Applications of the 4×4 determinant method and the POLYGON ENGINE

In the first half of the paper, various types of processing pertaining to a polygon, using the 4×4 determinant theories are explained along with a new containment test algorithm of a point in a polygon. In the latter half of the paper, a general-purpose geometric processor, the POLYGON ENGINE, is presented which can deal with various types of interference problems, such as Boolean operations in solid modelling, hidden line and surface eliminations, ray tracing and so on. It is, a successor of the TRIANGLE PROCESSOR and is also based upon the 4×4 determinant theories [4–6]. While the TRIANGLE PROCESSOR processes a triangulated polygon on a triangle-by-triangle basis, the POLYGON ENGINE can treat a polygon without triangulation. The latter is expected to be more functional, more efficient and easier to use.     

Development of cable fault location method using fiber optic distributed temperature sensor

When ground-fault problems occur on a cable line, immediate fault location and restoration are required. Therefore, various new methods to locate the fault point instantaneously have been investigated to replace such conventional methods as the Murray loop method and the pulse radar method [1]. These methods require a long time to locate the fault point. One possible fault location method is to sense the temperature rise following a ground fault using a fiber optic distributed temperature sensor. Application of this method was found feasible through sensing the temperature rise at a ground-fault test using a thermocouple as a temperature sensor with test cables [4]. A power/optical composite cable was prepared experimentally and after verifying its thermal mechanical performance, the temperature rise at an incidence of a fault was determined and the anticipated performance was demonstrated in a ground-fault test. This article describes the outline of the test.     

The new two-dimensional electron gas base HBT (2DEG-HBT):two-dimensional numerical simulation

The bipolar/FET characteristics of the 2DEG-HBT are analyzed extensively by a two-dimensional numerical simulator based on a drift-diffusion model. For bipolar operations at high collector current densities, it is confirmed that the cutoff frequency f_T is determined mainly by the collector transit time of holes and by the charging time of the extrinsic base-collector capacitance C _bc^EXT. The charging times of the emitter and base regions and the base transit time are shown to be negligible. A high cutoff frequency F_T (88 GHz) and current gain h_FE (760) are obtained for an emitter size of 1×10 μm², and undoped collector thickness of 150 nm, and a collector current density J_c of 10⁵ A/cm². The FET operation of the same 2DEG-HBT structure shows a threshold voltage V_th of 0.74 V, the transconductance G_m^max of 80 mS/mm, and maximum cutoff frequency F_T^max of 15 GHz. The dependence of the device performance on material parameters is analyzed extensively from a device design point of view     

Scientific Screening of Raw Diamond for an Ultraprecision Cutting Tool with High Durability

The wide scattering in tool life of natural mono-crystalline diamond tools is considered to depend on intrinsic crystalline defects due to nitrogen impurities in raw diamond. In this paper, the correlation was investigated between the amounts and types of the impurity evaluated by infrared absorption (IRA) and the crater wear and chipping resistances. As a result, diamonds including less total amount of impurity show larger wear resistance and that with larger amount of B2-aggregates show larger chipping resistance. This suggests that the inspection by IRA can be a useful method for screening of raw diamond for highly durable cutting tools.     

Temperature Dependence of the Raman Spectrum in Lithium Oxide Single Crystal

Temperature dependence of the Raman spectrum of lithium oxide single crystal has been measured over a temperature range of 80 to 1073 K. The frequency shift and the line width of the Raman spectrum in lithium oxide were about 531 and 4.5 cm^-1 at 80 K, respectively. At 1073 K, the frequency shift and the line width attained the values of 464 and 112 cm^-1, respectively. The strong temperature dependence of the frequency shift and line width was compared with data from some crystals with a fluorite structure.     

High-performance carbon counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Here, we reported that a new carbon electrode prepared with an activated carbon was superior to a Pt sputtered electrode as the counter electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells. The photovoltaic performance was largely influenced by the roughness factor of carbon electrode. The open-circuit voltage increased by about 60 mV using the carbon counter electrode compared to the Pt counter electrode because of positive shift of the formal potential for I₃⁻/I⁻ couple.     

Effect of 8 MeV electron irradiation on electrical properties of CuInSe2 thin films

Radiation damages due to 8 MeV electron irradiation in electrical properties of CuInSe₂ thin films have been investigated. The n-type CuInSe₂ films in which the carrier concentration was about 3×10¹⁶ cm⁻³, were epitaxially grown on a GaAs(0 0 1) substrate by RF diode sputtering. No significant change in the electrical properties was observed under the electron fluence <3×10¹⁶ e cm⁻². As the electron fluence exceeded 10¹⁷ e cm⁻², both the carrier concentration and Hall mobility slightly decreased. The carrier removal rate was estimated to be about 0.8 cm⁻¹, which is slightly lower than that of III–V compound materials.     

A reconfigurable VLSI-based double-lens tracking camera

Watching and tracking an object while seeing a much wider view is one of advantages of the eye system. We proposed and developed a tracking camera system that mimics the eyes by using double-lens modules. In the system, a wide view is captured through the wide-lens module, while the target in it is tracked and magnified through the telescopic lens module. Electronic circuits for tracking control are implemented onto the reconfigurable VLSI or FPGA in order to embed the parallelism in the tracking algorithm into the hardware. A successfully developed FPGA-based prototype performs high-speed tracking at the video-rate. This work was present in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007