Power generation characteristics of a sandwich‐type self‐heating thermoelectric generator with spatially varying embedded heat source

Power generation characteristics of a sandwich‐type thermoelectric generator in which the heat source is embedded into thermoelectric elements are investigated. Our previous work on a similar concept only considered a uniform heat source distribution inside thermoelectric elements. In this work, the effect of the spatial distribution of a heat source is examined. In particular, the effect of the concentration of heat source near the one end, that is, the hot end, is intensively studied as a potential means of improving the efficiency of the device. Although the effects of heat source concentration in impractical cases without heat transfer limitations on the cold side remain ambiguous, it become clear that heat source concentration indeed has positive effects in more realistic cases with finite heat transfer coefficients imposed on the cold side. Because of the relatively low efficiency of typical thermoelectric generation, a significant amount of heat must be dissipated from the cold end of the thermoelectric element. Greater heat source concentration near the hot end leads to more effective utilization of available heat source, reduces the amount of heat rejected at the cold end, and lowers the hot end temperature of the thermoelectric element. Overall, it is suggested that heat source concentration can be used as a method to achieve more efficient operation and better structural integrity of the system. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust control of robot manipulator by model-based disturbance attenuation

In this letter, a model-based disturbance attenuator (MBDA) for robot manipulators is proposed and the stability of the MBDA in robot positioning problems is proved via Liapunov's direct method. This method does not require an accurate model of a robot manipulator and takes care of disturbances or modeling errors so that the plant output remains relatively unaffected by them. The output error due to the gravity or constant disturbance can be effectively eliminated by this method.     

Analysis and characterization of traveling-wave electrode in electroabsorption modulator for radio-on-fiber application

Comparing with a lumped electroabsorption modulator (EAM), we show the merits of a long EAM with traveling-wave electrode with high radio-frequency (RF) gain that could be used in high-frequency analog application. By terminating the RF output port with the characteristic impedance of 30 /spl Omega/, the device exhibited a large enhancement of 6 dB above 10 GHz in the electrical-to-optical response and a wide fractional bandwidth as estimated from simulation. In addition, an input impedance matching circuit of stub embedded on the device chip was found to be very effective for improving RF characteristics in the narrow band of frequency.     

Dynamic Oscillation via Negative Differential Resistance in Type III Junction Organic/Two-Dimensional and Oxide/Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Diodes

Among many of 2D semiconductor-based devices, type III PN junction diodes are given special attentions due to their unique function, negative differential resistance (NDR). However, it has been found uneasy to achieve well-matched type III PN junctions from 2D–2D van der Waals heterojunctions. Here, the authors present other alternatives of type III heterojunctions, using 2D p-MoTe₂/organic n-type dipyrazino[2,3-f:2′,3′-h]quinoxaline-2,3,6,7,10,11-hexacarbonitrile (HAT-CN) and 2D p-WSe₂/n-MoO_x systems. Those junction diodes appear to well-demonstrate static and dynamic NDR behavior via resonant tunneling and electron–hole recombination. Extended to an inverter circuit, p-MoTe₂/n-HAT-CN diode enables multilevel inverter characteristics as monolithically integrated with p-MoTe₂ channel field effect transistor. The same NDR diode shows dynamic LC oscillation behavior under a constant DC voltage, connected to an external inductor. From p-WSe₂/n-MoO_x oxide diode, similar NDR behavior to those of p-MoTe₂/n-HAT-CN is again observed along with LC oscillations. The authors attribute these visible oscillation results to high peak-to-valley current ratios of their organic or oxide/2D heterojunction diodes.     

Hydrogel Microcapsules with a Thin Oil Layer: Smart Triggered Release via Diverse Stimuli

A hydrogel microcapsule with an intermediate thin oil layer is presented to achieve smart release of a broad range of cargoes triggered via diverse stimuli. A microfluidic technique is used to produce triple emulsion droplets with a thin oil layer that separates the innermost aqueous phase from the hydrogel prepolymer phase, which transforms into a hydrogel shell via photopolymerization. The intermediate oil layer within the hydrogel microcapsule acts as an effective diffusion barrier, allowing encapsulation of various small cargoes within a porous hydrogel shell until a stimulus is applied to destabilize the oil layer. It is demonstrated that diverse stimuli including chemical dissolution, mechanical stress, and osmotic pressure can be utilized to release the encapsulated cargo on-demand. In addition, osmotic pressure and the hydrogel shell thickness can be independently tuned to control the onset time of release as well as the release behavior of multi-cargo encapsulated hydrogel microcapsule. The release can be either simultaneous or selective.     

Progressive NO2 Sensors with Rapid Alarm and Persistent Memory-Type Responses for Wide-Range Sensing Using Antimony Triselenide Nanoflakes

Antimony triselenide (Sb₂Se₃) nanoflake-based nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) sensors exhibit a progressive bifunctional gas-sensing performance, with a rapid alarm for hazardous highly concentrated gases, and an advanced memory-type function for low-concentration (<1 ppm) monitoring repeated under potentially fatal exposure. Rectangular and cuboid shaped Sb₂Se₃ nanoflakes, comprising van der Waals planes with large surface areas and covalent bond planes with small areas, can rapidly detect a wide range of NO₂ gas concentrations from 0.1 to 100 ppm. These Sb₂Se₃ nanoflakes are found to be suitable for physisorption-based gas sensing owing to their anisotropic quasi-2D crystal structure with extremely enlarged van der Waals planes, where they are humidity-insensitive and consequently exhibit an extremely stable baseline current. The Sb₂Se₃ nanoflake sensor exhibits a room-temperature/low-voltage operation, which is noticeable owing to its low energy consumption and rapid response even under a NO₂ gas flow of only 1 ppm. As a result, the Sb₂Se₃ nanoflake sensor is suitable for the development of a rapid alarm system. Furthermore, the persistent gas-sensing conductivity of the sensor with a slow decaying current can enable the development of a progressive memory-type sensor that retains the previous signal under irregular gas injection at low concentrations.     

Surface Reconstruction Engineering with Synergistic Effect of Mixed-Salt Passivation Treatment toward Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells

Surface passivation treatment is a widely used strategy to resolve trap-mediated nonradiative recombination toward high-efficiency metal-halide perovskite photovoltaics. However, a lack of passivation with mixture treatment has been investigated, as well as an in-depth understanding of its passivation mechanism. Here, a systematic study on a mixed-salt passivation strategy of formamidinium bromide (FABr) coupled with different F-substituted alkyl lengths of ammonium iodide is demonstrated. It is obtained better device performance with decreasing chain length of the F-substituted alkyl ammonium iodide in the presence of FABr. Moreover, they unraveled a synergistic passivation mechanism of the mixed-salt treatment through surface reconstruction engineering, where FABr dominates the reformation of the perovskite surface via reacting with the excess PbI₂. Meanwhile, ammonium iodide passivates the perovskite grain boundaries both on the surface and top perovskite bulk through penetration. This synergistic passivation engineer results in a high-quality perovskite surface with fewer defects and suppressed ion migration, leading to a champion efficiency of 23.5% with mixed-salt treatment. In addition, the introduction of the moisture resisted F-substituted groups presents a more hydrophobic perovskite surface, thus enabling the decorated devices with excellent long-term stability under a high humid atmosphere as well as operational conditions.     

Magnetically Guidable Proteinaceous Adhesive Microbots for Targeted Locoregional Therapeutics Delivery in the Highly Dynamic Environment of the Esophagus

The esophagus is a tubular-shaped muscular organ where swallowed fluids and muscular contractions constitute a highly dynamic environment. The turbulent, coordinated processes that occur through the oropharyngeal conduit can often compromise targeted administration of therapeutic drugs to a lesion, significantly reducing therapeutic efficacy. Here, magnetically guidable drug vehicles capable of strongly adhering to target sites using a bioengineered mussel adhesive protein (MAP) to achieve localized delivery of therapeutic drugs against the hydrodynamic physiological conditions are proposed. A suite of highly uniform microparticles embedded with iron oxide (IO) nanoparticles (MAP@IO MPs) is microfluidically fabricated using the genipin-mediated covalent cross-linking of bioengineered MAP. The MAP@IO MPs are successfully targeted to a specific region and prolongedly retained in the tubular-structured passageway. In particular, orally administered MAP@IO MPs are effectively captured in the esophagus in vivo in a magnetically guidable manner. Moreover, doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded MAP@IO MPs exhibit a sustainable DOX release profile, effective anticancer therapeutic activity, and excellent biocompatibility. Thus, the magnetically guidable locomotion and robust underwater adhesive properties of the proteinaceous soft microbots can provide an intelligent modular approach for targeted locoregional therapeutics delivery to a specific lesion site in dynamic fluid-associated tubular organs such as the esophagus.     

Temporal fairness guarantee in multi-rate wireless LANs for per-flow protection

Wireless LAN technologies such as IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b support high bandwidth and multi-rate data transmission to match the channel condition (i.e., signal to noise ratio). While some wireless packet fair queuing algorithms to achieve the per-flow throughput fairness have been proposed, they are not appropriate for guaranteeing QoS in multi-rate wireless LAN environments. We propose a wireless packet scheduling algorithm that uses the multi-state (multi-rate) wireless channel model and performs packet scheduling by taking into account the channel usage time of each flow. The proposed algorithm aims at per-flow protection by providing equal channel usage time for each flow. To achieve the per-flow protection, we propose a temporally fair scheduling algorithm called Contention-Aware Temporally fair Scheduling (CATS) which provides equal channel usage time for each flow. Channel usage time is defined as the sum of the packet transmission time and the contention overhead time due to the CSMA/CA mechanism. The CATS algorithm provides per-flow protection in wireless LAN environments where the channel qualities of mobile stations are dynamic over time, and where the packet sizes are application-dependent. We also extend CATS to Decentralized-CATS (D-CATS) to provide per-flow protection in the uplink transmission. Using an NS-2 simulation, we evaluate the fairness property of both CATS and D-CATS in various scenarios. Simulation results show that the throughput of mobile stations with stable link conditions is not degraded by the mobility (or link instability) of other stations or by packet size variations. D-CATS also shows less delay and less delay jitter than FIFO. In addition, since D-CATS can coordinate the number of contending mobile stations, the overall throughput is not degraded as the number of mobile stations increases. This work was supported in part by the Brain Korea 21 project of Ministry of Education and in part by the National Research Laboratory project of Ministry of Science and Technology, 2004, Korea.     

Improving Quality of Service and Assuring Fairness in WLAN Access Networks

As public deployment of wireless local area networks (WLANs) has increased and various applications with different service requirements have emerged, fairness and quality of service (QoS) are two imperative issues in allocating wireless channels. This study proposes a fair QoS agent (FQA) to simultaneously provide per-class QoS enhancement and per-station fair channel sharing in WLAN access networks. FQA implements two additional components above the 802.11 MAC: a dual service differentiator and a service level manager. The former is intended to improve QoS for different service classes by differentiating service with appropriate scheduling and queue management algorithms, while the latter is to assure fair channel sharing by estimating the fair share for each station and dynamically adjusting the service levels of packets. FQA assures (weighted) fairness among stations in terms of channel access time without decreasing channel utilization. Furthermore, it can provide quantitative service assurance in terms of queuing delay and packet loss rate. FQA neither resorts to any complex fair scheduling algorithm nor requires maintaining per-station queues. Since the FQA algorithm is an add-on scheme above the 802.11 MAC, it does not require any modification of the standard MAC protocol. Extensive ns-2 simulations confirm the effectiveness of the FQA algorithm with respect to the per class QoS enhancement and per-station fair channel sharing