The lower dielectric constant (k) insulator is required for faster, smaller, and higher performance integrated circuit of the microprocessor and other advanced semiconductor devices that are so important to modern electronics and information technologies. Aromatic polyimides are among the candidate materials of low k due to their high thermal stability, mechanical strength and chemical resistance.

In this work, we show an 2,6-di-tert-butyl-9,10-diphenylanthracene core based novel polyimide which has been designed to have the lower polar imide concentration compared to that of conventional polyimides as well as the synthesis and characterization of its constitutional units, diamine and dianhydride.

Plasticity in amorphous alloys is associated with strain softening, induced by the creation of additional free volume during deformation. In this paper, the role of free volume, which was a priori in the material, on work softening was investigated. For this, an as-cast Zr-based bulk metallic glass (BMG) was systematically annealed below its glass transition temperature, so as to reduce the free volume content. The bonded-interface indentation technique is used to generate extensively deformed and well defined plastic zones. Nanoindentation was utilized to estimate the hardness of the deformed as well as undeformed regions. The results show that the structural relaxation annealing enhances the hardness and that both the subsurface shear band number density and the plastic zone size decrease with annealing time. The serrations in the nanoindentation load-displacement curves become smoother with structural relaxation. Regardless of the annealing condition, the nanohardness of the deformed regions is ∼12–15% lower, implying that the prior free volume only changes the yield stress (or hardness) but not the relative flow stress (or the extent of strain softening). Statistical distributions of the nanohardness obtained from deformed and undeformed regions have no overlap, suggesting that shear band number density has no influence on the plastic characteristics of the deformed region.

To determine the effectiveness of infection control strategies to reduce transmission of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), a cohort study was performed in a university hospital. Contact precautions alone were not effective in reducing transmission of VRE. Strict isolation of affected patients in private rooms, in addition to use of contact precautions, showed a significantly improved reduction in the transmission of VRE.

The H+-ion treatment effect on TlH2PO4, a KH2PO4 (KDP)-type ferroelectrics, was studied by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and AC dielectric measurements. A sample of TlH2PO4 was irradiated by 1-MeV H+ ion beams to a dose of 1015 ions/cm2. The irradiation changed the hydrogen-bond geometry, presumably affecting the order-disorder proton dynamics. The deformation of the PO4 tetrahedra was identified by the isotropic chemical shift and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the high-resolution 31P NMR spectra. A prominent decrease in the dielectric constant was also observed after the irradiation. The macroscopic and microscopic changes due to the irradiation are discussed in the light of the proton dynamics.

We have investigated proton beam irradiation effects on TlH2PO4 (TDP) showing an antiferroelectric phase transition and a ferroelastic phase transition. The sample was irradiated by 1 MeV proton beams to a dose of 1015 ions/cm2 and studied by means of 1H NMR measurements. The NMR rotating-frame spin-lattice relaxation time was measured as a function of temperature, and analyzed in order to understand the proton motions and the order parameter reflecting the structural changes caused by the proton irradiation.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss that presents as the initial sign of haematological disease is very rare. Chronic myelogenous leukaemia has been implicated as a causative factor of sudden sensorineural hearing loss.

A 49-year-old male presented with unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The patient was found to have chronic myelogenous leukaemia during a work-up for his hearing loss. We present a case of a chronic myelogenous leukaemia patient whose first manifestation was sudden sensorineural hearing loss. We presume that cochlear vessel occlusion as a result of elevated blood viscosity was responsible for this patient’s hearing loss. Early onset of sudden deafness in a chronic myelogenous leukaemia patient may be due to the hyperviscosity syndrome and it may be possible to reverse hearing loss through early leukapheresis.

We synthesized novel cross-linkable fluorinated copoly(arylene ether sulfide)s for optical waveguide applications, which have high thermal stability, high optical transparency in the infrared communication region, and much smaller birefringence than other thermally stable fluorinated polyimides. The refractive index of the material can be easily controlled from 1.515 to 1.587 by changing the copolymer composition in the materials. The birefringence of the cured polymers were 0.0031∼0.0039 at the wavelength of 1.55 μm. This is much lower than those of fluorinated polyimides for optical waveguides. The refractive index of fluorinated poly(arylene ether sulfide) (FPAESI) after being stored at 100 °C for 1000 hr remains almost constant demonstrating the thermal stability. The propagation loss of the channel waveguides fabricated using reactive ion etching was less than 0.4 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.55 μm.

Polycrystalline silicon thin films have been deposited by an inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition using SiH4/H2 mixtures. The quality of poly-Si can be improved by increasing RF power and hydrogen dilution ratio. The poly-Si deposited at a RF power of 1000 W with an addition of H2, showed a Raman polycrystalline volume fraction of 85.7 %, FWHM of 6.4 cm−1, deposition rate of 9.64 Å/s and SEM grain size of ∼3000 Å.