How small the contacts could be optimal for nanoscale organic transistors?

We report on a study seeking an optimized contact configuration for organic transistors that minimizes contact effects but maintains smallest contact size. We begin with the bulk access resistance in staggered transistors which results from the charge transport through the organic semiconductor film. Bulk access resistance is an intrinsic contributor to the contact resistance which has been little understood due to lack of a reliable study tool. In this work, we utilize the inner transported power inside the semiconductor film as a medium to investigate the contact resistance and the relevant contact effects. We examine the influences of the organic film thickness (t_SC), the channel length (L), the underlying charge transport and various organic semiconductor materials with variable carrier mobility. A roughly optimal contact length (L_C) of L_C0 ≈ 6t_SC is obtained. The results reveal that besides the device architecture the underlying charge transport should be also taken into account in designing organic transistors for practical application.     

将RF信号转换为数字信号的CMOS转换器

从频率计数与合成到传感器信号调整等很多应用都需要将RF信号转换为数字逻辑电平。在这些情况下,设计者一般采用一个高速电压比较器完成RF到数字信号的转换工作。由于电压比较器具有高增益,它们一般有很好的灵敏度,但也会带来一些问题。高速比较器价格高,很难找到现成的商品,并且易于被快速淘汰。     

Catalyst Design by NH4OH Treatment of USY Zeolite

Hierarchical zeolites are a class of superior catalysts which couples the intrinsic zeolitic properties to enhanced accessibility and intracrystalline mass transport to and from the active sites. The design of hierarchical USY (Ultra‐Stable Y) catalysts is achieved using a sustainable postsynthetic room temperature treatment with mildly alkaline NH₄OH (0.02 m ) solutions. Starting from a commercial dealuminated USY zeolite (Si/Al = 47), a hierarchical material is obtained by selective and tuneable creation of interconnected and accessible small mesopores (2–6 nm). In addition, the treatment immediately yields the NH₄⁺ form without the need for additional ion exchange. After NH₄OH modification, the crystal morphology is retained, whereas the microporosity and relative crystallinity are decreased. The gradual formation of dense amorphous phases throughout the crystal without significant framework atom leaching rationalizes the very high material yields (>90%). The superior catalytic performance of the developed hierarchical zeolites is demonstrated in the acid‐catalyzed isomerization of α‐pinene and the metal‐catalyzed conjugation of safflower oil. Significant improvements in activity and selectivity are attained, as well as a lowered susceptibility to deactivation. The catalytic performance is intimately related to the introduced mesopores, hence enhanced mass transport capacity, and the retained intrinsic zeolitic properties.     

Electrically Activated Paper Actuators

This paper describes the design and fabrication of electrically controlled paper actuators that operate based on the dimensional changes that occur in paper when the moisture absorbed on the surface of the cellulose fibers changes. These actuators are called “Hygroexpansive Electrothermal Paper Actuators” (HEPAs). The actuators are made from paper, conducting polymer, and adhesive tape. They are lightweight, inexpensive, and can be fabricated using simple printing techniques. The central element of the HEPAs is a porous conducting path (used to provide electrothermal heating) that changes the moisture content of the paper and causes actuation. This conducting path is made by embedding a conducting polymer (PEDOT:PSS) within the paper, and thus making a paper/polymer composite that retains the porosity and hydrophilicity of paper. Different types of HEPAs (straight, precurved, and creased) achieved different types of motions (e.g., bending motion, accordion type motion). A theoretical model for their behavior is proposed. These actuators have been used for the manipulation of liquids and for the fabrication of an optical shutter.     

Ice‐Templated Scaffolds with Microridged Pores Direct DRG Neurite Growth

Successful spinal cord repair is thought to be promoted with hierarchically structured scaffolds. These should combine aligned porosity with additional linear features on the micrometer scale to guide axons across multiple length scales. Such scaffolds are generated through the carefully controlled directional solidification of an aqueous biopolymer solution, followed by lyophilization. Under specific freezing conditions this yields a highly regular and aligned lamellar architecture. This architecture exhibits uniform ridges of controlled height and width on the lamellar surface. These ridges run parallel to the pore axis, serving as secondary guidance features. The ridges are capable of linearly aligning 62.4% of chick dorsal root ganglia neurites to within ±10° of the ridge direction. Notably, neurites sprouting perpendicular to the ridge are guided into alignment with these microridged features.     

Social media and political partisanship – A subaltern public sphere’s role in democracy

Social media, as a subaltern public sphere (Fraser, 1990), have a democratic function in providing an alternative platform for minorities and marginalized to defy mainstream discourses in the public sphere. However, social media have been found to have an echo chamber effect, which may be detrimental to democracy. They may help to accelerate the ascendancy of a “post-truth” era in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. A study on political polarization, however, showed that selective exposure and avoidance in social media are weak indicators of polarization (Johnson et al., 2017). This study examines the role of social media in democracy and partisan politics. The authors considered that despite the echo chamber effect, social media have a limited part to play in the formation of polarized stances compared with other factors, such as demographics, political orientation, and mass media use. The study tested two main hypotheses: H1: Social media use is associated with political stance that is marginalized in the mainstream media; H2: Political orientation has a stronger relationship than social media use with the stance toward political values and social issues.The results supported both hypotheses. Social media are associated with political stance that is marginalized in the mainstream media. However, when compared with other factors, the relationship between social media and stance becomes less obvious. Although the echo chamber effect may reinforce the original stance, social media do not exhibit a strong relationship with the stance toward political values and social issues. Partisan orientation and use of partisan mass media are found to have stronger links with variations in stance. Social media, however, provide a subaltern public sphere for those excluded from the dominant public sphere, thus extending the public sphere to accommodate multiple opinions and perspectives.     

On the Diversity Order of a General Cooperative Relaying Communication System

Cooperative communication technology exploiting distributed spatial diversity is a promising solution for the future high data-rate cellular and ad-hoc wireless communications. To characterize the performance of a cooperative network, the cooperative diversity is commonly used. In this paper, we revisit the concept of diversity and look into the essence of cooperative diversity. We analyze the diversity performance of a general cooperative relaying system with multiple branches. Moreover, each branch consists of one or more hops. Unlike in other analyses, the assumptions that each node being only equipped with a single antenna and that all channel characteristics belonging to the same family are NOT required in our study. Using the decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol as an illustration, we provide analytical results on the diversity gain and the coding gain. The results also encompass most of the existing results as special cases. We further show the relationship between the diversity order of a branch and those of the constituent links; and the relationship between the diversity order of the network and those of the constituent branches. In particular, we show that for the uncoded DF protocol, the full diversity order can be achieved by using simple hard-decision detection at the destination. The requirement is to set appropriate signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) thresholds for the multi-hop branches. To improve the bandwidth efficiency, we also randomly select one branch, among those branches satisfying the SNR-threshold requirement, for the transmission. We show that such a scheme accomplishes the full diversity order and produces a good error performance.     

Can energy optimization lead to economic and environmental waste in LPWAN architectures?

As low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) end devices (EDs) are deployed in massive scale, their economic and environmental costs of operation are becoming too significant to ignore and too difficult to estimate. While LPWAN architectures and protocols are designed to primarily save energy, this study shows that energy saving does not necessarily lead to lower cost or environmental footprint of the network. Accordingly, a theoretical framework is proposed to estimate the operational expenditure (OpEx) and environmental footprint of LPWAN EDs. An extended constrained optimization model is provided for the ED link assignment to gateways (GWs) based on heterogeneous ED configurations and hardware specifications. Based on the models, a simulation framework is developed which demonstrates that OpEx, energy consumption, and environmental footprint can be in conflict with each other as constrained optimization objectives. We demonstrate different ways to achieve compromises in each dimension for overall improved network performance.     

High-Speed Downlink Access in 3G Systems: A Portent for the Evolution of 4G Systems?

Due to the need of operators to protect the high levels of investment inthird generation (3G) wireless systems, it seems likely that the path tofourth generation (4G) wireless systems will be evolutionary rather thanrevolutionary. Currently there are a number of proposals beforestandardisation bodies such as 3GPP and 3GPP2 for extending the relevant3G systems to handle asymmetrical, packet-orientatedservices with very high downlink capacities. These proposals, whichinclude HDR and 1XTREME, may pave the way towards 4G systems.This paper outlines some of the salient features of HDR and 1XTREME:adaptive modulation, advanced hybrid ARQ, new fast access controlschemes, etc. On the basis of the trends inherent in theseproposals, some possible directions for the development of 4G systems arediscussed.     

Performance Limit of Chaotic Digital Waveform Communication Systems: Approach of Maximizing a Posteriori Probability

In this paper, we investigate a bandpass chaotic waveform communication system in an additive white Gaussian noise channel environment. By making use of the signalspace diagram and maximizing the a posteriori probability, we derive the conditions under which the optimum bit error performance can be achieved. In particular, we make use of a binary communication system to illustrate how the modulator and demodulator should be constructed in order to achieve the best error performance. Finally, the noise performance bound is determined for chaotic digital waveform communications.