Unveiled Ferroelectricity in Well-Known Non-Ferroelectric Materials and Their Semiconductor Applications

Ferroelectric materials are considered ideal for emerging memory devices owing to their characteristic remanent polarization, which can be switched by applying a sufficient electric field. However, even several decades after the initial conceptualization of ferroelectric memory, its applications are limited to a niche market. The slow advancement of ferroelectric memories can be attributed to several extant issues, such as the absence of ferroelectric materials with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility and scalability. Since the 2010s, ferroelectric memories have attracted increasing interest because of newly discovered ferroelectricity in well-established CMOS-compatible materials, which are previously known to be non-ferroelectric, such as fluorite-structured (Hf,Zr)O₂ and wurtzite-structured (Al,Sc)N. With advancing material fabrication technologies, for example, accurate chemical doping and atomic-level thickness control, a metastable polar phase, and switchable polarization with a reasonable electric field can be induced in (Hf,Zr)O₂ and (Al,Sc)N. Nonetheless, various issues still exist that urgently require solutions to facilitate the use of the ferroelectric (Hf,Zr)O₂ and (Al,Sc)N in emerging memory devices. Thus, ferroelectric (Hf,Zr)O₂ and (Al,Sc)N are comprehensively reviewed herein, including their fundamental science and practical applications.     

Improved Hydrogen Capping Effect in n-Type Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells by SiN(Si-Rich)/SiN(N-Rich) Stacked Passivation

The effect of hydrogen capping of SiN(Si-rich)/SiN(N-rich) stacks for n-type c-Si solar cells was investigated. Use of a passivation layer consisting of Si-rich SiN with a refractive index (n) of 2.7 and N-rich SiN with a refractive index of 2.1 improved the thermal stability. A single SiN passivation layer with a refractive index of 2.05 resulted in an initial lifetime of 200 μs whereas the layer with a refractive index of 2.7 resulted in a high initial lifetime of 2 ms, but the layer degraded rapidly after firing. A stacked passivation layer with refractive indices of 2.1 and 2.7 had a stable lifetime of 1.5 ms with an implied open-circuit voltage (iV _oc) of 720 mV after firing. The thermally stable passivation mechanism with changing amounts of Si–N and Si–H bonding was analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Incorporation of the SiN _x stack layer (2.7 + 2.1) into the passivated rear of n-type Cz silicon screen-printed solar cells resulted in energy conversion efficiency of 19.69%. Improved internal quantum efficiency in the long-wavelength range above 900 nm, with V _oc of 630 mV, is mainly because of superior passivation of the rear surface compared with conventional solar cells.     

Disposable smart lab on a chip for point-of-care clinical diagnostics

This paper presents the development of a disposable plastic biochip incorporating smart passive microfluidics with embedded on-chip power sources and integrated biosensor array for applications in clinical diagnostics and point-of-care testing. The fully integrated disposable biochip is capable of precise volume control with smart microfluidic manipulation without costly on-chip microfluidic components. The biochip has a unique power source using on-chip pressurized air reservoirs, for microfluidic manipulation, avoiding the need for complex microfluidic pumps. In addition, the disposable plastic biochip has successfully been tested for the measurements of partial oxygen concentration, glucose, and lactate level in human blood using an integrated biosensor array. This paper presents details of the smart passive microfluidic system, the on-chip power source, and the biosensor array together with a detailed discussion of the plastic micromachining techniques used for chip fabrication. A handheld analyzer capable of multiparameter detection of clinically relevant parameters has also been developed to detect the signals from the cartridge type disposable biochip. The handheld analyzer developed in this work is currently the smallest analyzer capable of multiparameter detection for point-of-care testing.     

Self‐Healing Reduced Graphene Oxide Films by Supersonic Kinetic Spraying

The industrial scale application of graphene and other functional materials in the field of electronics has been limited by inherent defects, and the lack of simple deposition methods. A simple spray deposition method is developed that uses a supersonic air jet for a commercially available reduced graphene oxide (r‐GO) suspension. The r‐GO flakes are used as received, which are pre‐annealed and pre‐hydrazine‐treated, and do not undergo any post‐treatment. A part of the considerable kinetic energy of the r‐GO flakes entrained by the supersonic jet is used in stretching the flakes upon impact with the substrate. The resulting “frozen elastic strains” heal the defects (topological defects, namely Stone‐Wales defect and C₂ vacancies) in the r‐GO flakes, which is reflected in the reduced ratio of the intensities of the D and G bands in the deposited film. The defects can also be regenerated by annealing.     

Template‐Based Reconstruction of Surface Mesh Animation from Point Cloud Animation

In this paper, we present a method for reconstructing a surface mesh animation sequence from point cloud animation data. We mainly focus on the articulated body of a subject — the motion of which can be roughly described by its internal skeletal structure. The point cloud data is assumed to be captured independently without any inter‐frame correspondence information. Using a template model that resembles the given subject, our basic idea for reconstructing the mesh animation is to deform the template model to fit to the point cloud (on a frame‐by‐frame basis) while maintaining inter‐frame coherence. We first estimate the skeletal motion from the point cloud data. After applying the skeletal motion to the template surface, we refine it to fit to the point cloud data. We demonstrate the viability of the method by applying it to reconstruct a fast dancing motion     

Analysis of Input Filter Interactions in Switching Power Converters

This paper presents the theoretical and practical details involved with the small-signal analysis of switching power converters under a strong influence of input filter interaction. A boost dc-to-dc converter controlled by voltage-mode control and the same boost converter controlled by current-mode control are used as illustrative examples. The theoretical predictions of this paper are supported by experimental results and computer simulations     

High frequency resonant AC/DC rectifier with unity power factor

A novel high frequency switching rectifier, termed the quantum boost series resonant rectifier (QBSRR), is proposed. This rectifier provides the input line AC with a unity power factor. With this proposed scheme, several advantages such as low switching loss and wide output voltage range can be obtained.<>     

Enhanced efficiency of organic photovoltaic cells with Sr2SiO4:Eu2+ and SrGa2S4:Eu2+ phosphors

We report the effect of yellow Sr₂SiO₄:Eu²⁺ and green SrGa₂S₄:Eu²⁺ phosphors on the efficiency of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. Each phosphor was coated on the back side of indium tin oxide (ITO)/glass substrates by spin coating with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). The maximum absorption wavelength of the active layer in the OPV cells was ～512 nm. The emission peaks of Sr₂SiO₄:Eu²⁺ and SrGa₂S₄:Eu²⁺ were maximized at 552 nm and 534 nm, respectively. The short circuit current density (J_sc) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the OPV cells with Sr₂SiO₄:Eu²⁺ (8.55 mA/cm² and 3.25%) and with SrGa₂S₄:Eu²⁺ (9.29 mA/cm² and 3.3%) were higher than those of the control device without phosphor (7.605 mA/cm² and 3.04%). We concluded that phosphor tuned the wavelength of the incident light to the absorption wavelength of the active layer, thus increasing the J_sc and PCE of the OPV cells.     

Low temperature annealing behaviors of the titanium films formed by the ionized sputtering process on (001) silicon substrates

We investigated the low temperature reactions between the Ti films created by the ionized sputtering process and the (001) single crystal silicon wafers using high resolution transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffractometry. We observed that the amorphous Ti-Si intermixed layer is formed at the Ti-Si interface whose thickness increased with the thickness of the deposited Ti films. The amorphous interlayer grew upon annealing treatments at the temperatures below 450°C. We also observed that the crystallization of the amorphous interlayer occurred upon annealing at 500°C. The first formed phase is Ti₅Si₃ in contact with Ti films, which is epitaxial with Ti films. Upon further annealing at 500°C, the Ti₅Si₄ phase and C49 TiSi₂ phase formed in the regions close to Ti films and Si substrates, respectively.     

An uplink CDMA system architecture with diverse QoS guarantees forheterogeneous traffic

The uplink access control problems for cellular code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems that service heterogeneous traffic with various types of quality-of-service (QoS) and use multicode CDMA to support variable bit rates are addressed. Considering its distinct QoS requirements, class-I real-time traffic (e.g., voice and video) is differentiated from class-II non-real-time traffic (e.g., data). Connection-oriented transmission is achieved by assigning mobile-oriented code channels for class-I traffic, where each corresponding mobile needs to pass an admission test. Class-II traffic is transmitted in a best-effort manner through a transmission-rate request access scheme which utilizes the bandwidth left unused by class-I traffic. Whenever a mobile has class-II messages to transmit, the mobile requests code channels via a base station-oriented transmission-request code channel, then, according to the base station scheduling, the transmission is scheduled and permitted. Addressed are the admission test for class-I connections, transmission power allocation, and how to maximize the aggregate throughput for class-II traffic. The admission region of voice and video connections and the optimum target signal-to-interference ratio of class-II traffic are derived numerically. The performance of class-II traffic transmissions in terms of average delay is also evaluated and discussed