Pseudorandom active UWB reflectors for accurate ranging

In this letter, the concept of pseudorandom active reflector, based on the ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, is introduced. It consists of a simple device that repeats a slightly delayed version of the received UWB signal only in certain time intervals according to a suitable pseudorandom time-hopping sequence. An example of application of this device for accurate ranging in precise location systems is given. The advantages of this solution are in the hardware simplicity (only the analog section is present), in the low power consumption of the reflector and in the low timing constraint regarding the relative transmitter and reflector clock rates.     

Low Temperature Physics at the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés in Toulouse

An overview over past and present activities and future developments at the Toulouse pulsed magnetic field facility is given, both as far as technical developments of the infrastructure, as well as low temperature physics performed at the LNCMP are concerned.     

Volumetric Change and Surface Properties of Temperature-Sensitive Polyvinylalcohol (PVA) Hydrogel

Polyvinylalcohol (PVA) polymer gel is a temperature sensitive polymeric gel, with a critical transition temperature (with H₂O) of 310 K. At higher than 310 K, this temperature sensitive polymer gel shrinks because of discharging water, whereas at lower temperatures, the gel swelled because of absorbing water. The reversibility of the gel's volume change was confirmed by temperature swing. The adsorption behavior of an organic compound onto the PVA polymer gel in water was tested at various temperatures. The amount of adsorbed organic compound increased remarkably at temperatures higher than about 310 K. Then, it was confirmed that the organic compound in PVA polymer gel could be reversibly adsorbed and desorbed by a temperature change between 293 and 323 K. The mechanism of adsorption of the organic compound onto the PVA polymer gel could be explained by hydration and dehydration of polymer gel.     

Classification of audio radar signals using radial basis function neural networks

Radial basis function (RBF) neural networks are used to classify real-life audio radar signals that are collected by a ground surveillance radar mounted on a tank. Currently, a human operator is required to operate the radar system to discern among signals bouncing off tanks, vehicles, planes, and so on. The objective of this project is to investigate the possibility of using a neural network to perform this target recognition task, with the aim of reducing the number of personnel required in a tank. Different signal classification methods in the neural net literature are considered. The first method employs a linear autoregressive (AR) model to extract linear features of the audio data, and then perform classification on these features, i.e, the AR coefficients. AR coefficient estimations based on least squares and higher order statistics are considered in this study. The second approach uses nonlinear predictors to model the audio data and then classifies the signals according to the prediction errors. The real-life audio radar data set used here was collected by an AN/PPS-15 ground surveillance radar and consists of 13 different target classes, which include men marching, a man walking, airplanes, a man crawling, and boats, etc. It is found that each classification method has some classes which are difficult to classify. Overall, the AR feature extraction approach is most effective and has a correct classification rate of 88% for the training data and 67% for data not used for training.     

Wavelength-tunable 40-GHz picosecond harmonically mode-locked fiber laser source

We demonstrate a novel 40-GHz mode-locked fiber laser that utilizes a single active device to provide both gain and mode-locking. The laser produces pulses as short as 2.2 ps, is tunable over a 27-nm band centered at 1553 nm, and exhibits long-term stability without cavity-length feedback control. The pulse train at 1556 nm was used in a 40-Gb/s transmission experiment over 45 km with a low 0.4-dB power penalty.     

Low-temperature post-treatment of anaerobically treated-sewage in anaerobic filter with cationic-polymer addition.

The post-treatment of domestic sewage pretreated in a 6 m3 UASB was investigated in two high-rate anaerobic filter (AF) reactors operated in parallel. The difference between the two AF reactors was only the addition of cationic polymer to the second reactor (AF + P). The reactors were operated at low temperatures, ranged between 13 and 20 degrees C. The media in each AF reactor consisted of vertical sheets of reticulated-polyurethane foam (RPF) with knobs. The results demonstrated that the AF + P reactor (HRT = 3 h) with cationic polymer addition (2 mg/L) was an efficient system for post-treatment. The removal efficiencies for total, suspended, colloidal and dissolved COD were, respectively, 41, 86 and 76 and 12% in the AF + P reactor and they were, respectively, 80, 97, 77 and 66% in the UASB + (AF + P) system. The removal of total, suspended and colloidal COD in the UASB + (AF + P) system were significantly higher than those achieved in the UASB + AF system. As hardly any nutrient was removed in the UASB + (AF + P) system, the effluent after pathogen removal is a valuable product for irrigation and fertilisation to close the water and nutrients cycle.     

Colloidal processing of polymer ceramic nanocomposite integral capacitors

Polymer ceramic composites form a suitable material system for low temperature fabrication of embedded capacitors appropriate for the MCM-L technology. Improved electrical properties such as permittivity can be achieved by efficient filling of polymers with high dielectric constant ceramic powders such as lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate (PMN-PT) and barium titanate (BT). Photodefinable epoxies as the matrix polymer allow fine feature definition of the capacitor elements by conventional lithography techniques. The optimum weight percent of dispersant is tuned by monitoring the viscosity of the suspension. The dispersion mechanism (steric and electrostatic contribution) in a slightly polar solvent such as propylene glycol methyl ether acetate (PGMEA) is investigated from electrophoretic measurements. A high positive zeta potential is observed in the suspension, which suggests a strong contribution of electrostatic stabilization. By optimizing the particle packing using a bimodal distribution and modified processing methodology, a dielectric constant greater than 135 was achieved in PMN-PT/epoxy system. Suspensions are made with the lowest PGMEA content to ensure the efficiency of the dispersion and efficient particle packing in the dried film. Improved colloidal processing of nanoparticle-filled epoxy is a promising method to obtain ultra-thin capacitor films (<2/spl mu/m) with high capacitance density and improved yield. Capacitance of 35 nF/cm/sup 2/ was achieved with the thinnest films (2.5-3.0 /spl mu/m).     

Hf-doped and NH/sub 3/-nitrided high-K gate dielectric thin film with least drain current degradation and flatband voltage shift

A novel technique to form high-K dielectric of HfSiON by doping base oxide with Hf and nitridation with NH/sub 3/, sequentially, is proposed. The HfSiON gate dielectric demonstrates excellent device performances such as only 10% degradation of saturation drain current and almost 45 times of magnitude reduction in gate leakage compared with conventional SiO/sub 2/ gate at the approximately same equivalent oxide thickness. Additionally, negligible flatband voltage shift is achieved with this technique. Time-dependent dielectric breakdown tests indicate that the lifetime of HfSiON is longer than 10 years at V/sub dd/=2 V.