Analyzing the Boundary Thermal Resistance of Epitaxially Grown Fe<Subscript>2</Subscript>VAl/W Layers by Picosecond Time-Domain Thermoreflectance

To gain deep insight into the mechanism of phonon scattering at grain boundaries, we investigated the boundary thermal resistance by using picosecond pulsed-laser time-domain thermoreflectance for epitaxially grown W/Fe₂VAl/W films. By using radio-frequency magnetron sputtering, we prepared a series of the three-layer films whose Fe₂VAl thickness ranged from 1 nm to 37 nm. The fine oscillation of reflectivity associated with the top W layer clearly appeared in synchrotron x-ray reflectivity measurements, indicating a less obvious mixture of elements at the boundary. The areal heat diffusion time, obtained from the time-domain thermoreflectance signal in the rear-heating front-detection configuration, reduced rapidly in samples whose Fe₂VAl layer was thinner than 15 nm. The ～ 10% mismatch in lattice constant between Fe₂VAl and W naturally produced the randomly distributed lattice stress near the boundary, causing an effective increase of boundary thermal resistance in the thick samples, but the stress became homogeneous in the thinner layers, which reduced the scattering probability of phonons.     

Microcavity distributed-feedback laser using dye-doped polymeric thin films

An organic microcavity laser, in which all the stacked polymer layers are doped with pyrromethene-567 dye, is presented. Singlemode laser oscillation at 568 nm was obtained that was located in the middle of the stopband. The lasing threshold was found to be 260 nJ/pulse, which corresponded to 300 muJ/cm² in the pulse energy density     

The structure of tartaric acid adsorbed over nickel catalyst observed by FT-IRAS

The structure of the L-tartaric acid adsorbed on the surface of a nickel metal catalyst with or without NaBr was studied by FT-IRAS. The carboxylic acid and carboxylate type adsorbed species were observed on nickel surface which was treated with only tartaric acid, while only one type of carboxylate ion was observed on the nickel surface which was treated with tartaric acid and NaBr.     

Modulator integrated DFB lasers with more than 600-km transmission capability at 2.5 Gb/s

The modulator integrated DFB laser diodes with more than 600-km transmission capability over normal fiber at 2.5 Gb/s, have been reproducibly achieved. The longest transmission length obtained in the experiment is as long as 800 km.     

A 150 ns 16-Mb CMOS SRAM with interdigitated bit-line architecture

Circuit techniques for a reduced-voltage-amplitude data bus, fast access 16-Mb CMOS SRAM are described. An interdigitated bit-line architecture reduces data bus line length, thus minimizing bus capacitance. A hierarchical sense amplifier consists of 32 local sense amplifiers and a current sense amplifier. The current sense amplifier is used to reduce the data bus voltage amplitude and the sensing of the 16-b data bus signals in parallel. Access time of 15 ns and an active power of 165 mW were achieved in a 16-Mb CMOS SRAM. A split-word-line layout memory cell with double-gate pMOS thin-film transistors (TFTs) keeps the transistor width stable while providing high-stability memory cell characteristics. The double-gate pMOS TFT also increases cell-storage node capacitance and soft-error immunity     

Metal Single-Atom Cocatalyst on Carbon Nitride for the Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction: Effects of Metal Species

Single-atom (SA) catalysts exhibit high activity in various reactions because there are no inactive internal atoms. Accordingly, SA cocatalysts are also an active research fields regarding photocatalytic hydrogen (H₂) evolution which can be generated by abundant water and sunlight. Herein, it is investigated whether 10 transition metal elements can work as an SA on graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄; i.e., gCN), a promising visible-light-driven photocatalyst. A method is established to prepare SA-loaded gCN at high loadings (weight of ≈3 wt.% for Cu, Ni, Pd, Pt, Rh, and Ru) by modulating the photoreduction power. Regarding Au and Ag, SAs are formed with difficulty without aggregation because of the low binding energy between gCN and the SA. An evaluation of the photocatalytic H₂-evolution activity of the prepared metal SA-loaded gCN reveals that Pd, Pt, and Rh SA-loaded gCN exhibits relatively high H₂-evolution efficiency per SA. Transient absorption spectroscopy and electrochemical measurements reveal the following: i) Pd SA-loaded gCN exhibits a particularly suitable electronic structure for proton adsorption and ii) therefore they exhibit the highest H₂-evolution efficiency per SA than other metal SA-loaded gCN. Finally, the 8.6 times higher H₂-evolution rate per active site of Pd SA is achieved than that of Pd-nanoparticles cocatalyst.     

Tunable wavelength filter using nano-sized droplets of liquidcrystal

An electrically tunable optical filter has been developed that uses a polymer containing fine droplets of nematic liquid crystal as the active cavity in a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI). This FPI filter, whose finesse was 62, had a free spectral range of 37 nm in the 1.55-μm range with a full-width at half maximum of 0.6 nm and a transmission loss of 2.4 dB. The polarization dependent loss was smaller than 0.17 dB. The transmitted peak wavelength decreased with an electric field. This resulted in a tuning range of 10 nm at 300 V. The switching time was about 370 μs     

An on-chip active decoupling circuit to suppress crosstalk in deep-submicron CMOS mixed-signal SoCs

A decoupling circuit using an operational amplifier is proposed to suppress substrate crosstalk in mixed-signal system-on-chip (SoC) devices. It overcomes the parasitic inductance problem of on-chip capacitor decoupling. The effect of the proposed decoupling circuit is not limited by parasitic fine impedance. A 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS test chip showed that substrate noise at frequencies from 40 MHz to 1 GHz was incrementally suppressed by sequentially activating three of the proposed circuits in parallel. The power dissipation of each circuit was 3.3 mW at a 1.0-V power supply. The test chip measurement showed that the proposed decoupling reduced crosstalk by 31% at 200 MHz, whereas it was reduced by 4.4% with capacitor decoupling. This 7:1 ratio, or 17 dB, corresponds to the gain of the opamp. Design of the opamp and its feedback loop for active decoupling is simple, making the opamp useful for SoC applications.     

Utilization of adzuki bean extract as a natural antioxidant in cured and uncured cooked pork sausages

A commercial adzuki bean extract (AE) was evaluated for antioxidant effectiveness in cured and uncured cooked pork sausages. TBARS values, instrumental color evaluation and sensory panel scores were assessed. For uncured sausages, AE at 0.2% was equally effective as 0.1% butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) in reducing TBARS values. Similarly, AE at 0.2% significantly (P<0.01) reduced the TBARS in cured sausages. Incorporation of 0.2% AE into sausages produced higher (P<0.05) CIE lab color a* value and lower (P<0.05) L* and b* values. Sensory panels did not detect any difference in color, odor, taste, flavor, and overall acceptance in uncured pork sausages with addition of 0.2% AE. However, there were adverse changes in the color and odor of cured sausages, even though the taste, flavor, and overall acceptance were similar. Therefore, the results suggest that AE is a potential antioxidant.