Characterization and Physical Explanation of Energetic Particles on Planck HFI Instrument

The Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI) has been surveying the sky continuously from the second Lagrangian point (L2) between August 2009 and January 2012. It operates with 52 high impedance bolometers cooled at 100 mK in a range of frequency between 100 GHz and 1 THz with unprecedented sensitivity, but strong coupling with cosmic radiation. At L2, the particle flux is about 5 \(\hbox {cm}^{-2}\,\hbox {s}^{-1}\) and is dominated by protons incident on the spacecraft. Protons with an energy above 40 MeV can penetrate the focal plane unit box causing two different effects: glitches in the raw data from direct interaction of cosmic rays with detectors (producing a data loss of about 15 % at the end of the mission) and thermal drifts in the bolometer plate at 100 mK adding non-Gaussian noise at frequencies below 0.1 Hz. The HFI consortium has made strong efforts in order to correct for this effect on the time ordered data and final Planck maps. This work intends to give a view of the physical explanation of the glitches observed in the HFI instrument in-flight. To reach this goal, we performed several ground-based experiments using protons and \(\alpha \) particles to test the impact of particles on the HFI spare bolometers with a better control of the environmental conditions with respect to the in-flight data. We have shown that the dominant part of glitches observed in the data comes from the impact of cosmic rays in the silicon die frame supporting the micro-machined bolometric detectors propagating energy mainly by ballistic phonons and by thermal diffusion. The implications of these results for future satellite missions will be discussed.     

Multipath error mitigation based on wavelet transform in L1 GPS receivers for kinematic applications

GPS positioning issue has been experienced a surge of interest for multipath mitigation in the past few years. Multipath disturbance is a challenging error in high precision GPS positioning particularly in kinematic mode where the moving receiver undergoes different multipath circumstances. Diverse hardware and software approaches have been implemented to reduce this error in both static and kinematic modes. We have proposed an algorithm to alleviate C/A code multipath in kinematic mode. Our proposed scheme falls into software group where wavelet transform (WT) has been used as the main basis. Of course, we have used stationary wavelet transform (SWT) as the key idea of our proposed method that makes it possible to investigate all frequency sub-bands. Consequently, it would be possible to extract multipath disturbance since it is considered to be a low frequency term. After applying SWT to double difference (DD) residuals, the multipath error is extracted and used to correct DD observations. In this paper, we have designed three experiments to study our proposed method efficiency under different conditions in comparison with existing algorithms.     

Improvement of the Q-factor,for an adjustable inductor using a 90-μm silicon substrate on plastic

This article presents a four-port adjustable inductor with 0.18?µm Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology on plastic. The inductor has a high Q-factor and a small size for multiband UWB applications. When the four-port adjustable inductor, on VLSI-standard Si substrate, operates near 3, 4, 7.5 and 9?GHz, it has a Q-factor of 6.5, 6.7, 8 and 11.5 and an inductance of 2.1, 1.6, 1.1, 0.6?nH, respectively. Reducing the thickness of the Si substrate to 90?µm and mounting it on plastic causes a 25–31% improvement in the Q-factor, without change in the inductance, due to a reduction in the parasitic effect from the Si substrate. This is useful for multiband applications.     

Characteristics of Dislocation Half-Loop Arrays in 4H-SiC Homo-Epilayer

Dislocation “half-loop arrays” (HLAs) in 4H-SiC homo-epilayers are studied by molten KOH etching and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It is found that the dislocation half-loops in an array exist at different depths in the epilayer, and they are aligned roughly but not exactly perpendicular to the off-cut direction. These results indicate that the dislocation half-loops in an array are not formed simultaneously, but the array extends by generation of new half-loops during growth. It is also demonstrated that the HLAs can be artificially induced by creating strain in the material, followed by annealing.     

Comparison of Modeling Approaches for the Capacitance–Voltage and Current–Voltage Characteristics of Advanced Gate Stacks

In this paper, we compare the capacitance-voltage and current-voltage characteristics of gate stacks calculated with different simulation models developed by seven different research groups, including open and closed boundaries approaches to solve the Schroumldinger equation inside the stack. The comparison has been carried out on template device structures, including pure SiO₂ dielectrics and high-kappa stacks, forcing the use of the same physical parameters in all models. Although the models are based on different modeling assumptions, the discrepancies among results in terms of capacitance and leakage current are small. These discrepancies have been carefully investigated by analyzing the individual modeling parameters and the internal quantities (e.g., tunneling probabilities and subband energies) contributing to current and capacitance     

Charge trapping and interface states in hydrogen annealed HfO2–Si structures

Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) capacitors based on HfO₂ gate stacks with Al and TiN gates are compared to study the effect of the gate electrode material to the properties of insulator–semiconductor interface. The structures under study were shown to contain interface trap densities of around 2 × 10¹¹ cm⁻² eV⁻¹ for Al gate and up to 5.5 × 10¹² cm⁻² eV⁻¹ for TiN gate. The peak in the surface state distribution was found at 0.19 eV above the valence band edge for Al electrode. The respective capture cross-section is 6 × 10⁻¹⁷ cm² at 200 K.The charge injection experiments have revealed the presence of hole traps inside the dielectric layer. The Al-gate structure contains traps with effective capture cross-section of 1 × 10⁻²⁰ cm², and there are two types of traps in the TiN-gate structure with cross-sections of 3.5 × 10⁻¹⁹ and 1 × 10⁻²⁰ cm². Trap concentration in the structure with Al electrode was considerably lower than in the structure with TiN electrode.     

On-line dead-time compensation technique for open-loop PWM-VSIdrives

A new on-line dead-time compensation technique for low-cost open-loop pulsewidth modulation voltage-source inverter (PWM-VSI) drives is presented. Because of the growing numbers of open-loop drives operating in the low-speed region, the synthesis of accurate output voltages has become an important issue where low-cost implementation plays an important role. The so-called average dead-time compensation techniques rely on two basic parameters to compensate for this effect: the magnitude of the volt seconds lost during each PWM cycle and the direction of the current. In a low-cost implementation, it is impractical to attempt an on-line measurement of the volt-seconds error introduced in each cycle-instead an off-line measurement is favored. On the other hand, the detection of the current direction must be done on line. This becomes increasingly difficult at lower frequencies and around the zero crossings, leading to erroneous compensation and voltage distortion. This paper presents a simple and cost-effective solution to this problem by using an instantaneous back calculation of the phase angle of the current. Given the closed-loop characteristic of the back calculation, the zero crossing of the current is accurately obtained, thus allowing for a better dead-time compensation. Experimental results validating the proposed method are presented     

SAR reduction for handset with two-element phased array antennacomputed using hybrid MoM/FDTD technique

An investigation into a two-element phased antenna array mobile handset using the MoM/FDTD hybrid method is presented. The array is designed to provide a spatial null in the near field zone in the direction of the human head. Compared with an omnidirectional antenna, the overall efficiency and azimuth coverage are improved and the peak specific absorption rate in the head can be reduced by at least 10 dB     

Strain Mapping at the Atomic Scale in Highly Mismatched Heterointerfaces

A complete characterization of dislocation network in a highly mismatched interface with high spatial resolution has been performed. The interface between InN quantum dots and a (0001) GaN substrate contains three noninteracting sets of regularly‐spaced misfit dislocations lying along <110> directions. The network has a “Star of David” form, with each star bounding a hexagonal region which is pseudomorphic. These misfit dislocations form a threading dislocation network at the island edges due to free surface forces.     

Surface‐Enhanced Raman Scattering Using Microstructured Optical Fiber Substrates

Microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) represent a promising platform technology for fully integrated next generation surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors and plasmonic devices. In this paper we demonstrate silver nanoparticle substrates for SERS detection within MOF templates with exceptional temporal and mechanical stability, using organometallic precursors and a high‐pressure chemical deposition technique. These 3D substrates offer significant benefits over conventional planar detection geometries, with the long electromagnetic interaction lengths of the optical guided fiber modes exciting multiple plasmon resonances along the fiber. The large Raman response detected when analyte molecules are infiltrated within the structures can be directly related to the deposition profile of the nanoparticles within the MOFs via electrical characterization.