Electrospun PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers as the chemiresistor in chemical vapour sensing

Herein, PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers were produced by electrospinning. The presence of PEDOT:PSS in the nanofibers was confirmed by FT-Raman spectroscopy. The applied voltage-dependent diameter of PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers was observed. Also, sensing behaviors of electrospun PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers were explored by measuring its response upon cyclic exposure to organic vapours such as ethanol, methanol, THF, and acetone at room temperature. When PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers were exposed to each solvent, the protic and aprotic solvents resulted in opposite electrical responses. These findings exhibit that electrospun PEDOT:PSS/PVP nanofibers are the promising candidate for the organic vapour sensing material.     

Optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin film containing nano-sized Ag particles

Low-temperature crystallized ZnO thin film was achieved by sol–gel process using zinc acetate dihydrate and 2-methoxyethanol as starting precursor and solvent, respectively. Ag nanoparticles were prepared with uniform size at 4.4 nm by spontaneous reduction method of Ag 2-ethylhexanoate in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin films containing various contents of Ag-nanoparticles were monitored. Light scattering and charge emission and scattering behaviors of Ag nanoparticles in ZnO film were found. The incorporation of Ag nanoparticles into Al-doped ZnO film was also investigated. The optical transmittance was not degraded but the increase of electrical sheet resistance was found. The effect of Al-dopant on the transmittance and electrical sheet resistance of ZnO film was found too great to distinguish the positive effect of the incorporation of Ag nanoparticles into Al-doped ZnO thin films.     

Lineage of non-cranial neural crest cell in the dental mesenchyme: using a lacZ reporter gene during early tooth development

The tooth is one of the ectodermal organs controlled by reciprocal interactions between the epithelium and the mesenchyme. Mesenchymal cells in the developing tooth, so-called dental mesenchymal cells, are derived from two different origins: the cranial neural crest (CNC) and the non-CNC. These CNC-derived cells migrate, proliferate and differentiate into odontoblasts, cementoblasts, fibroblasts, osteoblasts and chondroblasts. Tooth germs of wild-type mice were transplanted into the kidney of adult lacZ-transgenic mice. After 1 week of transplantation, a few lacZ-expressing cells and many red blood cells were found near or inside the blood vessels in the pulp of wild-type tooth germs. This result shows that circulating cells of the adult host could invade the dental pulp during tooth development, through the blood vessels, and be a part of dental pulp tissue. Therefore, it can be suggested that these circulating progenitor cells could be the origin of non-CNC-derived cells in tooth germ and their migration pathways would be the blood vessels invading the dental pulp during tooth development. If variations of this experiment were suitably adjusted, such as the embryonic stage of the tooth germ, duration of transplantation, etc., this transplantation experiment using adult lacZ-transgenic mice could be a good system to reveal the origin and migration pathway of cells in developing organs as well as in dental mesenchymal cells.     

Design and fabrication of a significantly shortened multimode interference coupler for polarization splitter application

We report that we have successfully designed and fabricated a significantly shortened multimode interference coupler for application in polarization splitter, using a phenomenon that we termed "quasi-state" (QS) imaging effect. First, we identified and analyzed the QS imaging effect, and, based on the QS analysis, designed and fabricated a novel multimode interference (MMI) device with its split length shortened to 1/5 of a normally designed MMI split length. The fabrication is simple and cost effective and the fabricated device shows outstanding characteristics in extinction ratio, signal homogeneity, excess loss, and tolerance in the length of the splitter.     

Data retention characteristics of MANOS-type flash memory device with different metal gates at various levels of charge injection

We investigated the impact of charge injection and metal gates (Al and Pt) on the data retention characteristics of metal–alumina–nitride–oxide–silicon (MANOS) devices for NAND flash memory application. Through the theoretical and experimental results, the highly injected charge (ΔV_TH) could cause the band bending of Al₂O₃, which reduced the tunneling distance across Al₂O₃. Thus, the dominant charge loss path is not only toward SiO₂ but also toward Al₂O₃ direction. Compared to low-metal work function (Ф_M), ONA stack with high-Ф_M showed better data retention characteristics, even if ΔV_TH is high. This could be explained by Fermi level alignment for different Ф_M, which results in the reduction of electric field across the Al₂O₃ compensated by the ΔФ_M (Ф_Pt ? Ф_Al).     

Oxygen Surface Exchange at Grain Boundaries of Oxide Ion Conductors

The role of grain boundaries on oxygen surface exchange in an oxide ion conductor is reported. Atomic‐scale characterization of the microstructure and chemical composition near the grain boundaries of gadolinia‐doped ceria (GDC) thin films show the segregation of dopants and oxygen vacancies along the grain boundaries using the energy dispersive spectroscopy in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM‐EDS). Kelvin probe microscopy is employed to verify the charge distribution near grain boundaries and shows that the grain boundary is positively charged, indicating a high concentration of oxygen vacancies. AC impedance spectroscopy on polycrystalline GDC membranes with thin interfacial layers with different grain boundary densities at the cathodes demonstrated that the cells with higher grain boundary density result in lower electrode impedance and higher exchange current density. These experimental evidences clearly show that grain boundaries on the surface provide preferential reaction sites for facilitated oxygen incorporation into the GDC electrolyte.     

Effects of isothermal aging and temperature–humidity treatment of substrate on joint reliability of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu/OSP-finished Cu CSP solder joint

This study examined the effects of isothermal aging and temperature–humidity (TH) treatment of substrate on the joint reliability of a Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu (wt.%)/organic solderability preservative (OSP)-finished Cu solder joint. Two types of OSP-finished chip-scale-package (CSP) substrates were used, those subjected and not subjected to the TH test. This study revealed an association between the interfacial reaction behaviors, void formation and mechanical reliability of the solder joint. Many voids were formed at the interface of the OSP-finished Cu joint subjected to the TH test. These voids were caused by the oxidation of the OSP-finished Cu substrate during the TH test. In the shear tests, the shear force of the joint with the substrate not subjected to the TH test was slightly higher than that with the TH test. The mechanical reliability of the solder joint was degraded by voids at the interface.     

Design of an Ultra‐Wideband Antenna Using a Ring Resonator with a Notch Function

This paper describes an ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna that uses a ring resonator concept. The proposed antenna can operate in the entire UWB, and the IEEE 802.11a frequency band can be rejected by inserting a notch stub into the ring resonator. The experiment results indicate that the measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 17.5 GHz (2.5 GHz to at least 20 GHz). The proposed UWB antenna has omnidirectional radiation patterns with a gain variation of 3 dBi (1 dBi to 4 dBi).     

Advantages of CDMA and spread spectrum techniques over FDMA andTDMA in cellular mobile radio applications

A unified theoretical method for the calculation of the radio capacity of multiple-access schemes such as FDMA (frequency-division multiple access), TDMA (time-division multiple access), CDMA (code-division multiple access) and SSMA (spread-spectrum multiple access) in noncellular and cellular mobile radio systems is presented for AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channels. The theoretical equivalence of all the considered multiple-access schemes is found. In a fading multipath environment, which is typical for mobile radio applications, there are significant differences between these multiple-access schemes. These differences are discussed in an illustrative manner revealing several advantages of CDMA and SSMA over FDMA and TDMA. Novel transmission and reception schemes called coherent multiple transmission and coherent multiple reception are briefly presented     

A 3.3-V single power supply 16-Mb nonvolatile virtual DRAM using aNAND flash memory technology

A 3.3-V 16-Mb nonvolatile memory having operation virtually identical to DRAM with package pin compatibility has been developed. Read and write operations are fully DRAM compatible except for a longer RAS precharge time after write. Fast random access time of 63 ns with the NAND flash memory cell is achieved by using a hierarchical row decoder scheme and a unique folded bit-line architecture which also allows bit-by-bit program verify and inhibit operation. Fast page mode with a column address access time of 21 ns is achieved by sensing and latching 4 k cells simultaneously. To allow byte alterability, nonvolatile restore operation with self-contained erase is developed. Self-contained erase is word-line based, and increased cell disturb due to the word-line based erase is relaxed by adding a boosted bit-line scheme to a conventional self-boosting technique. The device is fabricated in a 0.5-μm triple-well, p-substrate CMOS process using two-metal and three-poly interconnect layers. A resulting die size is 86.6 mm², and the effective cell size including the overhead of string select transistors is 2.0 μm²