Abnormality of electric field at a wedgelike edge of a conductor or a dielectric interface and methods for its relaxation

Abnormal electric field appears at a wedgelike edge of a conductor (electrode) or a dielectric interface, which usually becomes infinitely high. This paper analyzes the electric field near such an edge by the analytical variable separation method and by the numerical one of the charge simulation method. The analysis focuses on the special conditions where the electric field becomes zero at an edge. These conditions are important for the insulation design to suppress the discharge inception at such edges of conductors and dielectric interfaces. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 159(1): 1–8, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20280     

Dielectric,ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties of lead-free Ba0.95Ca0.05Ti1-xZrxO3 ceramics

Abstract

Ba_0.95Ca_0.05Ti_1-xZr_xO₃ (BCTZO) ceramics were prepared by a solid state reaction method. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES). The ceramics exhibit a pure perovskite structure. The average grain size gradually decreases with increasing Zr concentration. XANES results indicate that the intensities of pre-edge peaks dropped with increasing Zr concentration. The BCTZO ceramic of x?=?0.05 has the optimum electrical properties with the maximum dielectric constant (ε'_m), remanent polarization (2P_r), coercive electric field (2E_c) and piezoelectric charge constant (d₃₃) of 7,244, 12.54 (μC/cm²), 5.29 (kV/cm) and 288 (pC/N), respectively.     

The mortar edge element method on non‐matching grids for eddy current calculations in moving structures

The subject presented in this paper concerns the approximation of the eddy current problem in non‐stationary geometries with sliding interfaces. The physical system is supposed to be composed of two solid parts: a fixed one (stator) and a moving one (rotor) which slides in contact with the stator. We consider a two‐dimensional mathematical model based on the transverse electric formulation of the eddy currents problem in the time domain and the primary unknown is the electric field vector. The first‐order approximation of the problem that we propose here is based on the mortar element method combined with the edge element discretization in space and an implicit Euler scheme in time. Numerical results illustrate the accuracy of the method and allow to understand the influence of the rotor movement on the currents distribution. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Deterministic Solver for the 1D Non-Stationary Boltzmann-Poisson System for GaAs Devices: Bulk GaAs and GaAs n +-n i -n + Diode

We present a deterministic method for describing the electron transport in spatially one-dimensional gallium arsenide devices. This numerical procedure is based on the combination of kinetic Boltzmann-type equations for a two-valley model of the GaAs conduction band and the Poisson equation in order to consider the electrostatic potential self-consistently. All of the important intra- and intervalley scattering mechanisms for GaAs are taken into account. The dependence of the electron distribution functions on the electron wave vector is treated by means of the multigroup approach, whereas their spatial dependences are handled by a weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme. Numerical results are given for the main transport quantities as functions of time, position and electric field in bulk material and in a n⁺-n_i-n⁺ diode. In addition, the proposed numerical method is validated by comparing the results with those of Monte Carlo calculations and the influence of the discretization used in the numerical procedure is discussed.     

Local Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Moment Models in Device Simulations: Formulation and One Dimensional Results

We report our preliminary work in applying the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) finite element method to solve time dependent and steady state moment models, such as the hydrodynamic (HD) models and the energy transport (ET) models, for semiconductor device simulations, in which both the first derivative convection terms and second derivative diffusion (heat conduction) terms exist and are discretized by the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method and the LDG method respectively. The potential equation for the electric field is also discretized by the LDG method, thus the numerical tool is based on a unified discontinuous Galerkin methodology for different components and is hence potentially viable for efficient h-p adaptivity and parallel implementation. One dimensional n⁺-n-n⁺ diode is simulated in this paper using the HD and ET models and comparison is made with earlier finite difference Essentially Non-Oscillatory (ENO) simulation results.     

Fast SVM training using edge detection on very large datasets

In a standard support vector machine (SVM), the training process has O(n³) time and O(n²) space complexities, where n is the size of the training dataset. For very large datasets, it is thus computationally infeasible. Reducing the size of training dataset is naturally considered as a method to solve this problem. SVM classifiers are constructed by using the training samples called support vectors (SVs) that lie close to the separation boundary. Thus, removing the other samples that are not relevant to SVs might have no effect on building the separation boundary. In other words, we need to reserve the samples that are likely to be SVs. Therefore, a method based on edge detection techniques is proposed to extract such samples near the separation boundary. In order to avoid overfitting, we also use a clustering algorithm to keep the distribution properties of the training dataset. The samples selected by the edge detector and the centroids of clusters are used to reconstruct the training dataset. In the proposed approach, the edge detection technique helps us to extract the local properties around the separation boundary and the clustering algorithm preserves the properties of the entire data. The reconstructed training dataset with a smaller number of samples can make the training process very fast without degrading the classification accuracy. © 2013 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Analytical formula of induced electric fields in a spherical conductor by an ELF dipole magnetic field source

An analytical formula of induced electric field E in a spherical conductor by an ELF dipole magnetic field source is mathematically derived in vector form based on the equivalent mutlipole moment method with reexpansion technique (RE‐EMMM), where M _‖ and are parallel and perpendicular components of M , respectively. The validity of the formula is confirmed in the following three ways: (i) the derivation of the formula from the Sarvas equation with the reciprocity theorem derived by Eaton; (ii) the convergence of the formula to that of homogeneous magnetic field when M _‖ is located at the infinite distance; (iii) comparison of the analytical solutions with numerical solutions by RE‐EMMM. Furthermore, a formula for the trajectory, which satisfies E = 0 , is derived for the field by M _‖. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 166(3): 8– 17, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20739     

Surface charge analysis in eddy current problems

To estimate the characteristics of electric machines that have conductors of complicated shape, it is effective to analyze the surface charge related to eddy current phenomena. However, the eddy current field is generally treated as a quasi‐static field in which the displacement current is neglected and the electric field is not defined in the nonconductive region in the calculation process. Therefore, when we use only the A –? finite element method (FEM) as a field analysis method, it is difficult to calculate the surface charge directly at the interface between conductive and nonconductive regions. In this paper, with this background, we propose a novel method of analysis of the surface charge based on both the A –? FEM with edge elements and the integral equation. This approach enables us to precisely calculate the surface charge. Some numerical results that demonstrate the validity of the proposed method are also presented, such as the surface charge analysis of linear induction motors for evaluating the relationships among the surface charge, eddy current, and conductor shape. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 145(1): 59–66, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10173     

Characteristic measurement of discharge current injected by the air discharge of an ESD gun onto a ground

An immunity testing method for electrostatic discharge (ESD) is being specified in IEC 61000‐4‐2, in which the contact discharge of an ESD gun is being normally specified. Air discharge testing is known to be a severe immunity test compared to contact discharge testing, while the discharge current injected is not well reproduced. Grasping the behavior of the current injected by the air discharge would be helpful in establishing the worst‐case ESD immunity testing. We previously measured the discharge currents for air discharge testing onto the IEC‐recommended current transducer with a commercially available ESD gun, and showed that there exists a specific relationship of Ip·tr^ξ/V_c=constant (ξ=0.75), between rise time tr and current peak Ip. The current transducer, however, has a frequency‐dependent transfer impedance which should affect the measured current waveform. In this study, we investigated whether the above‐mentioned specific relationship can be obtained for air discharge of an ESD gun onto a ground that assumes a metal enclosure of electronic equipment under test. A method was presented for estimating the discharge current from simultaneously measured magnetic fields with two magnetic field probes regardless of the distance between the gun discharge‐point and the probe position. This method was validated for contact discharge of an ESD gun to an SMA connector. With this method, we estimated the discharge currents injected onto a ground for air discharge testing of an ESD gun with intentionally fast and slow approaches. As a result, we could confirm a specific relationship between rise time tr and current peak Ip of Ip·tr^ξ/V_c=constant with ξ=0.57 independent of charge voltages and gun approaches. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 158(4): 51– 59, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20454     

Design and implementation of combline bandpass tunable filter using barium-strontium-titanate thin-film capacitors

The design, fabrication and microwave properties of tunable fifth-order combline bandpass filter using etched barium-strontium-titanate (BST) thin films on sapphire (0001) substrates were investigated. At 1 MHz and 1000 kV/cm electric field, the dielectric tunability, the remanent polarization (2P_r) and the coercive electric field (2E_C) of BST films were 45.96%, 2.26 µC/cm² and 81.83 kV/cm, respectively. The loss tangent was 1.36% at zero electric field. After the BST parallel plate capacitors characterization, BST capacitors were loaded at the end of parallel coupled resonators in the design of the tunable filter. With the application of 20 V DC voltage, the center frequency of the filter varied from 1.17 GHz to 1.34 GHz which corresponds to a relative shift of 13.5%.     

An efficient preconditioning technique for numerical simulation of hydrodynamic model semiconductor devices

We investigate the application of preconditioned generalized minimal residual (GMRES) algorithm to the equations of hydrodynamic model of semiconductor devices. An introduction to such a model is presented. We use finite‐element method P₁‐isoP₂ element to discretize the equations. A preconditioning technique is proposed. The CPU times are presented for n⁺‐n‐n⁺ diodes and 0.25 μm gate length Si MESFETs by using the preconditioned GMRES algorithm and the GMRES algorithm. The numerical results show that the preconditioning technique accelerates effectively the velocity of convergence. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐dimensional numerical analysis on discharge properties of microwave excited ring dielectric line surface wave processing plasma device

A three‐dimensional simulation code with the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method combined with the electron fluid model has been developed for the microwave excited surface wave plasma in the RDL‐SWP device. This code permits the three‐dimensional numerical analysis of the spatial distributions of electric field, power absorption, electron density, and electron temperature. At a low gas pressure (about 10 mTorr), the numerical results were compared with the experimental measurements that show the validity of this 3D simulation code. A simplified analysis assuming that the electron density is spatially uniform has also been studied and its applicability is evaluated by the comparison of the 3D simulation and the analytical solutions. The surface wave eigenmodes are determined by the electron density, and it is found that the structure of the device strongly influences the spatial distribution of the electric fields of surface waves in a low‐density area (n_e < 3.0 × 10¹¹ cm^?3). A method to irradiate by microwave the whole surface area of the plasma is proposed. The method is found to be effective in obtaining a high uniformity distribution of electron density. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 150(4): 1–12, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10333     

Design and simulation of modular 2n to 1 quantum‐dot cellular automata (QCA) multiplexers

In this paper a novel design of a quantum‐dot cellular automata (QCA) 2 to 1 multiplexer is presented. The QCA circuit is simulated and its operation is analyzed. A modular design and simulation methodology is developed, which can be used to design 2ⁿ to 1 QCA multiplexers using the 2 to 1 QCA multiplexer as a building block. The design methodology is formulated in order to increase the circuit stability. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐sensitivity PEA system with dual‐polarity pulse generator

The pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) method has been widely used to observe space charge distributions in various solid dielectric materials. The sensitivity of the conventional PEA system is around 1C/m³. When the charge density is less than 1C/m³, however, it is difficult to obtain an accurate result because the signal due to the Maxwell stress becomes comparable with the signal to be measured. The Maxwell stress is generated by applying the pulsed electric field to the dielectrics, and independent from the existence of either induced charges by DC bias voltage or internal charges. In order to eliminate the influence of the Maxwell stress, we have developed a new PEA system with a dual‐polarity pulse generator. The system allows measurement space at a charge density of around 0.03C/m³. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 166(2): 1– 7, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20496     

Scaling for the refrigeration effects in lead-free barium titanate based ferroelectric ceramics

The refrigeration effect (ΔQ) or temperature change (ΔT) resulting from electro-caloric (EC) effect in BaTiO₃ multilayered structures and Ba_1-xSr_xTiO₃ ceramics are directly measured using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). At high electric field and near the Curie temperature, the relation between ΔQ and the applied field E is found to follow a power-law relation ΔQ_max ~ E ^b , which is explained by the critical scaling near the Curie temperature. The exponent b is found to decrease with increasing disorder in the barium titanate based EC materials. Furthermore it is found that under the same electric field the maximum ΔQ of Ba_1-xSr_xTiO₃ ceramics which occurs around the Curie temperature first increases and then decreases with the increasing content of disorder x. A random-field ferroelectric transition model is used to investigate the effect of disorder on ΔQ and the scaling exponent b. The results from numerical solutions of this model are consistent with those from experiments. The scaling for the refrigeration effect in barium titanate based ferroelectrics is useful in the development of multilayered ferroelectrics with large cooling capacity for the practical application of lead-free barium titanate based ferroelectrics.     

Analysis of electric field induced by ELF magnetic field utilizing fast‐multipole surface‐charge simulation method for voxel data

This paper presents a fast‐multipole surface‐charge‐simulation method for calculating three‐dimensional Laplacian fields in voxel models. This method treats a surface of a voxel that has different inside and outside conductivities as a surface element of the indirect BEM (boundary element method). The main features of the proposed method are as follows. (1) An O(D²) performance in the memory capacity and operation cost is provided by applying the diagonal form fast multipole method (FMM), when the number of voxels is about D³. (2) The boundary matching is imposed by the continuity of the total flux passing through each element, which guarantees the solution globally satisfying Gauss's law; therefore the solution is globally stabilized. This method is successfully applied to calculate the electric field induced by an applied homogeneous ELF (extremely low frequency) magnetic field in a human head model that has 1 mm ×1 mm 1 mm voxel size. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 165(4): 1–10, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20529     

Morphology of PZT-PMN Films Grown from Airflow

Lead zirconate titanate-lead magnesium niobate (PZT-PMN) films with thicknesses in the range 5 to 200 μm were fabricated by deposition from airflow at room temperature. Precursor powders of PZT and PMN were mixed in a ball mill and entrained in an airflow generated by a commercial jet-mill (Micron-Master 02-506). Films were grown at a rate of 1 μm/minute onto the Ni and tungsten carbide substrates exposed to the air-powder mixture. Unfired, poled PZT-PMN films provided an audio acoustic response and form translucent 20–30 μm thick layers. Full density of the air-flow deposited materials has been achieved at temperatures 450°C lower than that typical for ball milled bulk PZT-PMN ceramics. After sintering for 2 hours at 850°C PZT-PMN ceramics with relative density of 99.5%, ? ～ 2170, tan δ ～ 0.009 @1 kHz and acceptable piezoelectric properties was obtained. Films sintered 2 hours at 1000°C showed remnant polarization P _r = 26 μC/cm², P _s = 36 μC/cm² @95 kV/cm, and 50 Hz ac electric breakdown field as high as 120–170 kV/cm. Unusual grain morphology governs improved sinterability and enhanced properties of ferroelectric ceramics. Optical and AFM micrographs revealed needle-like grains preferentially oriented parallel to the air-powder stream. As-deposited films were found to be very non-uniform across the thickness: glass-like and with tensile strain on the contact surface. This strain is released and film microcrystalline structure becomes uniform in annealed film.     

Preparation of organic semiconductive thin films by laser ablation: Control of structure and electric properties by selecting wavelength,fluence, and substrate temperature

Amorphous organic semiconductive thin films with electric conductivities ranging between 10⁻⁵ and 10¹ Scm⁻¹ are prepared on several temperature-controlled substrates by excimer laser ablation (ELA) of 3, 4, 9, 10-perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) with 193 nm (ArF), 248 nm (KrF) and 308 nm (XeCl) beams. The structure, electric conductivity, and carrier species of the prepared films depend strongly on the ablation wavelength, fluence, and substrate temperature. Thermoelectromotive force measurements demonstrate conversion of carrier species from n-type to p-type with increasing fluence of a 308-nm beam from 0.2 to 4.0 Jcm⁻²pulse⁻¹. A film prepared on a substrate at 300 °C by ELA with a 308-nm beam partially contains a polyperinaphthalene (PPN) structure with electric conductivity of 10⁻² to 10⁻¹ Scm⁻¹. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 125(2): 19–26, 1998     

An improved decision feedback equalization using a priori information

This paper addresses the exhaustive computational complexity of the maximum‐a‐posteriori equalizer and the inefficiency of the conventional decision feedback equalizer (DFE) algorithm in iterative equalization, especially when the higher‐level modulation is used with severely distorted Inter Symbol Interference channels. The new method proposed here improves the bit error rate (BER) performance by computing the extra metric r_n+1 using the feedback symbols from previous iteration and combining it with a priori information of the symbols. After each iteration, the hard‐detected symbols are saved in the memory as a priori data for next iteration. We verified the proposed algorithm for Binary Phase Shift Keying and 8‐phase shift keying modulation. The promising simulation results show that the BER performance given by the proposed low complexity DFE algorithm improved dramatically throughout the iterations when the conventional DFE has only insignificant improvement in the process of iterative equalization. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of proposed thin‐wire model in finite difference time domain method

Thin‐wire approximation in the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method is important in saving computer resources and truncating central processing unit (CPU) time. Previously, thin wires were mainly realized using the true thin wire (TTW) model, in which electric field components along the wire axis are set at zero, and three methods, in which electric field components along the wire axis are also set at zero and the medium around thin wires is replaced depending on wire radius, are hereafter called the RM model. The former is the most conventional and widely used method; however, its resultant radius is 0.23Δs, supposing that the space under consideration is divided by cubic cells with a Δs of the side length of FDTD cells. The first method of the RM model can realize thin wires having a radius of about 0.15Δs under the conditions we used, in which the time interval is set at a value which is slightly less than Δt_c, e.g. 0.9999t_c, where Δt_c is defined by the Courant condition; in the case of a thin wire having a radius less than 0.15Δs, the FDTD computation suffers from numerical instability. The second method can realize a thin wire having a radius of about 10⁻⁴Δs. We need some changes in the numerical electromagnetic analysis program based on the FDTD method to employ these models. The third of the RM model, which has already been proposed by the author and in which the relative permittivity and relative permeability of four FDTD cells closest to a thin wire are replaced according to the radius of the thin wire and Δs, could realize thin wires having a radius of about 10⁻⁶Δs without changing the program and numerical instability. In this paper, the third model is extensively investigated and it is demonstrated that we can deal with a thin wire with a radius of about 10⁻⁹Δs without numerical instability. The maximum difference in the evaluation of the surge impedance of an open‐ended horizontal wire located 5 m above a perfectly conducting ground is less than 5%. We can easily use the third model even though the program, which is available, has no the specific function of thin‐wire approximation. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.