Superoxidation and Electrochemical Reactions during Switching in Pb(Zr2Ti)O3 Ceramics

Under ferroelectric switching in Pb(Zr₂Ti)O₃ (PZT) ceramics, we demonstrate that oxygen gas is emitted and degrades electrode microstructure. The oxygen is a direct result of the defect chemistry associated with superoxidation which is established during the processing of the ceramics. Under high alternating electric fields, electron injection into the ceramic surface induces a reduction process, and surface layers are believed to change from a p-type electronic compensation to an ionic compensation of oxygen vacancies and A-site lead vacancies. During this process, we noticed progressive changes in capacitance, loss, remnant polarization, and coercive field. The wider implications of this observation for PZT thin film nonvolatile memories are discussed in brief.     

Uniform characteristics with low threshold and high efficiency fora single-transverse-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser-typedevice array

Vertical-to-surface transmission electrophotonic devices with a vertical-cavity are described. The individually accessed 12×4 arrays are characterized and demonstrated to have uniform room-temperature continuous-wave operating characteristics for a threshold current of ~2.8±0.15 mA and a slope efficiency of ~0.18±0.012 W/A with a single transverse mode. Both low threshold and high efficiency with 5% and 7% deviation, respectively, are achieved simultaneously. These devices can be used to constructing two-dimensional massively parallel optical interconnections     

Unusual effects of catechol upon the hydroliquefaction of coal

The effect of catechol on coal hydrogenolysis was studied using tetralin as a solvent vehicle. A constant high liquefaction yield was observed when the amount of catechol added was reduced from 10 to 0.1 % based on the weight of coal. Under the same hydrogenolysis conditions, identical conversion yields were observed even when no catechol was added. Separate experiments were carried out, using a new internal vessel and the original stirrer, to examine the effect of the stirrer on liquefaction yield. Improved liquefaction yields were achieved in these experiments (an increase from 31 to 64% at 400 °C and from 46 to 78% at 420 °C for Miike coal; from 26 to 48% at 400 °C and from 36 to 73% at 420 °C for Wandowan coal; and from 16 to 34% at 400 °C and 21 to 55% at 420 °C for Lithgow coal). This suggests that an active catalytic species is formed on the surface of the stirrer and the internal surface of the autocalve.     

The definition of damage functions from irradiation test data

This report describes a method of determining irradiation effectiveness of different neutron spectra in causing radiation effects to fuel cladding and reactor structural materials. It involves the definition of a semi-empirical damage function or cross section using measured data from specimens irradiated in thermal and fast test reactor spectra. The damage function is applied to design problems involving irradiation effects to reactor structural and fuel cladding materials to predict the fluence which would produce a specific change in material properties.     

Dye-sensitized solar cell made of mesoporous titania by surfactant-assisted templating method

Nanocrystalline mesoporous titania was obtained by surfactant-assisted templating method using tetraisopropyl orthotitanate modified with acethylacetone and laurylamine hydrochloride as template. This material was applied for the electrode of dye-sensitized solar cell. The mesoporous TiO₂ (MP-TiO₂) cells exhibited higher short-circuit photocurrent density and solar energy conversion efficiency compared to P25 (a typical commercial titania powder) cells. The incident photon to current conversion efficiency spectrum of MP-TiO₂ can be improved by using the cell made with 5% P25 additive. Double-layer titania cells were fabricated to further improve cell performance by increasing the film thickness and light scattering. The solar conversion efficiency up to 8.06% was obtained by using the double-layer titania cell sintered at 450 °C for 2 h.     

A 62-ns 16-Mb CMOS EPROM with voltage stress relaxation technique

To meet the increasing demand for higher-density and faster EPROMs, a 16-Mb CMOS EPROM has been developed based on 0.6-μm N-well CMOS technology. In scaled EPROMs, it is important to guarantee device reliability under high-voltage operation during programming. By employing internal programming-voltage reduction and new stress relaxation circuits, it is possible to keep an external programming voltage V_pp of 12.5 V. The device achieves a 62-ns access time with a 12-mA operating current. A sense-line equalization and data-out latching scheme, made possible by address transition detection (ATD), and a bit-line bias circuit with two types of depletion load led to the fast access time with high noise immunity. This 16-Mb EPROM has pin compatibility with a standard 16-Mb mask-programmable ROM (MROM) and is operative in either word-wide or byte-wide READ mode. Cell size and chip size are 2.2 μm×1.75 μm and 7.18 mm×17.39 mm, respectively     

Multimedia LSI accelerator with embedded DRAM

To succeed in the graphics controllers market, it is important to take advantage of embedded DRAMs, which provide low power consumption, low electromagnetic interference (EMI), smaller board space, and frame memory flexibility (capacity, access speed, and bandwidth). These capabilities benefit portable PC applications in which board space and power consumption are serious considerations. The MSM7680 accelerator is ideally suited for a compact multimedia system because of its smaller, embedded DRAM capacity. The MSM7680 provides high performance and/or a one-chip solution for many graphics display systems. It also integrates the frame buffer with graphics controller functions such as a 2D drawing engine, MPEG-1 decoder, digital/analog converter for RGB analog output, and a clock generator phase-locked loop. The MSM7680 multimedia accelerator uses a 256-bit data bus with embedded 1.25-Mbyte DRAM to increase the rate of data transfers and decrease power consumption     

Simultaneous manifestation of squamous cell carcinoma in identical twins with epidermolysis bullosa

We report a case of identical twins with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, who developed squamous cell carcinoma in the hand at the latter half of their third decade. To our knowledge, this is the first case of manifestation of squamous cell carcinoma in identical twins and may contribute to the understanding of oncogenesis in such patients.