High performance fully plastic actuator based on ionic-liquid-based bucky gel

In a previous paper, we reported the first dry actuator that can be fabricated simply by layer-by-layer casting, using ‘bucky gel’, a gelatinous room-temperature ionic-liquid containing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Our actuator has a bimorph configuration with a polymer-supported internal ionic-liquid electrolyte layer sandwiched by two polymer-supported bucky-gel electrode layers, which allows quick and long-lived operation in air at low applied voltages. In this paper, we propose a new two-step process using a ball-mill method for preparing the casting solution for the bucky-gel electrode in order to improve the performance of the actuator by developing the bucky-gel electrode layer with a high content of SWNTs which are well dispersed in the electrode layer. We measured the displacement and the blocking force of the new bucky-gel actuator fabricated by hot-pressing the prepared electrode and electrolyte layers and analyzed its experimental results by the tri-layer polymer actuator model which was developed by Alici et al. for conducting polymer actuators. We developed the low-voltage driven solid-state actuator that shows the maximum stress and the strain of 4.7 MPa and 1.9%, respectively, which are comparable with any other low-voltage driven solid-state electroactive polymer actuator technology to our knowledge. The advantage of our bucky-gel actuator is not only in its good performance but also in its easy process in fabrication. The present development provides an important step for electromechanical polymer actuator technologies.     

Highly Hydrophilic and Lipophilic Derivatives of Bile Salts

Lipophilicity of 15 derivatives of sodium cholate, defined by the octan-1-ol/water partition coefficient (log P), has been theoretically determined by the Virtual log P method. These derivatives bear highly hydrophobic or highly hydrophilic substituents at the C3 position of the steroid nucleus, being linked to it through an amide bond. The difference between the maximum value of log P and the minimum one is enlarged to 3.5. The partition coefficient and the critical micelle concentration (cmc) are tightly related by a double-logarithm relationship (VirtuallogP=−(1.00±0.09)log(cmcmM)+(2.79±0.09)), meaning that the Gibbs free energies for the transfer of a bile anion from water to either a micelle or to octan-1-ol differ by a constant. The equation also means that cmc can be used as a measurement of lipophilicity. The demicellization of the aggregates formed by three derivatives of sodium cholate bearing bulky hydrophobic substituents has been studied by surface tension and isothermal titration calorimetry. Aggregation numbers, enthalpies, free energies, entropies, and heat capacities, ΔC_P,demic, were obtained. ΔC_P,demic, being positive, means that the interior of the aggregates is hydrophobic.     

Monitoring the bacterial population dynamics during the ripening of Galician chorizo,a traditional dry fermented Spanish sausage

The dynamics of the bacterial population throughout the ripening of Galician chorizo, a traditional dry fermented sausage produced in the north-west of Spain, were investigated by using classical and molecular approaches.     

Modified Shuffled Based Architecture for High-Throughput Decoding of LDPC Codes

Low Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes achieve the best performance when they are decoded with the sum-product (SP) algorithm. This is a two-phase iterative algorithm where two types of messages are interchanged and updated in each iteration. The group-shuffled or layered decoding schemes applied to the SP algorithm speed up its convergence by modifying its schedule, so they yield a reduction in the number of iterations required to achieve a given performance. However, the two-phase processing is still maintained. In this paper a modification of the group-shuffled scheme suitable for high-rate LDPC codes is proposed. The modification allows the overlapping of the two-phase computation, achieving a convergence speed up close to that of the group-shuffled scheme with higher throughput. Besides, high throughput architectures are presented for the modified algorithm. As an example, the proposed architecture has been implemented for the 2048-bit LDPC code of the IEEE 802.3an standard and it was synthesized in a 90 nm CMOS process achieving a throughput of 22.40 Gbps at 14 iterations with a clock frequency of 306 MHz and a total area of 10.5 mm². Furthermore, the decoder performs within 0.5 dB of the floating-point 100 iterations sum-product algorithm at a PER of 10⁻⁵.     

Lead-lithium eutectic material database for nuclear fusion technology

Fully validated material databases are needed for coherent technological developments in any R&D field. For nuclear fusion technology (NFT), within a near-term perspective of qualification and licensing of nuclear components and systems, this goal is both compulsory and urgent. This mandatory requirement applies for the particular case of the Pb-Li eutectic database as fusion reactor material. Pb16Li is today a reference breeder material in diverse fusion R&D programs worldwide. Technical consensus on most part of the material database inputs seems a major technological objective. In this work Pb16Li material database inputs for NFT have been systematically reviewed. Database inputs (bulk, thermal, physical-chemistry properties, and H-isotopes transport) are discussed and extended to base magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) properties, values for non-dimensional parameters and pipe/channel correlations in 2-phases dispersion models. Ongoing efforts to develop the Pb16Li material database as a computing expert system are reported.     

ITO substrate resistivity effect on the properties of CuInSe<Subscript>2</Subscript> deposited using two-electrode system

The purpose of this work is to deposit the CuInSe₂ films on the ITO substrate by electrodeposition technique using a simplified two electrodes system and to investigate the effect of ITO sheet resistance on the fundamental properties of the resulting films. The as deposited films were annealed under argon atmosphere at 300 °C during 30 min. The structural, morphological and electrical properties were characterized respectively by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrical resistivity measurements. The optical band gap of samples was estimated using the optical absorption technique. After annealing, the XRD spectra show diffraction peaks corresponding to the single-phase chalcopyrite CuInSe₂ with (112) as main reflection. The SEM images reveal a homogeneous surface and the estimated grain size was calculated from Scherrer’s Equation with (112) peak lay in the range of 165–272 Å. The band gap, E _g, is a decreasing function with the ITO sheet resistance.     

Substrate temperature influence on ZnS thin films prepared by ultrasonic spray

ZnS thin films were deposited by ultrasonic spray technique. The starting solution is a mixture of 0.1 M zinc chloride as source of Zn and 0.05 M thiourea as source of S. The glass substrate temperature was varied in the range of 250 °C-400 °C to investigate the influence of substrate temperature on the structure, chemical composition and optical properties of ZnS films. The DRX analyses indicated that ZnS films have nanocrystalline hexagonal structure with (002) preferential orientation and grain size varied from 20 to 50 nm, increasing with substrate temperature. The optical films characterization was carried out by the UV-visible transmission. The optical gap and films disorder were deduced from the absorption spectra and the refractive indices of the films were determined by ellipsometric measurements. It is shown that the obtained films are generally composed of ZnO and ZnS phases with varied proportion, while at deposition temperature of 400 °C, they are near stoichiometric ZnS.     

Synchronized chaotic mode hopping in DBR lasers with delayedopto-electric feedback

We propose and demonstrate a scheme for generating synchronized chaotic mode hopping in two wavelength-tunable lasers. Chaotic mode hopping resulting in large hops in wavelength is induced by delayed feedback of an electrical signal proportional to the intensity of the laser output which passes through an optical filter. Mode hopping among up to 11 modes was experimentally observed and optical signals in each wavelength band show a different on-off modulation time series. Analysis of the time series indicates high dimensionality. By using a unidirectional coupling method that injects part of the output of one laser into another, we can synchronize the chaotic mode hopping of two separate lasers and obtain synchronized chaotic on-off modulation patterns in multiple corresponding wavelength bands. The robustness of the synchronization with respect to the parameter mismatch and the effects of the coupling strength are investigated. The chaotic mode hopping dynamics and synchronization are well described with a numerical model that includes the characteristics of the laser tuning and the filter transmission. A multiplexed data transmission scheme using chaotic carriers is proposed and experiments demonstrate that multiple messages can be simultaneously recovered when chaos synchronization is achieved