Cu(InGa)Se2 thin film photovoltaic absorber formation by rapid thermal annealing of binary stacked precursors

Phase evolution during the synthesis of Cu(InGa)Se₂ from glass/Mo/(In_{1 − x}Ga_x)₂Se₃/CuSe bilayer precursors were investigated by in-situ high-temperature X-ray diffraction. With Se overpressure, CuSe was transformed to CuSe₂ at 220 °C. The CuSe₂ phase returned to CuSe by releasing Se at its peritectic point of 330 °C, where the formation of Cu(InGa)Se₂ phase was initiated as well. Rapid thermal processing of bilayer precursors showed the potential of fast formation of Cu(InGa)Se₂ within 2–5 min reaction with fairly uniform Ga and In depth profile. Further annealing with Se overpressure caused the formation of MoSe₂ at the interface of Mo and Cu(InGa)Se₂.     

Enhanced dielectric and piezoelectric properties of low-temperature processed Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thick films prepared by hybrid deposition technique with chemical solution infiltration process

High quality PZT thick films over 10 μm were successfully prepared using a chemical solution infiltration into the porous screen-printed PZT thick films. The hybrid films prepared with solution infiltration process showed very dense and uniform microstructure with large grain size at a low annealing temperature such as 700 °C. The hybrid films showed markedly enhanced electrical properties. The measured dielectric constant, the remanent polarization and the piezoelectric d₃₃ coefficient of the films were 1900, 27 μC/cm², and 230 pC/N, respectively, which were over two times higher than those of the screen printed films without the solution infiltration process.     

Kinetics of aluminum dross dissolution in sec-butyl alcohol for aluminum sec-butoxide

Al sec-butoxide (ASB) has been used as a precursor for activated aluminas but its cost is higher than any other type of precursor. This study was carried out on the dissolution kinetics for synthesis of the ASB from Al dross waste. The reaction was performed under the molar ratio of Al dross and sec-butyl alcohol (SBA) of 3 mol SBA/mol Al with a catalyst of 10^?3 mol HgI₂/mol Al and three different dissolution temperatures of 80, 90 and 100 °C. The Al reactant was used with Al dross of 3–5 mm size range. As a result of the experiment, the dissolution reaction gave a 65% yield after 24 h. The dissolution mechanism was determined by the shrinking core model assumed by the shape of spherical particles. Especially, the kinetic data were well fitted by a chemical reaction in the model. By the Arrhenius equation, the apparent activation energy was determined to be 40.9 kJ mol^?1 at the given reaction temperatures.     

Mussel-inspired block copolymer lithography for low surface energy materials of teflon, graphene, and gold

Mussel-inspired interfacial engineering is synergistically integrated with block copolymer (BCP) lithography for the surface nanopatterning of low surface energy substrate materials, including, Teflon, graphene, and gold. The image shows the Teflon nanowires and their excellent superhydrophobicity.     

Tiny and Blurred Face Alignment for Long Distance Face Recognition

Applying face alignment after face detection exerts a heavy influence on face recognition. Many researchers have recently investigated face alignment using databases collected from images taken at close distances and with low magnification. However, in the cases of home‐service robots, captured images generally are of low resolution and low quality. Therefore, previous face alignment research, such as eye detection, is not appropriate for robot environments. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a new and effective approach in the alignment of small and blurred faces. We propose a face alignment method using the confidence value of Real‐AdaBoost with a modified census transform feature. We also evaluate the face recognition system to compare the proposed face alignment module with those of other systems. Experimental results show that the proposed method has a high recognition rate, higher than face alignment methods using a manually‐marked eye position.     

Heterobimetallic Ru(II)-Eu(III) complex as chemodosimeter for selective biogenic amine odorants detection in fish sample

Gaseous biogenic amines such as putrescine, spermidine, aniline, and trimethylamine are important biomolecules that play many crucial roles in metabolism and medical diagnostics. A chemodosimetric detection assay has been developed for those gaseous amines by Ru(II)-Eu(III) heterobimetallic complexes, K{[Ru(II)((t)Bubpy)(CN)(4)](2)Eu(III)(H(2)O)(4)} (where (t)Bubpy = 4,4'-di-tert-butyl-2,2'-bipyridine). Synthesis, X-ray crystal characterization, and spectroscopic properties of this Ru(II)-Eu(III) heterobimetallic complex were reported. Binding properties of the Ru(II)-Eu(III) complex with common gases revealed that this complex is very selective to gaseous amine molecules. Sensitivity of this complex toward the amines was found as ～log k() = 4.5-4.8. Real time monitoring of gaseous biogenic amines was applied to real fish samples (Atlantic mackerel) by studying the spectrofluorimetric responses of the Ru(II)-Eu(III) complex toward different biogenic amine concentration. GC/MS studies were also used as a reference for the studies. A linear spectrofluorimetric response was found toward biogenic amine concentration in real fish samples. This complex was found to respond specifically to those biogenic amines down to 10 ppb.     

Wavelet- and Fourier-transform-based spectrum similarity approaches to compound identification in gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

The high-throughput gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) technology offers a powerful means of analyzing a large number of chemical and biological samples. One of the important analyses of GC/MS data is compound identification. In this work, novel spectral similarity measures based on the discrete wavelet and Fourier transforms were proposed. The proposed methods are composite similarities that are composed of weighted intensities and wavelet/Fourier coefficients using cosine correlation. The performance of the proposed approaches along with the existing similarity measures was evaluated using the NIST Chemistry WebBook mass database maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a library of reference spectra and repetitive mass spectral data as query spectra. The analysis results showed that the identification accuracies of the wavelet- and Fourier-transform-based methods were improved by 2.02% and 1.95%, respectively, compared to that of the weighted dot product (cosine correlation) and by 3.01% and 3.08%, respectively, compared to that of the composite similarity measure. The improved identification accuracy demonstrates that the proposed approaches outperformed the existing similarity measures in the literature.     

Evaluation of a pellet-clad mechanical interaction in mixed oxide fuels during power transients by using axisymmetric finite element modeling

MOX fuel rod behavior due to PCMI during power transients was evaluated using a finite element code, ABAQUS. Clad elongation is calculated through a coupled temperature–displacement analysis where a half-pellet is axisymmetrically modeled. Parametric study for the PCMI model is preliminary performed to identify the dominant factors and examine the applicable range of the model. The comparison of the predicted results with recent MOX in-pile data shows that the centerline temperature and clad elongation are evaluated within an acceptable range.