Ultra-Low-Power Interface Chip for Autonomous Capacitive Sensor Systems

Traditionally, most of the sensor interfaces must be tailored towards a specific application. This approach results in a high recurrent design cost and time to market. On the other hand, generic sensor interface design reduces the costs and offers a handy solution for multisensor applications. This paper presents a generic sensor interface chip (GSIC), which can read out a broad range of capacitive sensors. It contains capacitance-to-voltage converters, a switched-capacitor amplifier, an analog-to-digital converter, oscillators, clock generation circuits and a reference circuit. The system combines a very low-power design with a smart energy management, which adapts the current consumption according to the accuracy and speed requirements of the application. The GSIC is used in a pressure and an acceleration monitoring system. The pressure monitoring system achieves a current drain of 2.3 muA for a 10-Hz sample frequency and an 8-bit accuracy. In the acceleration monitoring system, we measured a current of 3.3 muA for a sample frequency of 10 Hz and an accuracy of 9 bits     

Beyond Cognitive Framing Processes: Anger Mediates the Effects of Responsibility Framing on the Preference for Punitive Measures

A new stream of research indicates that framing effects are based on emotional as well as cognitive processes. However, it is not entirely clear whether emotions mediate framing effects and what the moderators of emotional mediation processes are. To address these questions, we conducted an experiment in which the framing of responsibility for a social problem was manipulated (ambivalent vs. high‐responsibility frame). We find that the high‐responsibility frame increased the preference for punitive measures by increasing responsibility beliefs and eliciting anger. Furthermore, we find that trait anger moderates the framing effect on anger and that responsibility beliefs are positively associated with anger intensity. The significance of these findings for framing research and suggestions for future studies are discussed.     

Carbon‐Based Anodes for Lithium Sulfur Full Cells with High Cycle Stability

The lithium sulfur battery system has been studied since the late 1970s and has seen renewed interest in recent years. However, even after three decades of intensive research, prolonged cycling can only be achieved when a large excess of electrolyte and lithium is used. Here, for the first time, a balanced and stable lithium sulfur full cell is demonstrated with silicon–carbon as well as all‐carbon anodes. More than 1000 cycles, a specific capacity up to 1470 mAh g^?1 _sulfur (720 mAh g^?1 _cathode), and a high coulombic efficiency of over 99% even with a low amount of electrolyte are achieved. The alternative anodes do not suffer from electrolyte depletion, which is found to be the main cause of cell failure when using metallic lithium anodes.     

Highly Robust Indium‐Free Transparent Conductive Electrodes Based on Composites of Silver Nanowires and Conductive Metal Oxides

A hybrid approach for the realization of In‐free transparent conductive layers based on a composite of a mesh of silver nanowires (NWs) and a conductive metal‐oxide is demonstrated. As metal‐oxide room‐temperature‐processed sol–gel SnO_x or Al:ZnO prepared by low‐temperature (100 °C) atomic layer deposition is used, respectively. In this concept, the metal‐oxide is intended to fuse the wires together and also to “glue” them to the substrate. As a result, a low sheet resistance down to 5.2 Ω sq^‐1 is achieved with a concomitant average transmission of 87%. The adhesion of the NWs to the substrate is significantly improved and the resulting composites withstand adhesion tests without loss in conductivity. Owing to the low processing temperatures, this concept allows highly robust, highly conductive, and transparent coatings even on top of temperature sensitive objects, for example, polymer foils, organic devices. These Indium‐ and PEDOT:PSS‐free hybrid layers are successfully implemented as transparent top‐electrodes in efficient all‐solution‐processed semitransparent organic solar cells. It is obvious that this approach is not limited to organic solar cells but will generally be applicable in devices which require transparent electrodes.     

Single Cell Bioprinting with Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Tissue engineering requires the precise positioning of mammalian cells and biomaterials on substrate surfaces or in preprocessed scaffolds. Although the development of 2D and 3D bioprinting technologies has made substantial progress in recent years, precise, cell-friendly, easy to use, and fast technologies for selecting and positioning mammalian cells with single cell precision are still in need. A new laser-based bioprinting approach is therefore presented, which allows the selection of individual cells from complex cell mixtures based on morphology or fluorescence and their transfer onto a 2D target substrate or a preprocessed 3D scaffold with single cell precision and high cell viability (93–99% cell survival, depending on cell type and substrate). In addition to precise cell positioning, this approach can also be used for the generation of 3D structures by transferring and depositing multiple hydrogel droplets. By further automating and combining this approach with other 3D printing technologies, such as two-photon stereolithography, it has a high potential of becoming a fast and versatile technology for the 2D and 3D bioprinting of mammalian cells with single cell resolution.     

Key-Recovery Attacks on <Emphasis FontCategory="SansSerif">ASASA</Emphasis>

The \(\mathsf {ASASA}\) construction is a new design scheme introduced at Asiacrypt 2014 by Biryukov, Bouillaguet and Khovratovich. Its versatility was illustrated by building two public-key encryption schemes, a secret-key scheme, as well as super S-box subcomponents of a white-box scheme. However, one of the two public-key cryptosystems was recently broken at Crypto 2015 by Gilbert, Plût and Treger. As our main contribution, we propose a new algebraic key-recovery attack able to break at once the secret-key scheme as well as the remaining public-key scheme, in time complexity \(2^{63}\) and \(2^{39}\), respectively (the security parameter is 128 bits in both cases). Furthermore, we present a second attack of independent interest on the same public-key scheme, which heuristically reduces the problem of breaking the scheme to an \(\mathsf {LPN}\) instance with tractable parameters. This allows key recovery in time complexity \(2^{56}\). Finally, as a side result, we outline a very efficient heuristic attack on the white-box scheme, which breaks instances claiming 64 bits of security under one minute on a laptop computer.     

Breakdown kinetics at nanometer scale of innovative MOS devices by conductive atomic force microscopy

The breakdown (BD) kinetics of dielectrics represent a crucial issue for the reliability of microelectronics devices. In this paper, we report on an innovative and practical approach based on Conductive Atomic Force Microscopy (C-AFM) for the determination of the BD kinetics on a bare insulator surface. This technique has been applied to Pr₂O₃ films grown by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition (MOCVD) on Si(0 0 1) and to thermally grown SiO₂ on 4H-SiC substrates. C-AFM clearly visualizes single breakdown spots under constant voltage stresses. The stress time on the C-AFM tip was varied from 1 × 10⁻³ to 1 × 10⁻¹ s. The density of BD spots, upon increasing the stress time, exhibits in both cases an exponential trend. The Weibull slope of the dielectric BD statistics has been determined by direct measurements at nanometer scale on different dielectrics having different physical thicknesses. The comparison of the Weibull slopes obtained for different dielectric thicknesses with literature data points out intrinsic and extrinsic BD events in the SiO₂/SiC system and Pr₂O₃ based layers, respectively. In the case of the SiO₂/SiC system, BD kinetics have been demonstrated to follow the percolation model, while the role of extrinsic phenomena in the BD of Pr₂O₃ films has been proved.     

Crystallization kinetics of Sn40Se60 thin films for phase change memory applications

The crystallization kinetics of Sn₄₀Se₆₀ thin films has been successfully investigated using sheet resistance versus temperature measurements. Thermal evaporation was used to deposit the films on ordinary glass substrates. The crystallization temperature for Sn₄₀Se₆₀ thin film was found to be 156.6 ± 0.3 ℃. In the as-deposited state, the sheet resistance was found to be 195 MΩ, this value declined to 1560 Ω/口 upon annealing. The value of activation energy obtained from the Kissinger plot was 0.62 ± 0.07 eV. From the results obtained, Sn₄₀Se₆₀ is a promising alloy for PCM application because of its high electrical contrast, high crystallization temperature, and relatively high activation energy.     

Hybrid Capsules via Self‐Assembly of Thermoresponsive and Interfacially Active Bionanoparticle–Polymer Conjugates

New bionanoparticles have been prepared from horse spleen ferritin by grafting thermoresponsive poly(N‐isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAAm) and photo‐crosslinkable 2‐(dimethyl maleinimido)‐N‐ethyl‐acrylamide (DMIAAm) from the protein surface. The 72 addressable amino groups on the exterior of HSF were modified with N‐hydroxysuccinimide‐activated 2‐bromo‐isobutyrate to form a macro‐initiator for atom transfer radical polymerization, which was performed in water/DMF solutions at low temperature. The modification of the HSF and the presence of the polymer shell were confirmed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC), sodium dodecyl sulfate‐polyacrylamide gel‐electrophoresis, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning force microscopy. The thermoresponsive behavior of the ferritin‐PNIPAAm conjugates was investigated in solution by UV–vis spectroscopy showing a phase transition in the form of a cloud point around 32 °C. Further, dynamic light scattering revealed an increasing hydrodynamic radius around this transition, indicating aggregation of the particles at elevated temperatures which was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. Initial experiments show that the particles are highly surface active, much more than the individual components alone, which was demonstrated by pendant‐drop interfacial tension measurements. This leads to the fact that they form stable Pickering emulsions, i.e., emulsion droplets decorated with polymer‐modified bionanoparticles which can be cross‐linked successively. This allows the formation of capsules with thermoresponsiveness for controlled release purposes, e.g., in drug delivery.