The intensity attenuation of a high-power laser is a frequent task in the measurements of optical science. Laser intensity can be attenuated by inserting an optical element, such as a partial reflector, polarizer or absorption filter. These devices are, however, not always easily applicable, especially in the case of ultra-high-power lasers, because they can alter the characteristics of a laser beam or become easily damaged. In this study, we demonstrated that the intensity of a laser beam could be effectively attenuated using a random pinhole attenuator (RPA), a device with randomly distributed pinholes, without changing the beam properties. With this device, a multi-PW laser beam was successfully attenuated and the focused beam profile was measured without any alterations of its characteristics. In addition, it was confirmed that the temporal profile of a laser pulse, including the spectral phase, was preserved. Consequently, the RPA possesses significant potential for a wide range of applications.

This paper provides a field report on a fire that broke out on January 26, 2018 at Sejong Hospital in Miryang, South Korea, engendering the establishment of a committee to investigate the hospital fire response. This field report analyzes the disaster medical response. The official records of the disaster response from each institution were examined. On-site surveys were conducted through interviews with government officials and other health care workers regarding communication during the disaster response without using a separate questionnaire. All medical records were abstracted from hospital charts. There were 192 casualties: 47 victims died, seven were seriously injured, and 121 suffered minor injuries. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) arrived three minutes after the fire started, while news of the fire reached the National Emergency Medicine Operation Center based in Seoul in 12 minutes. The first disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) was dispatched 63 minutes after the National Emergency Medicine Operation Center was notified. The disaster response was generally conducted in accordance with disaster medical support manuals; however, these response manuals need to be improved. Close cooperation among various institutions, including nearby community public health centers, hospitals, fire departments, and DMATs, is necessary. The response manuals should be revised for back-up institutions, as the relevant information is currently incomplete.

A novel nano-scale manipulator capable of handling low-dimensional materials with three-dimensional linear motion, gripping action, and push–pull action of the gripper was developed for an in situ experiment in transmission electron microscopy. X-Y-Z positioning and push–pull action were accomplished by a piezotubing system, combined with a specially designed assembly stage that consisted of a lever-action gripping tip backed by a push–pull piezostack. The gripper tip consisted of tungsten wire fabricated by electrochemical etching followed by a focused ion beam process. Performance of the nano-scale manipulator was demonstrated in a grab-and-pick test of a single silver nanowire and in an in situ tensile test of a pearlitic steel sample with a specific orientation.

A significant degradation of current gain of InP/InGaAs/InP double heterojunction bipolar transistors was observed after passivation. The amount of degradation depended on the degree of surface exposure of the p-type InGaAs base layer according to the epi-structure and device structure. The deposition conditions such as deposition temperature, kinds of materials (silicon oxide, silicon nitride and aluminum oxide) and film thickness were not major variables to affect the device performance. The gain reduction was prevented by the BOE treatment before the passivation. A possible explanation of this behavior is that unstable non-stoichiometric surface states produced by excess In, Ga, or As after mesa etching are eliminated by BOE treatment and reduce the surface recombination sites.

We report a new Ni/Pt/Au (20/30/80 nm) metallization scheme to achieve a low ohmic contacts to p-type GaN with a carrier concentration of 9.4 × 1016 cm-3. A Mg-doped GaN layer (0.5 μm) was grown on (0001) sapphire substrate by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). All metal thin films were deposited on the p-GaN layer in an electron-beam evaporation system. Samples were annealed by a rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process at a range of temperatures from 300 °C to 850 °C under a flowing Ar atmosphere. A circulartransmission line model (c-TLM) was employed to calculate the specific contact resistance, and current-voltage (I-V) data were measured with HP4155A. The Ni/Pt/Au contacts without the annealing process showed nearly rectifying characteristics. The ohmic contacts were formed on the samples annealed at 500 °C for 30 sec and the I-V data showed a linear behavior. The specific contact resistance was 2.1 × 10-2 Ωcm2. However with increasing the annealing temperature above 600 °C, ohmic contacts were again degraded. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profiles were used to investigate the interfacial reactions between the trilayer and GaN. AES results suggested that Pt plays a significant role in forming ohmic contact as an acceptor at the interface. Atomic force microscope (AFM) also showed that the samples with good ohmic contact have very smooth surface.

We have studied the effects of growth parameters and substrate orientations on InGaP quality using Normarski microscopy, photoluminescence (PL) spectrum and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The full width at half maximum (FWHNM) and peak position of PL spectrum were closely related with the surface morphology. The InGaP layers of narrower FWHM and shorter peak wavelength had smoother surface morphology. The InGaP layers grown on (100) substrates at the moderately low reactor pressure showed rougher surface than those on the tilted substrates. But the surface morphology was noticeably improved to be mirror-like at the lower reactor pressure. The surface morphology was inverted between the exact and tilted substrates in this reactor pressure. Furthermore, the samples grown on the tilted substrate exhibited rougher surface than the samples grown on the exact substrate. (111)B-misoriented growth surfaces had smoother than (111)A-misoriented surfaces.

We have studied the pyroelectric properties of the PLT(10) thin film deposited on a p-doped poly-Si electrode by using the sol-gel method. Measurement of the dielectric constant as a function of temperature shows the typical characteristics of a ferroelectric. The dielectric constant reaches a maximum at 295°C, which can be thought of as the Curie temperature. The PLT(10) thin film on p-doped poly-Si fabricated in this research shows excellent pyroelectric properties. The pyroelectric coefficient and the fiqures of merit, Fv and FD at room temperature are measured as 5.76 × 10−8 C/cm2 °C, 1.17 × 10−10C-cm/J and 0.93 × 10−8C-cm/J, respectively.

Many advanced ceramics are formed by colloidal consolidation using techniques such as sedimentation, centrifugation, or pressure filtration. In all these, the minimization of density variations of various colloidally-consolidated cakes has not been examined systematically until recently. Schilling et al. used γ-ray densitometry to study the density variations in a sedimented cake and showed that the sediment of a flocculated alumina suspension exhibited significant density variations within the cake whereas the sediment of a dispersed alumina suspension showed a constant density profile. Auzerais et al. used a medical X-ray computer tomography (CT) to study the settling of dispersed and flocculated silica suspensions and obtained similar results: The sedimented cake of a dispersed silica suspension was fairly uniform whereas those of flocculated silica suspensions exhibited significant density variations. However, Shih et al. examined pressure-filtered cakes of flocculated alumina suspensions with γ-ray densitometry and showed that the density profiles of pressure-filtered cakes of flocculated alumina suspensions were uniform, in contrast to their sedimentation counterparts which showed significant density variations. These studies illustrate that how the local density varies within a consolidated cake depends not only on the suspension conditions but also on how the suspensions are consolidated, e.g., the consolidation pressure.

A key step in the processing of ceramics is the consolidation of powders into engineered shapes. Colloidal processing uses solvents (usually water) and dispersants to break up powder agglomerates in suspension and thereby reduce the pore size in a consolidatd compact. However, agglomeration and particle rearrangement leading to pore enlargement can still occur during drying. Therefore, it is beneficial to consolidate the compact asdensely as possible during the suspension stage. The consolidation techniques of pressure filtration and centrifugation were studied and the results are reported in this paper. In particular, the steady-state pressure-density relationship was studied, and information was obtained regarding the consolidation process, the microstructure, and the average density profile of consolidated cakes. We found that the compaction processes in these two consolidation methods are quite different. In general, a consolidated cake is a particulate network made up of many structural units which are fractal objects formed during aggregation in the suspension. In pressure filtration, compaction is a process of breaking up the fractal structural units in the particulate network by applied pressure; the resulting partie rearrangement is produced by overcoming energetic barriers which are related to tee packing density of the compact. Recently, we performed Monte Carlo simulations on a cluster-cluster aggregation model with restructuring,1 and found the exponential relationship between pressure and density is indeed the result of the breaking up of the fractal structural units.2 On the other hand, in centrifugation, compaction involves the rearrangement of the fractal structural units without breaking them so that the self-similar nature of the aggregates is preserved. Furthermore, we calculated density profiles fom the bottom to the top of the cakes by solving the local static force balance equation n the continuum particulate network. In pressure filtration of alumina and boehmite, the cakes are predicted have uniform density. The results of γ-ray densitometry3 on a pressure-filtrated alumina cake confirmed this prediction. In contrast, in centrifugation, the density profiles are predicted to show significant variation for cakes on the order of one centimeter high. Moreover, the pressure-filtered boehmite cakes showed no cracking during drying. This indicated that pressure filtration is a good consolidation technique for nanometer-sized particles such as boehmite. The improved drying property is probably a result of a minimal shrinkage due to the formation of higher packing densities during filtration.