Potential barrier formation at a metal-semiconductor contact using selective removal of atoms

The possibility of forming a potential profile in a semiconductor by forming a metal film on its surface via selective removal of oxygen atoms from a deposited metal oxide layer was studied. Selective removal of atoms (SRA) was performed using a beam of accelerated protons with an energy of about 1 keV. Epitaxially grown GaAs films with a thickness of ～100 nm and an electron concentration of 2×10¹⁷ cm^?3 were chosen as the semiconductor material, and W obtained from WO₃ was used as the metal. The potential profile appeared due to the formation of a Schottky barrier at the metal-semiconductor interface. It was found that the Schottky barrier formed at W/GaAs contacts made by the SRA method is noticeably higher (～1 eV) than the barrier formed at the contacts made by conventional metal deposition (0.8 eV for W/GaAs). The data presented indicate that there is no damaged layer in the gate region of the structures, which is most strongly affected by the proton irradiation. Specifically, it was shown that the electron mobility in this region equals the mobility in bulk GaAs with the same doping level.     

Current-voltage characteristics of Si:B blocked impurity-band structures under conditions of hopping-transport-limited photoresponse

The photoconductivity of Si:B blocked-impurity-band (BIB) structures with boron concentration in the active layer ∼10¹⁸ cm⁻³ has been studied. Measurements were performed in the temperature range 4.2–10 K at different intensities of the exciting radiation 10¹⁰–10¹⁵ photons/cm²·s. Photoexcitation at 5.5 μm was realized using a semiconductor laser. At temperatures below 6 K and low bias voltages (<0.5 V) the current-voltage characteristics were found to have a threshold-like character. The threshold voltage rises as the temperature is lowered and the radiation intensity is increased. A model based on the Frenkel’-Poole effect in the impurity band has been developed. This model can be used to numerically describe the current-voltage characteristics with accuracy better than 5%. As a result, it is found that the photoconductivity rises and then reaches a plateau as the radiation intensity increases. Under these conditions, as under equilibrium conditions (in darkness), the hopping conductivity also depends exponentially on the electric field. This fact is explained in terms of the destruction by the electric field of (A ⁺-A ⁻) impurity complexes which appear under nonequilibrium conditions. Fiz. Tekh. Poluprovodn. 32, 192–199 (February 1998)     

A Scalable Framework For Segmenting Magnetic Resonance Images

A fast, accurate and fully automatic method of segmenting magnetic resonance images of the human brain is introduced. The approach scales well allowing fast segmentations of fine resolution images. The approach is based on modifications of the soft clustering algorithm, fuzzy c-means, that enable it to scale to large data sets. Two types of modifications to create incremental versions of fuzzy c-means are discussed. They are much faster when compared to fuzzy c-means for medium to extremely large data sets because they work on successive subsets of the data. They are comparable in quality to application of fuzzy c-means to all of the data. The clustering algorithms coupled with inhomogeneity correction and smoothing are used to create a framework for automatically segmenting magnetic resonance images of the human brain. The framework is applied to a set of normal human brain volumes acquired from different magnetic resonance scanners using different head coils, acquisition parameters and field strengths. Results are compared to those from two widely used magnetic resonance image segmentation programs, Statistical Parametric Mapping and the FMRIB Software Library (FSL). The results are comparable to FSL while providing significant speed-up and better scalability to larger volumes of data.     

Nonohmic quasi-2D hopping conductance and the kinetics of its relaxation

The nonohmic properties of a quasi-2D hopping-conductance channel are studied. The channel is formed in a p-Si layer by a field effect in the region where the Fermi level crosses the impurity band. It is shown that the dependence of conductance σ on a longitudinal electric field E has a threshold character and obeys the law lnσ(E) ∝ E^1/2. The dependences of the conductance of the quasi-2D channel on temperature and the electric field are satisfactorily explained using the concepts of nonlinear screening and of nonohmic properties of disordered systems with a random Coulomb potential. This mechanism of nonlinearity is confirmed by specific features of the mesoscopic fluctuations in the off-diagonal component of resistance, which reflect the reconstruction of a percolation cluster under the action of the longitudinal electric field. A long-term relaxation in conductance is observed during transition from a nonohmic to ohmic mode, which indicates that the system exhibits properties corresponding to electronic glass and that the current paths are significantly modified in a strong electric field.     

System fault-tolerance analysis of COTS-based satellite on-board computers

Fault-tolerance analysis reveals possible system behavior under the influence of faults. Such analysis is essential for satellites where faults might be caused by space radiation and autonomous recovery is needed. In this paper we present a statistical simulation approach for fault-tolerance analysis of satellite On-Board Computers (OBCs) that are based on Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. Since the logic level of COTS electronics is unknown to satellite designers, a new higher-level fault-tolerance analysis is required. We propose such technique that relies on OBC modeling and fault modeling, based on the modeling principle of Single-Event Upsets (SEUs). For the first time we can compare the efficiency of fault-tolerance techniques implemented in software and Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). In addition, our approach enables to analyze system fault-tolerance at early development stages. In a case study the approach is applied to an OBC with a Microsemi SmartFusion SoC, that executes a satellite attitude control algorithm. The gained statistical simulation results enabled 50% reduction in the hardware overhead of the implemented memory scrubbing technique without loss in fault-tolerance. Our method revealed critical fault-tolerance drawbacks of the initial system design that could have lead to satellite mission failure.     

Optimization of culinary recipes according to amino acid composition

A computation method is suggested, enabling one to optimize the amino acid composition of protein mixtures proceeding from the real content of amino acids and protein assimilation ratios. The method is based on the adequate use of essential amino acids and an amino acid that limits the biological value of proteins. The difference between the real content of essential amino acids and the portions utilized constitutes a non-utilized part of protein. The optimization may be reduced to the computation of its minimal values. The problem can be solved graphically, by exhaustive search of the products ratios with the use of computer or by optimization methods. According to the method designed there have been found optimal ratios of protein mixtures in animal and vegetable products contained by culinary dishes and products. The biological methods permitted one to determine the biological value and protein effectiveness ratio and to establish that they are closely related with the computed characteristics of the non-utilized part of protein and protein utilization ratio. The correlation ratio was found to amount to 0.76-0.89 (p less than 0.05).     

Universal Interface between Functional Oxides and Silicon

Integration of crystalline oxides with silicon provides a versatile platform to extend and advance silicon technology. The interface between oxide and Si controls the structure and functional properties of the resulting material. In particular, the formation of a submonolayer metal phase on silicon is the standard approach to stabilize the epitaxial growth of oxides. However, fundamental questions—a) whether the interface transforms in the process of the synthesis; and b) if it is possible to control the interface and its electronic structure by varying the submonolayer template—remain unanswered. The present study employs MBE synthesis of EuO and SrO on Si(001) to demonstrate that the structure of the oxide/Si interface does not depend on the type of the template, its symmetry, and stoichiometry. Chemical transformations of the templates converging into the same 2D product are detected in situ by electron diffraction. Then, the common interfacial structure of 1D periodicity is visualized by high-resolution electron microscopy. The study provides insights into the process of oxide integration with silicon but also sets the limits in designing oxide/Si interfaces.     

Photonic Side-Channel Analysis of Arbiter PUFs

As intended by its name, physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are considered as an ultimate solution to deal with insecure storage, hardware counterfeiting, and many other security problems. However, many different successful attacks have already revealed vulnerabilities of certain digital intrinsic PUFs. This paper demonstrates that legacy arbiter PUF and its popular extended versions (i.e., feed-forward and XOR-enhanced) can be completely and linearly characterized by means of photonic emission analysis. Our experimental setup is capable of measuring every PUF internal delay with a resolution of 6 ps. Due to this resolution, we indeed require only the theoretical minimum number of linear independent equations (i.e., physical measurements) to directly solve the underlying inhomogeneous linear system. Moreover, it is not required to know the actual PUF responses for our physical delay extraction. We present our practical results for an arbiter PUF implementation on a complex programmable logic device manufactured with a 180 nm process. Finally, we give an insight into photonic emission analysis of arbiter PUF on smaller chip architectures by performing experiments on a field programmable gate array manufactured with a 60 nm process.     

A Quasi-Classical Model of the Hubbard Gap in Lightly Compensated Semiconductors

A quasi-classical method for calculating the narrowing of the Hubbard gap between the A⁰ and A⁺ acceptor bands in a hole semiconductor or the D⁰ and D^– donor bands in an electron semiconductor is suggested. This narrowing gives rise to the phenomenon of a semiconductor transition from the insulator to metal state with an increase in doping level. The major (doping) impurity can be in one of three charge states (–1, 0, or +1), while the compensating impurity can be in states (+1) or (–1). The impurity distribution over the crystal is assumed to be random and the width of Hubbard bands (levels), to be much smaller than the gap between them. It is shown that narrowing of the Hubbard gap is due to the formation of electrically neutral acceptor (donor) states of the quasicontinuous band of allowed energies for holes (electrons) from excited states. This quasicontinuous band merges with the top of the valence band (v band) for acceptors or with the bottom of the conduction band (c band) for donors. In other words, the top of the v band for a p-type semiconductor or the bottom of the c band for an n-type semiconductor is shifted into the band gap. The value of this shift is determined by the maximum radius of the Bohr orbit of the excited state of an electrically neutral major impurity atom, which is no larger than half the average distance between nearest impurity atoms. As a result of the increasing dopant concentration, the both Hubbard energy levels become shallower and the gap between them narrows. Analytical formulas are derived to describe the thermally activated hopping transition of holes (electrons) between Hubbard bands. The calculated gap narrowing with increasing doping level, which manifests itself in a reduction in the activation energy ε₂ is consistent with available experimental data for lightly compensated p-Si crystals doped with boron and n-Ge crystals doped with antimony.