Shape Transformations and Self-Assembly of Hairy Particles under Confinement

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the behavior of polymer-tethered nanoparticles between two inert or attractive walls. The confinement in pores creates new possibilities for controlling the shape transformation of individual hairy particles and their self-organization. We introduce a minimalistic model of the system; only chain-wall interactions are assumed to be attractive, while the others are softly repulsive. We show how the shape of isolated particles can be controlled by changing the wall separation and the strength of the interaction with the surfaces. For attractive walls, we found two types of structures, “bridges” and “mounds”. The first structures are similar to flanged spools in which the chains are connected with both walls and form bridges between them. We observed various bridges, symmetrical and asymmetrical spools, hourglasses, and pillars. The bridge-like structures can be “nano-oscillators” in which the cores jump from one wall to the other. We also study the self-assembly of a dense fluid of hairy particles in slit-like pores and analyze how the system morphology depends on interactions with the surfaces and the wall separation. The hairy particles form layers parallel to the walls. Different ordered structures, resembling two-dimensional crystalline lattices, are reported. We demonstrate that hairy particles are a versatile soft component forming a variety of structures in the slits.     

Plasma damage in thin gate MOS dielectrics and its effect on device characteristics and reliability

Plasma process-induced damage continues to be a great threat and concern in the modern CMOS technologies. This article concentrates on NMOS vs. PMOS device sensitivity to plasma charging originating from the various processing steps. This dependence is studied with respect to the gate oxide thickness, and large antenna devices are used to evaluate device yield, latent damage, and residual effect of charging on device performance and reliability. Specific studies are performed to explore the resistance to the charging damage in CMOS devices with a 50 Å gate oxide grown with various oxidation processes.     

Physicochemical Properties of Sb-Sn-Zn Alloys

In this work, liquid Sb-Sn-Zn alloys were studied to determine their density, viscosity, and surface tension using the discharge crucible method. The measurements were carried out for alloy compositions having X _Sn/X _Sb ratio of 1, 3, 4, and 9 and Zn content X _Zn of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.7 in the temperature range from 550 K to 1050 K. The effect of the Zn concentration in the Sb-Sn-Zn alloys on their density, viscosity, and surface tension was observed. Over a wide temperature range, the viscosity and surface tension increased with increasing Zn content in the alloy, while the density decreased. The experimental results obtained for surface tension and viscosity were compared with the results of the Butler model for surface tension and with the Moelwyn-Hughes, Sichen–Boygen–Seetharaman, Seetharaman–Sichen, Kozlov–Romanov–Petrov, and Kaptay models for viscosity.     

Support vector machine-based expert system for reliable heartbeat recognition

This paper presents a new solution to the expert system for reliable heartbeat recognition. The recognition system uses the support vector machine (SVM) working in the classification mode. Two different preprocessing methods for generation of features are applied. One method involves the higher order statistics (HOS) while the second the Hermite characterization of QRS complex of the registered electrocardiogram (ECG) waveform. Combining the SVM network with these preprocessing methods yields two neural classifiers, which have been combined into one final expert system. The combination of classifiers utilizes the least mean square method to optimize the weights of the weighted voting integrating scheme. The results of the performed numerical experiments for the recognition of 13 heart rhythm types on the basis of ECG waveforms confirmed the reliability and advantage of the proposed approach.     

Design Methodology for Offloading Software Executions to FPGA

Field programmable gate array (FPGA) is a flexible solution for offloading part of the computations from a processor. In particular, it can be used to accelerate an execution of a computationally heavy part of the software application, e.g., in DSP, where small kernels are repeated often. Since an application code for a processor is a software, a design methodology is needed to convert the code into a hardware implementation, applicable to the FPGA. In this paper, we propose a design method, which uses the Transport Triggered Architecture (TTA) processor template and the TTA-based Co-design Environment toolset to automate the design process. With software as a starting point, we generate a RTL implementation of an application-specific TTA processor together with the hardware/software interfaces required to offload computations from the system main processor. To exemplify how the integration of the customized TTA with a new platform could look like, we describe a process of developing required interfaces from a scratch. Finally, we present how to take advantage of the scalability of the TTA processor to target platform and application-specific requirements.     

Families of magnetic semiconductors — an overview

The interplay of magnetic and semiconducting properties has been in the focus for more than a half of the century. In this introductory article we briefly review the key properties and functionalities of various magnetic semiconductor families, including europium chalcogenides, chromium spinels, dilute magnetic semiconductors, dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors and insulators, mentioning also sources of non-uniformities in the magnetization distribution, accounting for an apparent high Curie temperature ferromagnetism in many systems. Our survey is carried out from today's perspective of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spintronics as well as of the emerging fields of magnetic topological materials and atomically thin 2D layers.     

Visual perception of Fourier rainbow holographic display

The rainbow hologram provides views of reconstruction with rainbow color within a large viewing zone. In our recent paper, a Fourier rainbow holographic display using diffraction grating and a white‐light LED source was introduced. In this technique, the rainbow effect is realized by the dispersion of white‐light source on diffraction grating, while the slit is implemented numerically by reducing the demands of the space‐bandwidth product of the display. This paper presents a novel analysis on the visual perception of the Fourier rainbow holographic display using Wigner distribution. The view‐dependent appearance of the image, including multispectral field of view and viewing zone, is investigated considering the observer and the display parameters. The resolution of the holographic view is also investigated. For this, a new quantitative assessment for image blur is introduced using Wigner distribution analysis. The analysis is supported with numerical simulations and experimentally captured optical reconstructions for the holograms of the computer model and real object generated with different slit size, reconstruction distance, and different observation conditions.