Delayed self-heterodyne linewidth measurement of VCSELs

We report on high-resolution linewidth measurements of proton-implanted InGaAs-GaAs VCSELs employing the delayed self-heterodyne method. Devices with 16-/spl mu/m active diameter exhibit record low linewidths of 20 MHz and 4-MHz residual linewidth. The linewidth enhancement factor is accurately determined from the ratio of induced phase to amplitude modulation indexes.     

Binary blends of nylons with ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymers: Morphological,thermal, rheological,and mechanical behavior

Binary blends of ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymers, containing 62 (EVOH-62) and 71 (EVOH-71) mole percent vinyl alcohols, with nylons (nylon-6, nylon-6/12, and nylon-12) have been prepared from melt mixing in a twin screw compounding machine. Morphological, thermal, rheological, and mechanical properties were determined. EVOH-62/nylon-6 and EVOH-71/nylon-6 blends showed homogeneous phase morphologies in the nylon-6-rich region, and fine phase separations (c.a. 2 × 10^?7 m) in the EVOH-rich region. Melting point depression, positive deviations in viscosity and flexural modulus, and negative deviation in impact strength from the simple additive rule were generally observed. And the results were possibly interpreted in terms of compatibility and increased nylon/EVOH interactions over the nylon/nylon interactions. On the contrary, clean phase separations in large domains were observed from EVOH-71/nylon-6/12 and EVOH-71 /nylon-12 blends. Fibrillation was also obtained from EVOH rich blends. Probably due to the incompatible nature of these blends, yield at low rate of shear and a mechanical property drop were also observed.     

Protection of Digital TV from Cognitive Radio Interference

Analytic modeling and computational simulation for the protection of DTV from cognitive radio interference are performed. Protection is achieved by using the protection ratio, which is derived through system modeling and its analysis. On the frequency coordination between digital TV and cognitive radio, an analysis in a co‐channel environment, in a rural area in Korea, is performed.     

Design and Architecture of Low‐Latency High‐Speed Turbo Decoders

In this paper, we propose and present implementation results of a high‐speed turbo decoding algorithm. The latency caused by (de)interleaving and iterative decoding in a conventional maximum a posteriori turbo decoder can be dramatically reduced with the proposed design. The source of the latency reduction is from the combination of the radix‐4, center to top, parallel decoding, and early‐stop algorithms. This reduced latency enables the use of the turbo decoder as a forward error correction scheme in real‐time wireless communication services. The proposed scheme results in a slight degradation in bit error rate performance for large block sizes because the effective interleaver size in a radix‐4 implementation is reduced to half, relative to the conventional method. To prove the latency reduction, we implemented the proposed scheme on a field‐programmable gate array and compared its decoding speed with that of a conventional decoder. The results show an improvement of at least five fold for a single iteration of turbo decoding.     

GPS‐Based Orbit Determination for KOMPSAT‐5 Satellite

Korea Multi‐Purpose Satellite‐5 (KOMPSAT‐5) is the first satellite in Korea that provides 1 m resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. Precise orbit determination (POD) using a dual‐frequency IGOR receiver data is performed to conduct high‐resolution SAR images. We suggest orbit determination strategies based on a differential GPS technique. Double‐differenced phase observations are sampled every 30 seconds. A dynamic model approach using an estimation of general empirical acceleration every 6 minutes through a batch least‐squares estimator is applied. The orbit accuracy is validated using real data from GRACE and KOMPSAT‐2 as well as simulated KOMPSAT‐5 data. The POD results using GRACE satellite are adjusted through satellite laser ranging data and compared with publicly available reference orbit data. Operational orbit determination satisfies 5 m root sum square (RSS) in one sigma, and POD meets the orbit accuracy requirements of less than 20 cm and 0.003 cm/s RSS in position and velocity, respectively.     

Resistive switching characteristics of ultra-thin TiOx

We investigated the resistive switching characteristics of Ir/TiO_x/TiN structure with 50 nm active area. We successfully formed ultra-thin (4 nm) TiO_x active layer using oxidation process of TiN BE, which was confirmed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) depth profiling. Compared to large area device (50 μm), which shows only ohmic behavior, 250 and 50 nm devices show very stable resistive switching characteristics. Due to the formation and rupture of oxygen vacancies induced conductive filament at Ir and TiO_x interface, bipolar resistive switching was occurred. We obtained excellent switching endurance up to 10⁶ times with 100 ns pulse and negligible degradation of each resistance state at 85 °C up to 10⁴ s.     

Photocurable propyl-cinnamate-functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane as a gate dielectric for organic thin film transistors

A polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-based insulating material with photocurable propyl-cinnamate groups (POSS-CYNNAM) was designed and synthesized through simple single step reaction for use as a gate dielectric in organic thin-film transistors (OTFT). POSS-CYNNAM was soluble in common organic solvents and formed a smooth thin film after spin-casting. A thin film of POSS-CYNNAM was cross-linked and completely solidified under UV irradiation without the use of additives such as photoacid generators or photoradical initiators. ITO/insulator/Au devices were fabricated and characterized to measure the dielectric properties of POSS-CYNNAM thin films, such as leakage current and capacitance. A pentacene-based OTFT using the synthesized insulator as the gate dielectric layer was fabricated on the transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode, and its performance was compared to OTFTs using thermally cross-linked poly(vinyl phenol) (PVP) as the insulator. The fabricated POSS-CYNNAM OTFT showed a comparable performance to devices based on the PVP insulator with 0.1 cm²/Vs of the field effect mobility and 4.2 × 10⁵ of an on/off ratio.     

Luminescence,charge mobility,and optical waveguiding of two-dimensional organic rubrene nanosheets: Comparison with one-dimensional nanorods

Intrinsic characteristics of organic and inorganic nanostructures depend on their physical dimensions (i.e., size and shape) and crystallinity. Here, we compared the nanoscale optical and electrical properties of organic rubrene one-dimensional (1-D) nanorods (NRs) and two-dimensional (2-D) nanosheets (NSs). From high-resolution laser confocal microscope photoluminescence (PL) measurements, the light-emission characteristics of 2-D rubrene NSs varied with the crystalline domain direction, indicating intrinsic PL anisotropy, which was distinguishable from 1-D rubrene single NRs, because of anisotropy π–π stacking molecular arrangements. We also observed the variation of charge carrier mobility depending on the measured directions (i.e., anisotropy of charge transport) in rubrene NS-based field-effect transistors. The optical waveguiding properties of rubrene nanostructures were strongly correlated to the dimensionality of materials and PL anisotropy.     

Design and practical implementation of multifrequency RF front ends using direct RF sampling

The use of direct RF sampling has been explored as a means of designing multifrequency RF front ends. Such front ends will be useful to multifrequency RF applications such as global navigation satellite system receivers that use global positioning system (GPS) L1, L2, and L5 signals and Galileo signals. The design of a practical multifrequency direct RF sampling front end is dependent on having an analog-to-digital converter whose input bandwidth accommodates the highest carrier frequency and whose maximum sampling frequency is more than twice the cumulative bandwidth about the multiple carrier signals. The principle of direct RF sampling is used to alias all frequency bands of interest onto portions of the Nyquist bandwidth that do not overlap. This paper presents a new algorithm that finds the minimum sampling frequency that avoids overlap. This design approach requires a multifrequency bandpass filter for the frequency bands of interest. A prototype front end has been designed, built, and tested. It receives a GPS coarse/acquisition code at the L1 frequency and GPS antispoofing precision code at both L1 and L2. Dual-frequency signals with received carrier-to-noise ratios in excess of 52 dB-Hz have been acquired and tracked using this system.     

Large-Scale Synthesis of Graphene Films by Joule-Heating-Induced Chemical Vapor Deposition

We report large-area synthesis of few-layer graphene films by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) in a cold-wall reactor. The key feature of this method is that the catalytic metal layers on the SiO₂/Si substrates are self-heated to high growth temperature (900°C to 1000°C) by high-current Joule heating. Synthesis of high-quality graphene films, whose structural and electrical characteristics are comparable to those grown by hot-wall CVD systems, was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy images, Raman spectra, and current–voltage analysis. Optical transmittance spectra of the graphene films allowed us to estimate the number of graphene layers, which revealed that high-temperature exposure of Ni thin layers to a carbon precursor (CH₄) was critical in determining the number of graphene layers. In particular, exposure to CH₄ for 20 s produces very thin graphene films with an optical transmittance of 93%, corresponding to an average layer number of three and a sheet resistance of ~600 Ω/square.