X-ray topography studies of dislocations in single crystal CVD diamond

X-ray topography has been used to study single crystal diamond samples homoepitaxially grown by microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on high pressure high temperature (HPHT) and CVD synthetic diamond substrates. Clusters of dislocations in the CVD diamond layers emanated from points at or near the interface with the substrate. The Burgers vectors of observed dislocations have been determined from sets of {111} projection topographs. Dislocations have line directions close to the [001] growth direction and are either edge or 45° mixed dislocations. Where groups of dislocations originated at isolated points they tended to be of the edge variety. Where the substrate surface was deliberately damaged before growth, two sets of dislocations were observed to have propagated from each line of damage and there was a tendency for dislocations to be of the 45° mixed variety with a component of their Burgers vector parallel to the polishing direction. It is demonstrated that X-ray topography can be used to deduce the growth history of CVD synthetic diamond samples produced in multiple growth stages.     

Drying Kinetics of a Porous Spherical Particle and the Inversion Temperature

A model is presented for drying of a single porous particle with superheated steam and humid air. Experimental data for spherical porous ceramic particle reported in the literature were used for the validation of the model. An inversion temperature at which the evaporation rates within superheated steam and humid air are equal was predicted. The effect of thermophysical properties of the particle (permeability 10^-14 - 10^-17 m², diameter 3 × 10^-3 - 10 × 10^-3 m) and operating variables (gas mass flux 0.26 - 0.78 kg m^-2 s^-1, drying agent temperature 120-200°C) is tested. The inversion temperature is shown to be affected by the thermophysical properties of the porous particle and of the drying agent.     

Minimax Universal Decoding With an Erasure Option

Motivated by applications of rateless coding, decision feedback, and automatic repeat request (ARQ), we study the problem of universal decoding for unknown channels in the presence of an erasure option. Specifically, we harness the competitive minimax methodology developed in earlier studies, in order to derive a universal version of Forney's classical erasure/list decoder, which in the erasure case, optimally trades off between the probability of erasure and the probability of undetected error. The proposed universal erasure decoder guarantees universal achievability of a certain fraction xi of the optimum error exponents of these probabilities (in a sense to be made precise in the sequel). A single-letter expression for xi, which depends solely on the coding rate and the Neyman-Pearson threshold (to be defined), is provided. The example of the binary-symmetric channel is studied in full detail, and some conclusions are drawn     

Undergraduate software engineering education: the mark of a discipline

Undergraduate software engineering education is now well established in many countries, and many of these degree programs have received formal accreditation by the relevant country's professional body for computing. SE 2004 represents an enormous effort by numerous individuals across the discipline. Its quality has been clearly recognized by the sponsoring organizations. The developmental team confidently looks forward to the volume's use and to your participation in future evaluations and in the next phase of development. The volume provides usable results for those in emerging economies who wish to enter the software engineering community, and we know that individual project members and the participating national bodies are ready to assist.     

Measuring consistency in TTL-based caches

We propose a general modeling framework to evaluate the performance of cache consistency algorithms. In addition to the usual hit rate, we introduce the hit^* rate as a consistency measure, which captures the fraction of non-stale downloads from the cache. We apply these ideas to the analysis of the fixed TTL consistency algorithm in the presence of network delays. The hit and hit^* rates are evaluated when requests and updates are modeled by renewal processes. Classical results on the renewal function lead to various bounds.     

3D velocity from 3D Doppler radial velocity

We present local least squares and regularization frameworks for computing 3D velocity (3D optical flow) from 3D radial velocity measured by a Doppler radar. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithms quantitatively on synthetic radial velocity data and qualitatively on real radial velocity data, obtained from the Doppler radar at Kurnell Radar station, Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Radial velocity can be used to predict the future positions of storms in sequences of Doppler radar datasets.© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 15, 189–198, 2005     

GQR-based models for directional wireless channels

In this paper novel reduced complexity statistical models for the representation of directional wireless channels affected by Rayleigh fading are developed. Their derivation is based on the evaluation of Fourier integrals by means of Gaussian quadrature rules (GQRs). The proposed models represent a communication channel as a tapped-angle and -delay line with non uniform spacing between successive taps. The application of the GQR approach to three different scenarios is also illustrated. Numerical results evidence that these models can provide a simple and accurate stochastic representation of directional fading channels.     

External Synchronization of 160-GHz Optical Beat Signal by Optical Phase-Locked Loop Technique

We have synchronized a 160-GHz optical beat signal with a 40-GHz reference optical pulse train by using an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL). The OPLL consists of an optical beat signal source, comprising a pair of three-electrode distributed feedback laser diodes that works as a voltage controlled oscillator, and an all-optical phase detector based on the two-photon absorption in a silicon avalanche photodiode. Phase-locking operation is confirmed through phase-error measurement and cross-correlation trace measurement. The residual timing jitter of the 160-GHz optical beat signal relative to the reference pulse train, in the bandwidth of 80 MHz, is measured to be as small as 126 fs     

Contributions of the interior and surface states of charge carriers to the emission spectra of CdS quantum dots in borosilicate glasses

The photoluminescence spectra of CdS quantum dots grown in a borosilicate glass by sol-gel technology are recorded and analyzed. It is shown that the photoluminescence spectra of the samples are related to annihilation of free (interior) excitons in the ground state and excited state. Emission associated with the surface states of the quantum dots is detected in the region around 2.7 eV for the first time. The emission is due to recombination of electrons localized at the surface with heavy holes in the free states of the quantum dots. Resonance excitation of the structures makes it possible to reveal the specific features of the localized surface states responsible for the photoluminescence band. The properties of the band are, to a large extent, similar to the properties of the emission bands of both three-dimensional media (amorphous semiconductors and substitution alloys) and two-dimensional systems (quantum wells and superlattices).     

Electrical characteristics of the ITO/HgInTe photodiodes

Photodiodes designed to be sensitive in the region 0.5–1.7 μm and obtained by vacuum magnetron sputtering of the ITO (SnO₂ + In₂O₃) layer on the surface of the Hg₃In₂Te₆ single crystal are studied. The electrical characteristics, measured at 265–333 K, indicate that the mechanism of charge transport in the diodes under study is thermionic. The current-voltage characteristic and its temperature variations are described quantitatively based on the energy diagram and the found parameters of the heterojunction. Original Russian Text ? L.A. Kosyachenko, I.M. Rarenko, E.F. Sklyarchuk, I.I. German, Sun Weiguo, 2006, published in Fizika i Tekhnika Poluprovodnikov, 2006, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 568–571.