Effect of Copper on the Carrier Lifetime in Black Silicon

Black silicon is produced by laser annealing of a-Si:H films. During annealing, silicon microstructures are formed on the surface. We use time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy to study the photoconductivity dynamics in black silicon. We find that when a copper film is deposited on top of the a-Si:H layer prior to laser annealing, the carrier lifetime of black silicon is significantly reduced.     

Introduction to the special issue on IEEE NEWCAS 2017

A contactless detector is presented for evaluating hand tremors caused by exercise-induced fatigue and early Parkinson’s disease. The device consists of a spiral coil, a microcontroller, and an inductive sensor circuitry. Theory shows that the resonant frequency of the circuitry increases when the distance between the hand and the spiral coil decreases, thus small variations of distance from tremor can be detected from the changes of resonant frequencies. A mechanical hand was built for experiments to simulate human hand tremors with repeatability at a fixed frequency. The magnitudes and frequencies of the tremors in the mechanical hand were quantitatively identified using the inductive sensor. Hence, feasibility and accuracy of the contactless hand tremor detector were determined. A triaxial accelerometer was used for comparison. By comparing spectral distributions and magnitudes of the tremors, the inductive sensor performed better than the accelerometer. The detector was applied to evaluate actual hand tremors of three subjects who had undergone exercise to induce tremors. The tremor waveform amplitudes of the subjects were quantitatively analyzed by the standard deviations method. The increased signal energies of exercise-induced tremor within 8–12 Hz were confirmed. Then, a subject with early Parkinson’s disease was evaluated by the proposed hand tremor detector. The tremor magnitudes and frequencies of the patient hand were quantitatively identified within in 4–7 Hz. Therefore, the new contactless hand tremor detector can be developed as a clinical instrument for monitoring the fatigue symptoms of post-exercise and diagnosing the early Parkinson’s disease.     

Dual-output switched-capacitor DC–DC converter with pseudo-three-phase swap-and-cross control and amplitude modulation mechanism

This paper presents an inductorless dual-output switched-capacitor DC–DC converter employing pseudo-three-phase swap-and-cross control (PTPSCC) and an amplitude modulation mechanism (AMM). The AMM circuit scales the amplitudes of the driving signals for the switches according to the loading conditions in order to minimize switching losses. To reduce output ripples, average charge distribution, and improve regulation, the PTPSCC circuit continuously switches power transistors to deliver enough charge to the outputs by keeping at least one flying capacitor connected to each output. The switched capacitor DC–DC converter was implemented in a standard 0.18-μm 3.3-V CMOS process. Measurements were used to verify that the proposed converter provides dual independently regulated output voltages without cross regulation. The two outputs were regulated at 2.5 and 0.8 V with input ranges of 1.7–2 V. The maximum output loading was 100 mA for both outputs. A power efficiency of 90.5% was achieved at a maximum total output power of 330 mW with a switching frequency of 500 kHz, and a maximum power efficiency of 92.1% was achieved for a total output power of 210 mW. The maximal peak-to-peak output ripple voltages for the two outputs at 100 mA load currents were suppressed to below 26 and 20 mV, respectively.     

A CMOS multi-gain transconductance amplifier and its applications

Transconductance amplifier (g_m) based circuits are attractive due to their inherent programmability features. Single output g_m’s are often replaced by multi-output g_m’s to reduce the number of active devices for a given application. However, this usually results in losing the circuit programmability features. This work shows that this problem can be circumvented through adopting a new programmable multi-gain g_m. The advantages of the proposed multi-gain g_m are demonstrated using two filter design examples. They show that the proposed multi-gain g_m reduces the number of active devices by two-third compared with their single output g_m based counterparts while maintaining their versatile programmability characteristics. Experimental results obtained from a 0.18 μm CMOS process for one of the applications are provided.     

A 60 GHz phased array with measurement and de-embedding techniques

We present a 60 GHz phased array system that combines several key technologies to realize 10 GHz bandwidth coverage. Particularly, a tightly coupled dipole array centered at 60 GHz is designed and tested for its wideband performance. The tightly coupled dipole elements offer excellent wideband behavior of 10 GHz with voltage standing wave ratio?<?3 with scanning to 45°, as well as low cost printed circuit board fabrication. Additionally, we demonstrate a measurement setup with de-embedding procedure to measure gain at the antenna feed point. A feeding structure was designed and fabricated for de-embedding gain pattern measurements. Recovered measurements are shown to be in agreement with simulation.     

Design of a Double Anode Magnetron Injection Gun for Q-band Gyro-TWT Using Boundary Element Method

This paper presents a novel design code for double anode magnetron injection guns (MIGs) in gyro-devices based on boundary element method (BEM). The physical and mathematical models were constructed, and then the code using BEM for MIG’s calculation was developed. Using the code, a double anode MIG for a Q-band gyrotron traveling-wave tube (gyro-TWT) amplifier operating in the circular TE₀₁ mode at the fundamental cyclotron harmonic was designed. In order to verify the reliability of this code, velocity spread and guiding center radius of the MIG simulated by the BEM code were compared with these from the commonly used EGUN code, showing a reasonable agreement. Then, a Q-band gyro-TWT was fabricated and tested. The testing results show that the device has achieved an average power of 5kW and peak power ≥?150 kW at a 3% duty cycle within bandwidth of 2 GHz, and maximum output peak power of 220 kW, with a corresponding saturated gain of 50.9 dB and efficiency of 39.8%. This paper demonstrates that the BEM code can be used as an effective approach for analysis of electron optics system in gyro-devices.     

Real-Time Amplitude and Phase Imaging of Optically Opaque Objects by Combining Full-Field Off-Axis Terahertz Digital Holography with Angular Spectrum Reconstruction

Terahertz digital holography (THz-DH) has the potential to be used for non-destructive inspection of visibly opaque soft materials due to its good immunity to optical scattering and absorption. Although previous research on full-field off-axis THz-DH has usually been performed using Fresnel diffraction reconstruction, its minimum reconstruction distance occasionally prevents a sample from being placed near a THz imager to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in the hologram. In this article, we apply the angular spectrum method (ASM) for wavefront reconstruction in full-filed off-axis THz-DH because ASM is more accurate at short reconstruction distances. We demonstrate real-time phase imaging of a visibly opaque plastic sample with a phase resolution power of λ/49 at a frame rate of 3.5 Hz in addition to real-time amplitude imaging. We also perform digital focusing of the amplitude image for the same object with a depth selectivity of 447 μm. Furthermore, 3D imaging of visibly opaque silicon objects was achieved with a depth precision of 1.7 μm. The demonstrated results indicate the high potential of the proposed method for in-line or in-process non-destructive inspection of soft materials.     

Metal-Coated &lt;100&gt;-Cut GaAs Coupled to Tapered Parallel-Plate Waveguide for Cherenkov-Phase-Matched Terahertz Detection: Influence of Crystal Thickness

The influence of crystal thickness of metal-coated <100>-cut GaAs (M-G-M) on Cherenkov-phase-matched terahertz (THz) pulse detection was studied. The M-G-M detectors were utilized in conjunction with a metallic tapered parallel-plate waveguide (TPPWG). Polarization-sensitive measurements were carried out to exemplify the efficacy of GaAs in detecting transverse magnetic (TM)- and transverse electric (TE)-polarized THz waves. The reduction of GaAs’ thickness increased the THz amplitude spectra of the detected TM-polarized THz electro-optic (EO) signal due to enhanced electric field associated with a more tightly-focused and well-concentrated THz radiation on the thinner M-G-M. The higher-fluence THz beam coupled to the thinner M-G-M improved the integrated intensity of the detected THz amplitude spectrum. This trend was not observed for TE-polarized THz waves, wherein the integrated intensities were almost comparable. Nevertheless, good agreement of spectral line shapes of the superposed TM- and TE-polarized THz-EO signals with that of elliptically polarized THz-EO signal demonstrates excellent polarization-resolved detection capabilities of M-G-M via Cherenkov-phase-matched EO sampling technique.     

Optimization of Broadband Smooth-Wall Circular Horn Antennas

This paper presents the optimization and characterization of broadband circular horn antennas with smooth walls. These antennas are simpler and easier to manufacture than corrugated horns. They work by converting the incoming fundamental mode to a mode mixture, whose total field corresponds to a Gaussian beam pattern at the aperture. The geometry of the horn is found by an optimization algorithm. While smooth-wall horn antennas have been designed for many years, they are inherently band limited because they rely on a correct multimode interference in the aperture to match the total field to a Gaussian distribution. The presented method achieves significantly larger bandwidths by allowing the Gaussian beam parameters, and thus the required mode spectrum in the aperture, to vary with the frequency. Together with an appropriate mirror optics, a receiver system with a bandwidth of more than 3 octaves could be realized.     

Timeout Period Analysis to Detect Black Hole Attack in Multihop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

A novel approach is proposed to estimate the timeout period used in wireless ad hoc networks in order to detect misbehaving nodes that make black hole attacks. Timeout period is an acceptable time frame for a node to forward a packet and is used to judge if the node is behaving properly. To avoid misjudgment and false alarms, the accuracy of the estimate of the timeout period is very important. Our method is based on the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol and Dynamic Source Routing protocol. The main contribution of this paper is proposing a queuing analysis to calculate the mean and maximum delay per hop implementing the 95-percentile of medium access waiting time. In addition, a new technique is introduced that can be applied to determine the mean number of hops in flooding-based ad hoc networks, taking into account edge effects. For each proposed model, analytical results are compared with results obtained from simulations and the validity of the models is confirmed by observing the close relationship between the results.