IntegratedIn Situ wafer and system monitoring for the growth of CdTe/ZnTe/GaAs/Si for mercury cadmium telluride epitaxy

Reproducible improvements in the metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) grown CdTe buffer quality have been demonstrated in a horizontal rectangular duct silica reactor by the use of integratedin situ monitoring that includes laser reflectometry, pyrometry, and Epison concentration monitoring. Specular He-Ne laser reflectance was used toin situ monitor the growth rates, layer thickness, and morphology for both ZnTe and CdTe. The substrate surface temperature was monitored using a pyrometer which was sensitive to the 2–2.6 μm waveband and accurate to ±1°C. The group II and group VI precursor concentrations entering the reactor cell were measured simultaneously using two Epison ultrasonic monitors and significant variations were observed with time, in particular for DIPTe. The surface morphology and growth rates were studied as a function of VI/II ratio for temperatures between 380 and 460°C. The background morphology was the smoothest for VI/IIratio in the vicinity of 1.5–1.75 and could be maintained using Epison monitors. Regularly shaped morphological defects were found to be associated with morphological defects in the GaAs/Si substrate. The x-ray rocking curve widths for CuK_α (531) reflections were in the range of 2.3–3.6 arc-min, with no clear trend with changing VI/II ratio. X-ray topography images of CdTe buffer layers on GaAs/Si showed a mosaic structure that is similar to CdTe/sapphire substrates. The etch pit density in Hg_1-xCd_xTe layers grown onto improved buffer layers was as low as 6 x 10⁶ cm^-2 for low temperature MOVPE growth using the interdiffused multilayer process.     

Post-irradiation ductility loss of FeNibase precipitation hardenable alloys

Several γ′- and γ′/γ″-strengthened Fe-Ni-base superalloys have shown near-zero ductility after neutron irradiation to fluences of $\text{～ 4 × 10}{}^{22}\text{n/cm}{}^2$, $\text{E > 0.1 MeV}$, at 500 to 650°C. The ductility loss is most pronounced in solution-treated or in solution-treated and aged specimens tested at 110°C above the irradiation test temperature. Failed specimens exhibit brittle intergranular fractures. Microstructural examination of the embrittled specimens showed that continuous or semi-continuous coatings of γ′ formed at grain boundaries during the irradiation. In some cases, the grain boundaries were also decorated by small bubbles, thought to be transmutation-induced helium or contained trace elements such as sulphur and phosphorus. All of these grain boundary alterations are attributed to radiation-induced solute segregation. Microanalyses of the γ′ coatings indicate that Ni, Al, Si, Ti and Nb had segregated to grain boundary sinks in irradiated FeNiCr based alloys. Nonequilibrium segregation of helium and trace impurities is also considered likely. The role of radiation-induced segregation in the embrittlement phenomenon is consistent with the observation that introducing a high density of dislocation sinks by cold-working reduces γ′ formation at the grain boundaries and reduces the ductility loss. The embrittlement is attributed to concurrent strengthening within grains by irradiation-induced γ′ precipitation and brittle cleavage failure of grain boundary precipitates.     

Generation of configuration space obstacles: The case of moving algebraic curves

We present algebraic algorithms to generate the boundary of planar configuration space obstacles arising from the translatory motion of objects among obstacles. Both the boundaries of the objects and obstacles are given by segments of algebraic plane curves.Research supported in part by NSF Grant MIP-85-21356 and a David Ross Fellowship. An earlier version of this paper appeared in theProceedings of the 1987 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 979–984.     

Cost-benefit analysis of a single server three-unit redundant system with inspection, delayed replacement and two types of repair

This paper deals with a redundant system with two types of spare units—a warm standby unit for instantaneous replacement at the time of failure of the active unit and a cold standby (stock) unit which can be replaced after a random amount of time. The type of the failure of operative or warm standby unit is detected by inspection only. The service facility plays the triple role of replacement, inspection and repair of a unit. Failure time distributions of operative and warm standby units are negative exponential whereas the distributions of replacement time, inspection time and repair times are arbitrary. The system has been studied by using regenerative points.     

Phosphorylation of neurofilament heavy-chain side-arm fragments by cyclin-dependent kinase-5 and glycogen synthase kinase-3alpha in transfected cells

The side-arm domain of neurofilament heavy-chain (NF-H) is heavily phosphorylated in axons. Much of this phosphate is located within a multiphosphorylation repeat (MPR) domain situated toward the carboxy terminus of the molecule. The MPR domain contains the repeat motif KSP of which there are two broad categories, KSPXX and KSPXK. In mouse NF-H, the KSPXK repeats are situated toward the latter part of the MPR domain. We have expressed in mammalian cells fragments of mouse NF-H side-arm containing all of the MPR domain, the latter part of the MPR domain containing the KSPXK repeats, and the complementary amino-terminal part of the MPR domain, which contains the KSPXX repeats. By cotransfecting these fragments with the neurofilament kinases cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (cdk-5)/p35 and glycogen synthase kinase-3alpha (GSK-3alpha), we show that cdk-5 induces cellular phosphorylation of the KSPXK-containing fragment of NF-H. Using the transfected fragments, we also map the epitopes for several commonly utilised NF-H monoclonal antibodies and describe the effects that phosphorylation by cdk-5 and GSK-3alpha have on their reactivities.     

Nutrient transformation in soil due to addition of organic manure and growing crops

Maintaining organic pools of nitrogen (N) in soil is important for providing a steady flux of N in soil solution. Bioslurry, which is the product obtained from anaerobically digested (methanised) farm yard manure (FYM), is an efficient source of organic manure with capability to supply nutrients, particularly N to crops. A study was conducted to see the equilibrium relationship between the inorganic and organic N fractions as affected by application of bioslurry and fertilizer N in a maize (Zea mays L.) — mustard (Brassica campestris) crop sequence. Results obtained revealed that 75.7 percent of the total soil N was in the hydrolyzable N fraction. Among the hydrolyzable fractions, aminoacid N, unidentified N and hydrolyzable NH ₄ ⁺ constituted 25.8, 25.7 and 18.6 percent of the total N, respectively. Ammonium fixed in clay lattice constituted 19.1 percent of the total N. Application of bioslurry @ 13.32 t ha^–1 under N-unfertilized conditions increased NO₃-N, fixed NH ₄ ⁺ , aminoacid N, hexosamine N and hydrolyzable NH ₄ ⁺ . The magnitude of increase in total hydrolyzable and inorganic N fractions was 31.4 and 15.2 percent, respectively. Growing crops decreased N in the inorganic fractions. Transformation reaction of organic N to inorganic N was evident after second crop in the sequence. Fertilizer N application encouraged build-up of N in organic fractions, particularly in aminoacid, hydrolyzable NH ₄ ⁺ and unidentified N fractions. Application of bioslurry maintained higher status of N in both organic and inorganic N fractions. Linear regression relationship between N content in different fractions and bioslurry applied both under fertilized and unfertilized conditions assisted in developing prediction models on the rate of bioslurry to be applied to arrive at the desired N content in different fractions. Significant intercorrelation coefficients (r²) between different fractions indicated free mobility between the N fractions under limited N conditions suggesting a dynamic equilibrium between them. Path coefficient analysis showed that exchangeable NH ₄ ⁺ and NO₃-N had substantial direct positive effect on N uptake by mustard with bioslurry application. Under untreated conditions exchangeable NH ₄ ⁺ , hexosamine and hydrolyzable NH ₄ ⁺ fractions had higher direct contribution to meet mustard N requirement. Most of the hydrolyzable N fractions contributed to N uptake by mustard by first transforming to exchangeable NH ₄ ⁺ and NO₃—N and thus setting an equilibrium condition for maintaining the steady flux of N to plants.Part of Ph.D. Thesis of the senior author     

A Dual-Band Circularly Polarized Hexagonal Ring Antenna for Handheld RFID Readers

In this paper, a compact, lightweight, low-profile dual-band circularly polarized antenna is presented for handheld radio frequency identification (RFID) readers. The proposed antenna consists of two concentric hexagonal rings and a feed network printed on different layers of the dielectric substrate. The antenna configuration exploits a stacked-coupled technique for gain enhancement and single-port feeding for easy manufacturing. The center frequencies of the two resonating bands are 0.92 GHz (UHF) and 2.45 GHz (ISM). The antenna exhibits circular polarization characteristics in both the resonating bands, therefore encountering the losses due to polarization mismatch and increasing the tag detection reliability. A prototype of the proposed RFID antenna is simulated and fabricated, and experimental results are in close agreement. The peak antenna gain is 3.3 dB and 5 dB in the UHF and ISM bands, respectively. The overall size of the RFID antenna is 80 mm?×?80 mm?×?7.76 mm.

     

An Advanced Analysis System for Identifying Alcoholic Brain State Through EEG Signals

Machine Intelligence Research - This paper addresses an advanced analysis system for the identification of alcoholic brain states from electroencephalogram (EEG) data in an automatic way. This...     

Approximating the Generalized Voronoi Diagram of Closely Spaced Objects

We present an algorithm to compute an approximation of the generalized Voronoi diagram (GVD) on arbitrary collections of 2D or 3D geometric objects. In particular, we focus on datasets with closely spaced objects; GVD approximation is expensive and sometimes intractable on these datasets using previous algorithms. With our approach, the GVD can be computed using commodity hardware even on datasets with many, extremely tightly packed objects. Our approach is to subdivide the space with an octree that is represented with an adjacency structure. We then use a novel adaptive distance transform to compute the distance function on octree vertices. The computed distance field is sampled more densely in areas of close object spacing, enabling robust and parallelizable GVD surface generation. We demonstrate our method on a variety of data and show example applications of the GVD in 2D and 3D.     

Effect of titanate coupling agents on mechanical properties of mica-filled polypropylene

The application of titanate coupling agents for the surface modification of mica filler and its reinforcement in polypropylene (PP) has been directed towards improvement in mechanical properties. Four titanate coupling agents, namely neoalkoxy tri(dioctylpyrophosphato) titanate (C₁), neoalkoxy trineodecanoyl titanate (C₂); bis-(acetylacetonato)distearato titanate (C₃), and bis-(acetylacetonato)dipalmitato titanate (C₄) were used in the present investigation. Mica powder (10 μm particle size) was coated with these coupling agents of varying concentration (0.5 to 1 % on the weight of filler) and then blended with polypropylene powder of 10 melt flow index. The mica (10 to 50 wt. %) filled polypropylene samples with and without coupling agents, were injection molded and the mechanical properties of the specimens tested. There is an improvement in the tensile, flexural, and impact strength of PP/mica samples coupled with titanates. The best performance in terms of yield stress and flexural strength was observed in PP/mica samples having 0.7% C₁, titanate coupling agent. The fracture behavior of mica filled PP has also been studied using a scanning electron microscope.