A Composite Formation Route to Well‐Crystalline Manganese Oxide Nanocrystals: High Catalytic Activity of Manganate–Alumina Nanocomposites

Manganese oxide nanocrystals are combined with aluminum oxide nanocrystals to improve their crystallinity via calcination without a significant increase of crystal size. A nanocomposite, consisting of two metal oxides, can be synthesized by the reaction between permanganate anions and aluminum oxyhydroxide keggin cations. The as‐prepared manganese oxide–aluminum oxide nanocomposite is X‐ray amorphous whereas heat‐treatment gives rise to the crystallization of an α‐MnO₂ phase at 600 °C and Mn₃O₄/Mn₂O₃ and γ‐Al₂O₃ phases at 800 °C. Electron microscopy and N₂ adsorption‐desorption‐isotherm analysis clearly demonstrate that the as‐prepared nanocomposite is composed of a porous assembly of monodisperse primary particles with a size of ～20 nm and a surface area of >410 m² g^?1. Of particular interest is that the small particle size of the as‐prepared nanocomposite is well‐maintained up to 600 °C, a result of the prevention of the growth of manganate grains through nanoscale mixing with alumina grains. The calcined nanocomposite shows very‐high catalytic activity for the oxidation of cyclohexene with an extremely high conversion efficiency of >95% within 15 min. The present results show that the improvement of the crystallinity without significant crystal growth is very crucial for optimizing the catalytic activity of manganese oxide nanocrystals.     

Perovskite‐Induced Ultrasensitive and Highly Stable Humidity Sensor Systems Prepared by Aerosol Deposition at Room Temperature

A new capacitive‐type humidity sensor is proposed using novel materials and fabrication process for practical applications in sensitive environments and cost‐effective functional devices that require ultrasensing performances. Metal halide perovskites (CsPbBr₃ and CsPb₂Br₅) combined with diverse ceramics (Al₂O₃, TiO₂, and BaTiO₃) are selected as sensing materials for the first time, and nanocomposite powders are deposited by aerosol deposition (AD) process. A state‐of‐the‐art CsPb₂Br₅/BaTiO₃ nanocomposite humidity sensor prepared by AD process exhibits a significant increase in humidity sensing compared with CsPbBr₃/Al₂O₃ and CsPbBr₃/TiO₂ sensors. An outstanding humidity sensitivity (21426 pF RH%^?1) with superior linearity (0.991), fast response/recovery time (5 s), low hysteresis of 1.7%, and excellent stability in a wide range of relative humidity is obtained owing to a highly porous structure, effective charge separation, and water‐resistant characteristics of CsPb₂Br₅. Notably, this unprecedented result is obtained via a simple one‐step AD process within a few minutes at room temperature without any auxiliary treatment. The synergetic combination of AD technique and perovskite‐based nanocomposite can be potentially applied toward the development of multifunctional sensing devices.     

Transmission Fiber Chromatic Dispersion Dependence on Temperature: Implications on 40 Gb/s Performance

In this letter, we will evaluate the performance degradation of a 40 km high‐speed (40 Gb/s) optical system, induced by optical fiber variations of the chromatic dispersion induced by temperature changes. The chromatic dispersion temperature sensitivity will be estimated based on the signal quality parameters.     

Small‐Sized High‐Power PIN Diode Switch with Defected Ground Structure for Wireless Broadband Internet

This letter presents a small‐sized, high‐power single‐pole double‐throw (SPDT) switch with defected ground structure (DGS) for wireless broadband Internet application. To reduce the circuit size by using a slow‐wave characteristic, the DGS is used for the quarter‐wave (°/4) transmission line of the switch. To secure a high degree of isolation, the switch with DGS is composed of shunt‐connected PIN diodes. It shows an insertion loss of 0.8 dB, an isolation of 50 dB or more, and power capability of at least 50 W at 2.3 GHz. The switch shows very similar performance to the conventional shunt‐type switch, but the circuit size is reduced by about 50% simply with the use of DGS patterns.     

Data retention characteristics of MANOS-type flash memory device with different metal gates at various levels of charge injection

We investigated the impact of charge injection and metal gates (Al and Pt) on the data retention characteristics of metal–alumina–nitride–oxide–silicon (MANOS) devices for NAND flash memory application. Through the theoretical and experimental results, the highly injected charge (ΔV_TH) could cause the band bending of Al₂O₃, which reduced the tunneling distance across Al₂O₃. Thus, the dominant charge loss path is not only toward SiO₂ but also toward Al₂O₃ direction. Compared to low-metal work function (Ф_M), ONA stack with high-Ф_M showed better data retention characteristics, even if ΔV_TH is high. This could be explained by Fermi level alignment for different Ф_M, which results in the reduction of electric field across the Al₂O₃ compensated by the ΔФ_M (Ф_Pt ? Ф_Al).     

Nanoengineering Hybrid Supramolecular Multilayered Biomaterials Using Polysaccharides and Self‐Assembling Peptide Amphiphiles

Developing complex supramolecular biomaterials through highly dynamic and reversible noncovalent interactions has attracted great attention from the scientific community aiming key biomedical and biotechnological applications, including tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, or drug delivery. In this study, the authors report the fabrication of hybrid supramolecular multilayered biomaterials, comprising high‐molecular‐weight biopolymers and oppositely charged low‐molecular‐weight peptide amphiphiles (PAs), through combination of self‐assembly and electrostatically driven layer‐by‐layer (LbL) assembly approach. Alginate, an anionic polysaccharide, is used to trigger the self‐assembling capability of positively charged PA and formation of 1D nanofiber networks. The LbL technology is further used to fabricate supramolecular multilayered biomaterials by repeating the alternate deposition of both molecules. The fabrication process is monitored by quartz crystal microbalance, revealing that both materials can be successfully combined to conceive stable supramolecular systems. The morphological properties of the systems are studied by advanced microscopy techniques, revealing the nanostructured dimensions and 1D nanofibrous network of the assembly formed by the two molecules. Enhanced C2C12 cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation are observed on nanostructures having PA as outermost layer. Such supramolecular biomaterials demonstrate to be innovative matrices for cell culture and hold great potential to be used in the near future as promising biomimetic supramolecular nanoplatforms for practical applications.     

Structural Effect of Potassium Sulfamate on Synthesis of Ammonium Dinitramide

Potassium sulfamate (PS) is an efficient starting material for the nitration reaction used in the synthesis of ammonium dinitramide (ADN), which is an environmentally friendly high-energy oxidizer for propellants that does not release chlorine-based compounds. PS is a core structure to form dinitramide, -N(NO₂)₂, by taking NO₂^? from nitric acid. In this work, five test batches of PS were prepared using a few solvents including ethanol, methanol, acetone, isopropanol, and their mixtures. The lab-made PSs matched well with the commercial PS in terms of the chemical structure. The use of acetone led to a high recovery of PS up to 97 w/w% and ultimately contributed to the formation of high-purity and (99.2%) and a high yield (57.3%) that are greater than those for commercial PS (87.3% purity and 31.3% yield). Therefore, we proved that the crystallinity and homogeneity of PS influenced the properties of ADN and the synthesis efficiency.     

Control of Crystal Growth toward Scalable Fabrication of Perovskite Solar Cells

With the impressive record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of perovskite solar cells exceeding 23%, research focus now shifts onto issues closely related to commercialization. One of the critical hurdles is to minimize the cell‐to‐module PCE loss while the device is being developed on a large scale. Since a solution‐based spin‐coating process is limited to scalability, establishment of a scalable deposition process of perovskite layers is a prerequisite for large‐area perovskite solar modules. Herein, this paper reports on the recent progress of large‐area perovskite solar cells. A deeper understanding of the crystallization of perovskite films is indeed essential for large‐area perovskite film formation. Various large‐area coating methods are proposed including blade, slot‐die, evaporation, and post‐treatment, where blade‐coating and gas post‐treatment have so far demonstrated better PCEs for an area larger than 10 cm². However, PCE loss rate is estimated to be 1.4 × 10^?2% cm^?2, which is 82 and 3.5 times higher than crystalline Si (1.7 × 10^?4% cm^?2) and thin film technologies (≈4 × 10^?3% cm^?2) respectively. Therefore, minimizing PCE loss upon scaling‐up is expected to lead to PCE over 20% in case of cell efficiency of >23%.     

Open‐Ended Waveguide Antenna Using a Single Split‐Ring Resonator

This letter proposes an open‐ended waveguide antenna with a single split‐ring resonator. In contrast to the waveguide antennas incorporating multiple rings reported in a previous study, which exhibited narrow bandwidth, the proposed antenna uses only one ring to achieve broader bandwidth while keeping the aperture small. A single ring has a relatively low quality factor compared to multiple rings. The simulated and measured fractional bandwidth was 4.13% and 4.03%, respectively, which is much broader than the fractional bandwidth of about 1% demonstrated in a previous study. This simple technique can be used in many applications that require small apertures including near‐field probes and array elements.     

Coexistence of OFDM‐Based IMT‐Advanced and FM Broadcasting Systems

Coexistence analysis is extremely important in examining the possibility for spectrum sharing between orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM)‐based international mobile telecommunications (IMT)‐Advanced and other wireless services. In this letter, a new closed form method is derived based on power spectral density analysis in order to analyze the coexistence of OFDM‐based IMT‐Advanced systems and broadcasting frequency modulation (FM) systems. The proposed method evaluates more exact interference power of IMT‐Advanced systems in FM broadcasting systems than the advanced minimum coupling loss (A‐MCL) method. Numerical results show that the interference power is 1.3 dB and 3 dB less than that obtained using the A‐MCL method at cochannel and adjacent channel, respectively. This reduces the minimum separation distance between the two systems, which eventually saves spectrum resources.