Chemical compositions and optical properties of HfOxNy thin films at different substrate temperatures

High-k HfO_xN_y thin films have been grown by radio frequency (rf) reactive sputtering of metal Hf target in N₂/Ar/O₂ ambient at different substrate temperatures. The chemical compositions of the films have been investigated as a function of substrate temperature by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). XPS measurements showed that nitrogen concentration increases with an increase in substrate temperature. Room-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) with photon energy 0.75–6.5 eV was used to investigate the optical properties of the films. SE results demonstrated that refractive index n increases with an increase in substrate temperature. Based on TL parameters which were obtained from the best fit results used in a simulation of the measured spectra, meanwhile, we conclude that the energy band gap (E_g) decreases with an increase in substrate temperature.     

Integrated Personal Mobility Architecture: A Complete Personal Mobility Solution

The high expectations and demand for users to access the Internet from anywhere at anytime has made user mobility an important part of the design and development of the next generation mobile communications and computing. Traditionally user mobility has been divided into two areas: Terminal Mobility and Personal Mobility. In recent years terminal mobility has focused on the movement of the terminal and developed extensions to IP protocols such as Mobile IP. In contrast, personal mobility has only received limited attention, and is somewhat lagging behind. This research has either focussed on personal mobility in communications or personalisation of operating environments. As a result, to date no framework for providing true personal mobility has emerged. In this paper, we introduce a new personal mobility framework called IPMoA (Integrated Personal Mobility Architecture), which integrates both aspects of personal mobility to provide a complete personal mobility solution, and illustrate the viability of this approach through a proof-of-concept implementation.     

模块化软件开发的标准化内涵和优势分析

简述了模块化理论的基本观点，着重从消费者和生产者两个角度分析了实施软件模块化开发的优势，指出了模块化开发的标准化内涵，揭示了软件开发方法上的模块化趋势。     

Intermittent Phenomena in Switched Systems With High Coupling Strengths

In this paper, one kind of intermittency generated by a discontinuous system is studied. Although this system, which is composed of two switched subsystems coupled with a high strength, is nonsmooth, the mechanism of this kind of intermittency can be analyzed with several explicit relations between the intermittency characteristics and the system control parameters. In particular, estimates of "steady-state" values of the system (in the laminar phases) and a critical value for this intermittency can be derived, which are helpful in relevant control systems design. Moreover, some power laws for the observed intermittency are obtained and discussed     

Elastic solutions of a cylindrical rod containing periodically distributed inclusions with axisymmetric eigenstrains

Summary. In this paper, we give the elastic solution for a special type of microstructure – a circular cylindrical rod containing periodically distributed inclusions along its axial direction. Each inclusion has the same uniform axisymmetric transformation strain (eigenstrain). Analytical elastic solutions are obtained for the displacements, stresses and elastic strain energy of the rod. The effects of microstructure and its evolution (growth of inclusions) on the elastic stress and strain fields as well as the strain energy of the rod are quantitatively demonstrated. As a result of such microstructure evolution nominal stress-strain relation with strain softening is derived for a rod under uniaxial tension.     

Programmable group-delay module using binary polarization switching

We demonstrate the first programmable group-delay module based on polarization switching. With a unique binary tuning mechanism, the device can generate any differential group delay value from -45 to +45 ps with a resolution of 1.40 ps, or any true-time-delay value from 0 to 45 ps with a resolution of 0.7 ps. The delay varying speeds for both applications are under 1 ms and can be as fast as 0.1 ms. We evaluate both the dynamic and static performances of the device while paying special attention to its dynamic figures of merit for polarization-mode dispersion emulation and compensation applications. Our experiment shows that the device exhibits a negligible transient-effect induced power penalty (<0.2 dB) in a 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero system.     

Considerations for polarization insensitive optical switching and modulation using strained InGaAs/InAlAs quantum well structure

It is shown that In/sub 1-x/Ga/sub x/As/In/sub 0.52/Al/sub 0.48/As MQW structures with the wells under tensile strain obtained by the appropriate selection of the Ga mole fraction and well size can achieve polarization-insensitive optical switching and modulation for a wide range of wavelengths between 1.0 and 1.6 mu m. For example, a change in refractive index of -0.5% at about 1.55 mu m will facilitate an intersectional angle of more than 10 degrees in a total internal reflection switch which can be readily fabricated. Hence, this material system is promising for long-wavelength polarization-insensitive semiconductor optoelectronic devices.<>     

Effect of heat treatments on tensile properties and microstructures of wrought Mg−Zn−Zr-RE alloys

The effect of heat treatments on the tensile properties and microstructures of wrought Mg–Zn–Zr-Rare earth alloys MB25 and MB26 have been studied in this paper. It was shown that the homogenization of the cast ingots decreased the strength of the extruded bars because some grain boundary phases were dissolved during the process of this treatment, while the ageing treatment of the extruded bars increased the strength due to the dispersive precipitation of MgZn₂ phase. The quenching + ageing treatments of the extruded bars decreases the strength and plasticity because of the growing up of the grains.Abbreviations ED electron diffraction - GB grain boundary - RE rare earth - TEM transmission electron microscope     

Large-scale quantum mechanical simulations of high- Z metals

High-Z metals constitute a particular challenge for large-scale ab initio electronic-structure calculations, as they require high resolution due to the presence of strongly localized states and require many eigenstates to be computed due to the large number of electrons and need to accurately resolve the Fermi surface. Here, we report recent findings on high-Z metals, using an efficient massively parallel planewave implementation on some of the largest computational architectures currently available. We discuss the particular architectures employed and methodological advances required to harness them effectively. We present a pair-correlation function for U, calculated using quantum molecular dynamics, and discuss relaxations of Pu atoms in the vicinity of defects in aged and alloyed Pu. We find that the self-irradiation associated with aging has a negligible effect on the compressibility of Pu relative to other factors such as alloying. The US Goverment’s right to retain a non-exclusive, royalty-free license in and to any copyright is acknowledged.     

First-principles study of the tensile and fracture of the Al/TiN interface

Employing the density functional theory, we investigate the tensile and fracture processes of the Al/TiN(0 0 1) interface. The simulation presents directly the strain–stress relationship, the ideal tensile strength and the process of bond breaking of the system. Through the analysis of deformation, we find that the softer Al layers deform larger than the harder TiN layers during the tensile process. And fracture occurs between the interface and the sub-interface Al layers. In addition, the results show that during the tensile process, the ripple of the interfacial TiN layer decreases gradually with the increment of the strain. Charge transfer was detected from the Al to TiN layers near the interface area during the tensile process by means of charge density and density of states analyses. The charge transfer affects the fracture process. Compared to our previous study of the Al/TiN(1 1 1) interface, the Al/TiN(0 0 1) interface has smaller work of adhesion and larger tensile strength than the Al/TiN(1 1 1) interface. Our investigation shows that the fractures of the Al/TiN(0 0 1) and (1 1 1) interface systems both happen in the Al layers near the interface.