A new approach to the manufacture of chalcogenide thin film solar cells

Glass beads of 0.2 mm diameter are covered with molybdenum, copper and indium. The copper/indium layers are transformed into copper indium disulfide (CIS) by exposing the glass beads to a hydrogensulfide/argon mixture at temperatures of around 500 °C. The CIS covered glass beads serve as the basis material for the formation of solar cells. The main advantage of this approach is the separation between absorber and cell/module formation. In this paper the different process steps necessary for cell manufacturing are described. Some properties of solar cells made out of CIS covered glass beads are presented.     

On the use of the crack tip opening angle parameter to explain the ductile crack growth behavior of miniature compact specimens

Experimental crack resistance curves obtained from miniature compact tension, MC(T), specimens were found to be significantly less tough than those obtained on standard one inch 1T-C(T) specimens. In order to investigate the fundamental reasons behind this unexpected result, local approaches to fracture based on the Rice and Tracey void growth model and the crack tip opening angle (CTOA) concept are used. Local crack growth criteria are identified on test results obtained from 1T-C(T) and are used to predict the MC(T) behavior. Results demonstrate that the CTOA parameter is very effective as it allows transferring results from MC(T) to larger specimens, it is easy to implement in a finite element code, it is mesh size insensitive and can be actually measured although its experimental determination is not straightforward. The β parameter derived from the Rice and Tracey void growth model is unable to explain the experimental results. The possible reasons for the poor performance of the β parameter are discussed.     

Efficient robust predictive control

Predictive constrained control of time-varying and/or uncertain linear systems has been effected through the use of ellipsoidal invariant sets (Kothare et al., 1996). Linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) have been used to design a state-dependent state-feedback law that maintains the state vector inside invariant feasible sets. For the purposes of prediction however, at each time instant, the state feedback law is assumed constant. In addition, due to the large number of LMIs involved, online computation becomes intractable for anything other than small dimensional systems. Here we propose an approach that deploys a fixed state-feedback law but introduces extra degrees of freedom through the use of perturbations on the fixed state-feedback law. The problem is so formulated that all demanding computations can be performed offline leaving only a simple optimization problem to be solved online. Over and above the very significant reduction in computational cost, the extra degrees of freedom allow for better performance and wider applicability     

Combining Statistical Language Models via the Latent Maximum Entropy Principle

We present a unified probabilistic framework for statistical language modeling which can simultaneously incorporate various aspects of natural language, such as local word interaction, syntactic structure and semantic document information. Our approach is based on a recent statistical inference principle we have proposed—the latent maximum entropy principle—which allows relationships over hidden features to be effectively captured in a unified model. Our work extends previous research on maximum entropy methods for language modeling, which only allow observed features to be modeled. The ability to conveniently incorporate hidden variables allows us to extend the expressiveness of language models while alleviating the necessity of pre-processing the data to obtain explicitly observed features. We describe efficient algorithms for marginalization, inference and normalization in our extended models. We then use these techniques to combine two standard forms of language models: local lexical models (Markov N-gram models) and global document-level semantic models (probabilistic latent semantic analysis). Our experimental results on the Wall Street Journal corpus show that we obtain a 18.5% reduction in perplexity compared to the baseline tri-gram model with Good-Turing smoothing.Editors: Dan Roth and Pascale Fung     

Enhanced performance of a bolometric detector at mK temperatures in high magnetic fields

Results on the operation of a bolometer detector in high magnetic fields and at very low temperatures are presented. We tested a diamond absorber on a Ge thermistor in magnetic fields up to 8 Tesla and temperatures down to 10 mK using an⁵⁵Fe X-ray and¹⁰⁹Cd electron source. Heavily doped Ge shows a giant magnetoresistance effect. This was used to tune the thermistor impedance to an optimal value.     

On the range of validity of a simple wave approximation of a non-linear set of diffusive wave equations

Summary The set of wave equations considered is an intermediate approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations. A further approximation leads to Burgers' equation. The range of validity of this simple wave approximation has been studied. The method used is especially useful for small nonlinearity.     

On a simple wave approximation to a non-linear problem

Summary The range of validity of a simple wave approximation to a non-linear set of two dissipative wave equations has been studied. The non-linear set is, when the dissipative terms are omitted, totally exceptional. It describes the propagation of longitudinal waves in an ideal elastic bar with some viscous stress. Upon a non-linear transformation, the equations become linear. These linear equations have been studied first. The results for the non-linear equations are then easily obtained by transforming backwards. It turns out that, if the non-linearity is small enough, they are similar to those obtained for the linear equations.Detached by Philips Research Laboratories     

Technical feasibility study on polycarbonate solar panels

This paper describes a technical feasibility study on the application of polycarbonate (PC) plates in a superstrate photovoltaic module design. The lamination process was performed in a conventional laminator apparatus using low temperature curing (100°C) ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA) as the potting material and multi-crystalline silicon solar cells. Thermo-mechanical calculations via the finite element method were performed to support the experimental results on various layer set-ups. Both experimental and numerical results revealed that PC superstrate laminates display a certain degree of warpage after the lamination process. This warpage can be attributed to stress built up in the modules due to differences in thermal expansion between solar cells and PC. This stress build-up can be diminished by application of thicker layers of PC or EVA leading to less curved laminates.