Measurement of Onset of Structural Relaxation in Melt-Quenched Phase Change Materials

Chalcogenide phase change materials enable non-volatile, low-latency storage-class memory. They are also being explored for new forms of computing such as neuromorphic and in-memory computing. A key challenge, however, is the temporal drift in the electrical resistance of the amorphous states that encode data. Drift, caused by the spontaneous structural relaxation of the newly recreated melt-quenched amorphous phase, has consistently been observed to have a logarithmic dependence in time. Here, it is shown that this observation is valid only in a certain observable timescale. Using threshold-switching voltage as the measured variable, based on temperature-dependent and short timescale electrical characterization, the onset of drift is experimentally measured. This additional feature of the structural relaxation dynamics serves as a new benchmark to appraise the different classical models to explain drift.     

2D van der Waals Heterojunction of Organic and Inorganic Monolayers for High Responsivity Phototransistors

Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures composing of organic molecules with inorganic 2D crystals open the door to fabricate various promising hybrid devices. Here, a fully ordered organic self-assembled monolayer (SAM) to construct hybrid organic–inorganic vdW heterojunction phototransistors for highly sensitive light detection is used. The heterojunctions, formed by layering MoS₂ monolayer crystals onto organic [12-(benzo[b]benzo[4,5]thieno[2,3-d]thiophen-2-yl)dodecyl)]phosphonic acid SAM, are characterized by Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy as well as Kelvin probe force microscopy. Remarkably, this vdW heterojunction transistor exhibits a superior photoresponsivity of 475 A W⁻¹ and enhanced external quantum efficiency of 1.45 × 10⁵%, as well as an extremely low dark photocurrent in the pA range. This work demonstrates that hybridizing SAM with 2D materials can be a promising strategy for fabricating diversified optoelectronic devices with unique properties.     

Avalanche‐Discharge‐Induced Electrical Forming in Tantalum Oxide‐Based Metal–Insulator–Metal Structures

Oxide‐based metal–insulator–metal structures are of special interest for future resistive random‐access memories. In such cells, redox processes on the nanoscale occur during resistive switching, which are initiated by the reversible movement of native donors, such as oxygen vacancies. The formation of these filaments is mainly attributed to an enhanced oxygen diffusion due to Joule heating in an electric field or due to electrical breakdown. Here, the development of a dendrite‐like structure, which is induced by an avalanche discharge between the top electrode and the Ta₂O_5‐x layer, is presented, which occurs instead of a local breakdown between top and bottom electrode. The dendrite‐like structure evolves primarily at structures with a pronounced interface adsorbate layer. Furthermore, local conductive atomic force microscopy reveals that the entire dendrite region becomes conductive. Via spectromicroscopy it is demonstrated that the subsequent switching is caused by a valence change between Ta⁴⁺ and Ta⁵⁺, which takes place over the entire former Pt/Ta₂O_5‐x interface of the dendrite‐like structure.     

Understanding of the annealing temperature impact on ion implanted bifacial n‐type solar cells to reach 20.3% efficiency

Ion implantation has the advantage of being a unidirectional doping technique. Unlike gaseous diffusion, this characteristic highlights strong possibilities to simplify solar cell process flows. The use of ion implantation doping for n‐type PERT bifacial solar cells is a promising process, but mainly if it goes with a unique co‐annealing step to activate both dopants and to grow a SiO₂ passivation layer. To develop this process and our SONIA cells, we studied the impact of the annealing temperature and that of the passivation layers on the electrical quality of the implanted B‐emitter and P‐BSF. A high annealing temperature (above 1000 °C) was necessary to fully activate the boron atoms and to anneal the implantation damages. Low J_0BSF (BSF contribution to the saturation current density) of 180 fA/cm² was reached at this high temperature with the best SiO₂ passivation layer. An average efficiency of 19.7% was reached using this simplified process flow (“co‐anneal process”) on large area (239 cm²) Cz solar cells. The efficiency was limited by a low FF, probably due to contaminations by metallization pastes. Improved performances were achieved in the case of a “separated anneals” process where the P‐BSF is activated at a lower temperature range. An average efficiency of 20.2% was obtained in this case, with a 20.3% certified cell. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of delay mean and variance of collision-free WDM rings with segment recirculation of blocked traffic

In Tunable-Transmitter Fixed-Receiver (TT-FR)-based Wavelength Division Multiplexed (WDM) ring topologies, each node is provided with a dedicated wavelength (home channel) for reception, which must be shared by the upstream nodes willing to communicate with it. Thus, to avoid channel collisions, it is necessary to define a Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanism that arbitrates access to a given destination wavelength. This work proposes and analyses a simple MAC mechanism that avoids channel collisions by recirculating traffic on the upstream ring segment where congestion was detected. Essentially, whenever a given node has got any traffic to transmit, it must first block access to in-transit traffic, which is reflected back to the upstream node over a second optical fibre. Such blocked traffic is given a second chance to pass through the congested node after a round segment delay, thus making use of the ring topology as buffering units. This work analyses the performance operation of such a MAC protocol under two policies applied to recirculated traffic: (1) recirculation bypass and (2) recirculation store-and-forward.     

Polarization control in a vertical cavity surface emitting laser submitted to optical feedback

We study experimentally and theoretically two polarization effects in a vertical cavity surface emitting laser submitted to optical feedback. In a first experiment, we obtain flips between two linearly polarized laser modes up to a frequency of 50 MHz using an external cavity with a polarizer. In a second experiment, polarization self modulation is demonstrated up to a frequency of 2.6 GHz, using a quarter wave plate instead. Numerical calculations, based on a four levels model for the active medium, show a good agreement with the experiments.     

Exciton Formation Dynamics and Band-Like Free Charge-Carrier Transport in 2D Metal Halide Perovskite Semiconductors

Metal halide perovskite (MHP) semiconductors have driven a revolution in optoelectronic technologies over the last decade, in particular for high-efficiency photovoltaic applications. Low-dimensional MHPs presenting electronic confinement have promising additional prospects in light emission and quantum technologies. However, the optimisation of such applications requires a comprehensive understanding of the nature of charge carriers and their transport mechanisms. This study employs a combination of ultrafast optical and terahertz spectroscopy to investigate phonon energies, charge-carrier mobilities, and exciton formation in 2D (PEA)₂PbI₄ and (BA)₂PbI₄ (where PEA is phenylethylammonium and BA is butylammonium). Temperature-dependent measurements of free charge-carrier mobilities reveal band transport in these strongly confined semiconductors, with surprisingly high in-plane mobilities. Enhanced charge-phonon coupling is shown to reduce charge-carrier mobilities in (BA)₂PbI₄ with respect to (PEA)₂PbI₄. Exciton and free charge-carrier dynamics are disentangled by simultaneous monitoring of transient absorption and THz photoconductivity. A sustained free charge-carrier population is observed, surpassing the Saha equation predictions even at low temperature. These findings provide new insights into the temperature-dependent interplay of exciton and free-carrier populations in 2D MHPs. Furthermore, such sustained free charge-carrier population and high mobilities demonstrate the potential of these semiconductors for applications such as solar cells, transistors, and electrically driven light sources.     

Adaptive scheduling mechanism for IPTV over WiMAX IEEE 802.16j networks

A WiMAX technology is a very promising Broadband Wireless Access technology that is able to transmit different service types. This latter can have different constraints such as traffic rate, maximum latency, and tolerated jitter. The IEEE 802.16 Medium Access Control specifies five types of QoS classes: UGS, rtPS, ertPS, nrtPS, and BE. However, the IEEE 802.16 standard does not specify the scheduling algorithm to be used. Operators have the choice among many existing scheduling techniques. Also, they can propose their own scheduling algorithms. In this paper, we propose a scheduling strategy (Adaptive Weighted Round Robin, AWRR) for various Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services traffic over 802.16j networks. Our scheme adapts dynamically the scheduler operation to according queue load and quality of service constraints. In particular, the proposed mechanism gives more priority to high definition television and standard definition television traffic by using two schedulers. The proposed scheduling algorithm has been simulated using the QualNet network simulator. The experimental results show that our scheduler schemes AWRR have a better performance than the traditional scheduling techniques for rtPS traffic, which allows ensuring QoS requirements for IPTV application. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assembly and Characterizations of Bifunctional Fluorescent and Magnetic Microneedles With One Decade Length Tunability

This report presents the fabrication of bifunctional magnetic and fluorescent microneedles (µNDs) made of a ternary mixture of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs), quantum dots (QDs), and polyelectrolyte. The assembly relies on the electrostatic complexation of negatively charged NPs with positively charged polymer strands and is controlled by the charge ratio between the nanoparticle building blocks and the polymer mortar. The resulting 1D objects can be actuated using an external magnetic field and can be imaged using fluorescence microscopy, thanks to the fluorescent and superparamagnetic properties inherited from their NP constituents. Using a combination of core and surface characterizations and a state‐of‐the‐art image analysis algorithm, the dependence of the brightness and length on the ternary composition is thoroughly investigated. In particular, statistics on hundreds of µNDs with a range of compositions show that the µNDs have a log‐lormal length distribution and that their mean length can be robustly tuned in the 5–50 µm range to match the relevant length scales of various applications in micromixing, bioassays or biomechanics.     

SR3: secure resilient reputation-based routing

In this paper, we propose SR3 (which means secure resilient reputation-based routing), a secure and resilient algorithm for convergecast routing in wireless sensor networks. SR3 uses lightweight cryptographic primitives to achieve data confidentiality and unforgeability. Security of SR3 has been proven formally using two verification tools: CryptoVerif and Scyther. We made simulations to show the resiliency of SR3 against various scenarios, where we mixed selective forwarding, blackhole, wormhole, and Sybil attacks. We compared our solution to several routing algorithms of the literature. Our results show that the resiliency accomplished by SR3 is drastically better than the one achieved by those protocols, especially when the network is sparse. Moreover, unlike previous solutions, SR3 self-adapts after compromised nodes suddenly change their behavior.