CIB Working Commissions W57 and W74

Prof. Colin Davidson, Faculté de l'aménagement, Université de Montréal; Philippe Davidson, National Research Council of Canada, NRCC; David Jaggar, Liverpool Polytechnic; and Kalev Ruberg, NRCC, report on the CIB survey of educational establishments showing that information science and information management is taught in less than half the programmes surveyed, and discuss the difficult task of the acquisition of expert information, as well as the need to match information provided with practitioners’ real needs.     

Teaching hardware/software system codesign using CAD tools: a casestudy in image synthesis

The teaching of electronic systems architecture covers a large domain from software to hardware aspects. Producing engineers who are experts in both areas seems impossible, but giving the students a second expertise is obviously important. The subject matter of this paper is to report a course developed for students in computer science to give them an expertise in digital electronic problems through the use of a heterogeneous architecture. The application supporting this teaching is image synthesis, partially programmed on transputer microprocessors and partially synthesized with two FPGAs. Thanks to this example, students use a large set of CAD tools and understand the advantages and drawbacks of cabled solutions versus programmed solutions. The developed application is finally validated on a board designed by others students. Beyond technical achievements, students also gain experience working in teams on a project with a module partitioning     

Decoherence effects in the Wigner function formalism

We demonstrate the ability of the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics to provide convenient means and intuitive notions for exploring the process of transition from a quantum to a classical state known as decoherence. The Wigner equation, which is usually relevant for electron transport in nanostructures, augmented by the Boltzmann scattering operator is now applied to the time dependent transport problems which may be considered as benchmark examples for the decoherence role of phonons in semiconductor devices. Simulation results maintained by theoretical analysis show how scattering effectively destroys the interference effects. The initial coherence in the wave vector distribution is pushed towards the equilibrium distribution. In particular scattering by phonons hinders the natural spread of the density with time and advances it towards a classical localization. Furthermore, the decoherence effect due to phonons, is measured by the purity of the Wigner state, which decreases from its initial value of 1, with a rate depending on the lattice temperature, and by a functional comparing diagonal with off-diagonal elements of the density matrix.     

Catalytic Routes Towards Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) have become a strategic material in the area of nanotechnologies nowadays, and catalytic chemical vapor deposition seems to be the most promising technique in view of an industrial-scale production. However, the selective catalytic production of single wall carbon nanotubes is still a challenge, since catalytic systems performances both in terms of selectivity and activity are still relatively low. One of the main challenges for the catalytic growth of SWCNT is the control of the catalyst nanoparticles size distribution along the high temperatures required by the process. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art of the strategies that have been followed to selectively grow single wall carbon nanotubes. It focuses on catalysts preparation and activity/selectivity and on the growth mechanism of these nanostructures. Particular attention is given to the identification of the parameters that control the selectivity of the reaction, such as the choice of the metal/support couple, the particle's sizes, and the chemical vapor deposition conditions.     

Modeling nitrous oxide emissions from tile-drained winter wheat fields in Central France

Modeling nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from agricultural soils is still a challenge due to influences of artificial management practices on the complex interactions between soil factors and microbial activities. The aims of this study were to evaluate the process-based DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC, version 9.5) model and modified non-linear empirical Nitrous Oxide Emission (NOE_V2) model with weekly N₂O flux measurements at eight sites cropped with winter wheat across a tile-drained landscape (around 30-km²) in Central France. Adjustments of the model default field capacity and wilting point and the optimum crop production were necessary for DNDC95 to better match soil water content and crop biomass yields, respectively. Multiple effects of varying soil water and nitrate contents on the fraction of N₂O emitted through denitrification were added in NOE_V2. DNDC95 and NOE_V2 successfully predicted background N₂O emissions and fertilizer-induced emission peaks at all sites during the experimental period but overestimated the daily fluxes on the sampling dates by 54 and 25 % on average, respectively. Cumulative emissions were slightly overestimated by DNDC95 (4 %) and underestimated by NOE_V2 (15 %). The differences between evaluations of both models for daily and cumulative emissions indicate that low frequency measurements induced uncertainty in model validation. Nonetheless, our validations for soil water content with daily resolution suggest that DNDC95 well represented the effect of tile drainage on soil hydrology. The model overestimated soil ammonium and nitrate contents mostly due to incorrect nitrogen partitioning when urea ammonium nitrate solution was applied. The performance of the model would be improved if DNDC included the canopy interception and foliar nitrogen uptake when liquid fertilizer was sprayed over the crops.     

Luminescence nanothermometry with alkyl-capped silicon nanoparticles dispersed in nonpolar liquids

Silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) with a diameter size ranging from 4 to 8 nm were successfully fabricated. They exhibit a visible photoluminescence (PL) due to the quantum confinement effect. Chemical functionalization of these Si NPs with alkyl groups allowed to homogeneously disperse them in nonpolar liquids (NPLs). In comparison to most of literature results for Si NPs, an important PL peak position variation with temperature (almost 1 meV/K) was obtained from 303 to 390 K. The influence of the liquid viscosity on the peak positions is also presented. These variations are discussed considering energy transfer between nanoparticles. The high PL thermal sensitivity of the alkyl-capped Si NPs paves the way for their future application as nanothermometers.