Effect of Channel Width Variation on Electrical Characteristics of Double Lateral Gate Junctionless Transistors; A Numerical Study

In this paper, the effect of channel width variation on performance of double lateral gate junctionless transistors in the depletion and accumulation regimes is investigated. The characteristics of the device with various channel widths is comprehensively examined through analysis of on and off state current, threshold voltage (V _th), transconductance (g _m) and drain conductance (g _D) variation in each operating regime. The carriers’ density distribution, electric field components and mobility are investigated through 3-D numerical simulations of the device to illustrate the variation of output characteristics. The results show that as the width decreases, the off-current (I _OFF) decreases significantly as a result of better electrostatic control of the lateral gates over the channel. The on-current (I _ON) is also decreased mainly due to the doping-dependent mobility degradation.It is also indicated that between the flat-band and fully depleted (pinch off) variation of the majority carriers is the main parameter that modifies the characteristics of the device, while the mobility variation is recognized as the basic factor in the accumulation regime.     

Mixing processes in the cavity transfer mixer: A thorough study

In many industrial applications, the quality of mixing between different materials is fundamental to guarantee the desired properties of products. However, properly modeling and understanding polymer mixing presents noticeable difficulties, because of the variety and complexity of the phenomena involved. This is also the case with the Cavity Transfer Mixer (CTM), an add‐on to be mounted downstream of existing extruders, to improve distributive mixing. The present work proposes a fully three‐dimensional model of the CTM: a finite element solver provides the transient velocity field, which is used in the mapping method implementation to compute the concentration field evolution and quantify mixing. Several simulations are run assessing the impact on mixing of geometrical and functioning parameters. In general, the number of cavities per row should be limited and the cavity size rather big to guarantee good mixing quality. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 1034–1048, 2018     

An automatic approach for artifacts detection and shadow enhancement in intravascular ultrasound images

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is clinically available for visualizing coronary arteries. However, it suffers from acoustic shadow areas and ring-down artifacts as two of the common issues in IVUS images. This paper introduces an approach which can overcome these limitations. As shadow areas were displayed behind hard plaques in the IVUS grayscale images, calcified plaques were first segmented by using Otsu threshold. Then, active contour, histogram matching, and local histogram matching are implemented. In addition, a new modified circle Hough transform is introduced to remove the ring-down artifacts from IVUS images. In order to evaluate the efficacy of this new method in detection of shadow and ring-down regions, 300 IVUS images are considered. Sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 92% are achieved from a comparison in revelation of calcium along with shadow in the proposed method and virtual histology images. Also, area differences of \(5.83 \pm 3.3\) and \(5.65 \pm 2.83\) are obtained, respectively, for ring-down and shadow domain when compared to measures performed manually by a clinical expert.     

Synthesis of sulfides via reaction of aryl/alkyl halides with S8 as a sulfur-transfer reagent catalyzed by Fe3O4-magnetic-nanoparticles-supported L-Histidine-Ni(II)

One-pot synthesis of symmetrical diaryl/alkyl sulfides in high yields from the reaction between aryl/alkyl halides and S₈ can be carried out in a short period, using Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@His@Ni(II) as a reusable catalyst. The present approach offers the advantages of a clean reaction, simple methodology and high efficiency, and avoids the use of a toxic catalyst.     

Absorption Enhancement in Ultrathin Structures Based on Crystalline-Si/Ag Parabola Nanocones Periodic Arrays with Broadband Antireflection Property

In this study, we examine the optical properties and unique features of a novel design of a parabola nanocone consisting of a homogenous shell-like cover layer of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and an Ag core which provides an enhanced absorption efficiency and significant photocurrent conversion during exposure to an incident light. Determining the geometrical sizes of the c-Si/Ag parabola nanocone, we designed an antireflection nanostructure based on certain arrays of investigated cone arrays on a GaAs substrate. We proved that the examined nanostructure shows a low percentage of reflectance of 6.24 % and a significant short current density of ~37.2 mA/m ² as well as broadband antireflection facility. This understanding paves the way for novel methods toward the use of a simple and two layer nanoparticle in designing efficient and high performance antireflection layers of photovoltaics and solar cells that are able to function over a wide range of spectrum.     

The effect of surface roughness on the efficiency of the cyclic potentiodynamic passivation (CPP) method in the improvement of general and pitting corrosion resistance of 316LVM stainless steel

The influence of surface roughness on the efficiency of a cyclic potentiodynamic passivation (CPP) method employed to increase the general and pitting corrosion resistance of 316LVM stainless steel was investigated. The results show that a decrease in surface roughness of both the surface on which the passive film was formed naturally and by the CPP method, results in an increase in general corrosion resistance of the material, while for the CPP-modified surface, a notable increase in pitting corrosion resistance was also observed. It was further demonstrated that the CPP method is highly effective in increasing the general and pitting corrosion resistance of 316LVM, and that its efficiency does not depend on the surface roughness.     

Hydrodynamics characterization of the Maxblend impeller

The hydrodynamic characteristics of the Maxblend^TM impeller have been investigated in the case of viscous Newtonian fluids. Both laboratory experiments and 3D finite element based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been carried out. The power consumption, the mixing evolution yielding the mixing time, and the effect of baffles in the laminar and transition flow regimes have been determined. It was found that the limit Reynolds number between the laminar and transition regimes is approximately 25 and 38 for the unbaffled and baffled configurations, respectively. Based on the range of Reynolds numbers studied in this work, the best window performance of the Maxblend^TM mixer where fast and homogenous mixing is achieved is the end of the laminar regime and the early transition regime with baffles.     

A reappraisal of transition elements in linear elastic fracture mechanics

This article offers a detailed comparison of the transition elements described by P.P. Lynn and A.R. Ingraffea [International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 12,1031–1036] and C. Manu[Engineering Fracture Mechanics 24,509–512]. The source of a numerical phenomenon in using Manu's transitionelement (TE) is explained. The effect of eight-noded TEs with differentquarter-point elements (QPE) on the calculated stress intensity factors (SIFs) isinvestigated. Strain at the crack tip is shown to be singular for any ray emanating from the crack tip within an eight-noded TE, but strain has bothr ^–1/2andr ^–1singularities, withr ^–1/2dominating for large TEs. Semi-transition elements (STEs) are defined and shown to have a marginal effect on the calculated SIFs. Nine-nodedtransition elements are formulated whose strain singularity is shown to be the same as that of eight-noded TEs. Then the effect of eight-noded and nine-noded TEs with collapsed triangular QPEs, and rectangular and nonrectangular quadrilateral eight-noded and nine-noded QPEs, is studied, and nine-noded TEs are shown to behave exactly like eight-noded TEs with rectangular eight-noded and nine-noded QPEs and to behave almost the same with other QPEs. The layered transition elements proposed by V. Murti and S.Valliapan [Engineering Fracture Mechanics 25, 237–258] areformulated correctly. The effect of layered transition elements is shown by two numerical examples.     

Passive Behavior of Ultra-Fine-Grained 1050 Aluminum Alloy Produced by Accumulative Roll Bonding in a Borate Buffer Solution

In this study, the effect of the ARB process on the passive behavior of ultra-fine-grained 1050 aluminum alloy in a borate buffer solution(p H 6.0) has been investigated. The result of the microhardness tests revealed that the microhardness values increase with an increasing number of ARB cycles. The potentiodynamic polarization plots revealed that the higher number of cycles for the specimens proceeds with the ARB process rather than annealing yield to lower corrosion and passive current densities and more noble corrosion potential values. Moreover, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements showed that increasing the number of ARB cycles offers better conditions for forming the passive films.     

Study of a novel and simple method of generating binary mask for microprism fabrication

A new and simple method for generating binary masks for fabrication of gray scale micro-optical elements is proposed and examined. In this technique the main idea is superimposing two or more gratings with slightly different pitches that depend on the considered gray tone level. This causes generation of a chirped binary mask in which the openings widths are changed from a maximum to minimum through considered steps. Furthermore, to show its capability, it was applied to fabricate some microprisms. In addition, influence of proximity gap, and designation parameters on the surface quality were studied. It is shown that surface deterioration is effectively modified by optimizing the designation parameters. In comparison to other techniques, one of the advantages of this method is to have an assortment of pulse modulated masks that are able to create a variety of gray tone levels. Other advantages are ease in designation and implementation, and the fact that surface roughness could be smoothed effectively by aptly optimized parameters. Theoretical approach, simulation works, and experimental results are presented.