakage and off leakage, resulting in device performance degradation. In this paper, S implantation after Ni silicidation is proposed to suppress S diffusion because NiSi is expected to be an efficient barrier for S diffusion. In addition, NiSi/Si interface can serve as a potential energetic valley which may trap S during thermal treatment after implantation.In this work, S was implanted into NiSi/n-Si diodes at the energy of 10keV with dose of 5�1014 and 1015 cm-3 after NiSi is formed. The projection range of S in NiSi is about 6nm, while thickness of NiSi is 16nm. Some devices were annealed at 300C and 450C. The I-V characteristics show that SBH is sufficiently reduced as the annealing temperature becomes higher, and it reaches as low as 3.4meV for 450C annealing. SBH of 3.4meV is much lower than the previously reported value of 70meV for which S was implanted before silicidation. The SIMS analysis result also proves the S profile is much sharper than having S-implantation before Ni silicidation, which supports our hypothesis that S diffusion is suppressed through our process and avoid the loss of S concentration at the interface. Moreover, despite the worry that S-implantation might damage the NiSi/Si interface morphology, cross sectional TEM images show that the interfacial flatness is completely the same as that of non-implanted NiSi/Si, indicating that no degradation occurs by S implantation. In summary, S-implantation after NiSi formation, which provides ultimately low SBH at NiSi/Si interface, is a promising technique to realize ultra-low parasitic resistance source/drain for future LSI beyond 16nm generation.

The formation and evolution of hydrogen- and vacancy-related donor and acceptor states were studied in helium-implanted and subsequently hydrogen plasma-treated n-type Float-Zone (FZ) silicon wafers by means of two-point-probe Spreading Resistance (SR) measurements. He+-implantation was executed at 3.75 MeV and 11 MeV at fluences of 1×1014 cm−2. Post-implantation 13.56-MHz RF-plasma hydrogenations were carried out at 150 W either for 15 min or 1 hour, applying substrate temperatures between 350 °C and 500 °C. Enhanced donor concentrations as well as acceptor-like states were observed in the subsurface layers of the treated FZ Si samples after 15-min post-implantation H-plasma exposures. Under appropriate process conditions, the latter ones compensated for the n-type doping, so that even buried p-type layers were created. The experimental results indicated that oxygen played a central role in the formation of the acceptor-like states.

Silicidation of Ta-Ti-Si film on Si (111) and Si (100) substrates was investigated by a new radio frequency (RF) heating in order to evaluate the progress of reaction and establish whether the substrate orientation influence on the rate of reaction prevails. Substrate orientation was observed notwithstanding the high temperatures applied and the very short duration of RF. It was observed that while the reaction on Si (111) goes to completion, on Si (100) substrates under the same conditions intermediate phases remained.A qualitative analysis of the RF treatment of a conductor film on the silicon substrate is presented. It is done for the first time using the mathematical approach of the heat explosion theory. According to the analysis the specimens might experience either heating at constant temperature or by a sudden temperature increase. The relation between the parameters for the heat explosion regime is presented in simple analytical form. Measurable quantities such as sheet resistance and the magnetic field applied determine the stage of the process. The value of the resulting sheet resistance indicates whether the progress of the RF occurred by heating in the slow growth temperature regime or in the heat explosion stage where reactions of a conductor film occur within a fraction of a second.

Nanocomposite cermet materials comprised of NiO/YSZ (20-90 wt. %) co-promoted with SmPrCeZrO or LaPrMnCrO complex oxides and Pt, Pd or Ru were synthesized by Pechini method. These materials were characterized by BET, TEM with EDX, and CH4 TPR. The catalytic properties were studied for the steam reforming (SR) of CH4 at short contact times. Factors controlling performance of these composites in CH4 SR (Ni content, interaction between components in composites as dependent upon their chemical composition) were determined. Ru-promoted composite supported on Ni-Al foam demonstrated a high (up to 75%) methane conversion at 650° in the feed containing 20% CH4 and 40% H2O in Ar

The peak/plateau strength of multilayer thin films is analyzed in terms of the stress to bow out a dislocation loop from an interface. Comparison of approximate analytic models to experimental data suggests that the bow out is “constrained” by nearby interfaces, at least for e-NbN/Mo and e-Ni/Cu films. Estimates of the interfacial pinning distance to form the bow out are ˜20b for e-NbN/Mo and ˜70b for e-Ni/Cu around peak/plateau strength (b is the magnitude of Burgers vector).

Mechanical energy can be converted to electrical energy using a dielectric elastomer generator (DEG). The maximum amount of energy that can be harvested from a DEG is constrained by various modes of failure and operational limits. Known limiting mechanisms include electrical breakdown, electromechanical instability, loss of tension and rupture by stretch. These limits define a cycle where maximum energy can be harvested. The cycle was represented on work-conjugate planes, which can be used as a guide for the design of practical cycles. The amount of energy harvested is larger when a DEG is subject to equal-biaxial stretching.

The piezoelectric properties of PTO thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition are investigated with piezoresponse force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The as-grown films exhibit upward polarization, and inhomogeneous distribution of piezoelectric characteristics. The data obtained reveal imprint during piezoresponse force microscopy measurements, nonlinearity in the piezoelectric deformation, and limited retention loss. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy shows the presence of defects near the film/substrate interface, which can be associated with the variations of piezoelectric properties.

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) of a codoped α-alumina powder has been investigated at temperatures between 850 and 1200 °C. The “grain size versus relative density” trajectory showed a significant grain growth as soon as the residual porosity closed. The densification mechanism was determined by anisothermal (investigation of the heating part of a SPS run) and isothermal methods. It was proposed that grain-boundary sliding, accommodated by oxygen grain-boundary diffusion, governed densification.