Self-aligning planarization and passivation for integration applications in III-V semiconductor devices

This work reports an easy planarization and passivation approach for the integration of III-V semiconductor devices. Vertically etched III-V semiconductor devices typically require sidewall passivation to suppress leakage currents and planarization of the passivation material for metal interconnection and device integration. It is, however, challenging to planarize all devices at once. This technique offers wafer-scale passivation and planarization that is automatically leveled to the device top in the 1-3-/spl mu/m vicinity surrounding each device. In this method, a dielectric hard mask is used to define the device area. An undercut structure is intentionally created below the hard mask, which is retained during the subsequent polymer spinning and anisotropic polymer etch back. The spin-on polymer that fills in the undercut seals the sidewalls for all the devices across the wafer. After the polymer etch back, the dielectric mask is removed leaving the polymer surrounding each device level with its device top to atomic scale flatness. This integration method is robust and is insensitive to spin-on polymer thickness, polymer etch nonuniformity, and device height difference. It prevents the polymer under the hard mask from etch-induced damage and creates a polymer-free device surface for metallization upon removal of the dielectric mask. We applied this integration technique in fabricating an InP-based photonic switch that consists of a mesa photodiode and a quantum-well waveguide modulator using benzocyclobutene (BCB) polymer. We demonstrated functional integrated photonic switches with high process yield of >90%, high breakdown voltage of >25 V, and low ohmic contact resistance of /spl sim/10 /spl Omega/. To the best of our knowledge, such an integration of a surface-normal photodiode and a lumped electroabsorption modulator with the use of BCB is the first to be implemented on a single substrate.     

Structure evolution of conductive polymer composites revealed by solvent vapor induced time-dependent percolation

The authors of this paper synthesized a series of amphiphilic triblock copolymers of polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene glycol)-b-polystyrene (PS-PEG-PS) having different PEG/PS ratios with nearly identical molecular weights of the entire copolymers. The interfacial interactions in the composites consisting of carbon black and the copolymers can thus be tailored. When these conducting composites are exposed to certain solvent vapors, their electrical resistances greatly increase, showing the gas sensitivity. The present work indicated that this switching behavior is controlled by the structural relaxation of the composites because matrix swelling acts as the main mechanism. The response time has been correlated with absolute temperature by Arrhenius equation, and the estimated activation energy reflects mobility of the fillers involved in the solvent induced expansion of the surrounding polymer. Therefore, by using the gas sensibility of the conductive composites, the structure evolution of the composite materials in solid state and the effect of filler/matrix interfacial interaction on the relaxation property of the matrix polymer has been inspected. It was found that lower activation energy represents stronger interfacial interaction in case good solvent of the matrix was used for the test.     

Investigation of Infrared Photonic Crystal Slab with Defect Waveguides

This paper deals with the two dimensional (2-D) infrared photonic crystal slab with an air-bridge structure featuring defect waveguides in which the optical propagation properties were obtained by measurements of transmission spectra. 3-D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations have revealed the appearance of four defect propagation modes for the band structure and transmission spectra in the air-bridge slab. These defect modes were experimentally identified in the measured transmission spectra.     

One‐step production of 2,3‐butanediol from starch by secretory over‐expression of amylase in Klebsiella pneumoniae

BACKGROUND: 2,3‐Butanediol (2,3‐BD) is a valuable chemical that can be biosynthesized from many kinds of substrates. For commercial biological production of 2,3‐BD, it is desirable to use cheap substrate without pretreatment, such as starch. However, there have been few reports on the production of 2,3‐BD directly from starch. RESULTS: In this work, gene malS coding for α‐amylase (EC 3.2.1.1) precursor was inserted into plasmid pUC18K, and secretory over‐expression of α‐amylase was achieved by engineered Klebsiella pneumoniae. The extracellular recombinant amylase accelerated the hydrolyzation of starch, and one‐step production of 2,3‐BD from starch was carried out by engineered K. pneumoniae. A 2,3‐BD concentration of 3.8 g L^?1 and yield of 0.19 g 2,3‐BD g^?1 starch were obtained after 24 h fermentation. CONCLUSION: The one‐step production of 2,3‐BD from starch was achieved by secretory over‐expression of amylase in K. pneumoniae. This would simplify the process and reduce the production cost considerably by enabling use of starch with minimal pretreatment. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Distributed Rule-Regulated Spectrum Sharing

Dynamic spectrum access is a promising technique to use spectrum efficiently. Without being restricted to any prefixed spectrum bands, nodes choose operating spectrum on-demand. Such flexibility, however, makes efficient and fair spectrum access in large-scale networks a great challenge. Prior work in this area focused on explicit coordination where nodes communicate with peers to modify local spectrum allocation, and may heavily stress the communication resource. In this paper, we introduce a distributed spectrum management architecture where nodes share spectrum resource fairly by making independent actions following spectrum rules. We present five spectrum rules to regulate node behavior and maximize system fairness and spectrum utilization, and analyze the associated complexity and overhead. We show analytically and experimentally that the proposed rule-based approach achieves similar performance with the explicit coordination approach, while significantly reducing communication cost.     

太阳电池板结构应力-应变状态分析

多层胶接是太阳电池板的结构特点,由于不同材料的弹性模量、热膨胀系数和泊松比不同,在温度场 作用下会产生热应力应变,在多次热交变过程中热应力．应变累积最后导致结构层间剥离,因此研究温度场作用 下太阳电池板结构应力应变状态具有非常重要的实际意义。本文推导了模拟太阳电池板结构应力-应变状态的一 维模型,该模型同样适用于分析多层胶接结构应力应变状态。     

雏议造价监理工程师在工程建设中的作用

分析了造价监理工程师如何在在施工前期的招投标、施工组织方案技术经济评价和工程施工阶段的签证、索赔、进度款控制等方面对造价进行合理确定和有效控制。     

Effect of fiber types on relevant properties of porous asphalt

The research was conducted to evaluate the effects of cellulose and polyester fibers on the properties of porous asphalt mixes, using the tests of draindown, abrasion, volumetric properties, rutting, and moisture damage. Images of scanning electron microscopy and X-ray computerized tomography were adopted to identify the microstructure of the fiber and inner stone skeleton of porous asphalt. The influence of rutting parameter （G＊/sin δ） of asphalt modified by different fibers on the rutting resistance of the mixes was investigated. Based upon MOHR-COULOMB theory, the cohesion and the angle of internal friction of the mixes were derived from both indirect tension and unconfined compression strength. The experimental results indicate that fibers mainly stabilize asphalt binder and thicken asphalt film around aggregates. Furthermore, they result in the improved mechanical strength of porous asphalt mixes at high temperature slightly. From comparison analysis, cellulose fibers appear to perform better than polyester fibers in porous asphalt mixes.     

Inference for pth‐order random coefficient integer‐valued autoregressive processes

Abstract. A pth‐order random coefficient integer‐valued autoregressive [RCINAR(p)] model is proposed for count data. Stationarity and ergodicity properties are established. Maximum likelihood, conditional least squares, modified quasi‐likelihood and generalized method of moments are used to estimate the model parameters. Asymptotic properties of the estimators are derived. Simulation results on the comparison of the estimators are reported. The models are applied to two real data sets.