Microfissuring of Alloy 718 in the Weld Heat-Affected Zone

Alloy 718 suffers from microfissuring in the weld heat-affected zone, and compositional, structural and mechanistic causes of this defect have been examined. Both bulk sulfur and bulk carbon increase microfissuring, and heat treatments typical ofhomogenization, solution annealing and age hardening reveal that microfissuring is sensitive to the microstructural and chemical distributions established during heat treatment. Increased grain size increases microfissuring more than heat treatment or bulk chemistry. The mechanistic cause of microfissuring, constitutional liquation of niobium carbide and Laves phases, produces intergranular liquid films with wetting angles that are dependent on the chemical composition of the grain boundary region prior to welding. Microfissuring also correlates with the temperature dependence of the intergranular liquid wetting angle in the heat-affected zone.     

5-GHz 32-bit integer execution core in 130-nm dual-V/sub T/ CMOS

A 32-bit integer execution core containing a Han-Carlson arithmetic-logic unit (ALU), an 8-entry /spl times/ 2 ALU instruction scheduler loop and a 32-entry /spl times/ 32-bit register file is described. In a 130 nm six-metal, dual-V/sub T/ CMOS technology, the 2.3 mm/sup 2/ prototype contains 160 K transistors. Measurements demonstrate capability for 5-GHz single-cycle integer execution at 25/spl deg/C. The single-ended, leakage-tolerant dynamic scheme used in the ALU and scheduler enables up to 9-wide ORs with 23% critical path speed improvement and 40% active leakage power reduction when compared to a conventional Kogge-Stone implementation. On-chip body-bias circuits provide additional performance improvement or leakage tolerance. Stack node preconditioning improves ALU performance by 10%. At 5 GHz, ALU power is 95 mW at 0.95 V and the register file consumes 172 mW at 1.37 V. The ALU performance is scalable to 6.5 GHz at 1.1 V and to 10 GHz at 1.7 V, 25/spl deg/C.     

Delay-Doppler analysis of bistatically reflected signals from theocean surface: theory and application

We present a new stochastic theory for delay-Doppler mapping of the ocean surface for bistatic scattering. This stochastic theory should complement nicely the previous theories for the Global Positioning System (GPS) reflected signals from ocean surfaces, especially that of Zavorotny and Voronovich (2000). We quantify the Doppler spread of the reflected signal before interpreting the delay. Our theoretical results compare very well to Doppler spectra computed using data collected during an airborne campaign. The bandwidth of the spectra is linked to the geometry and to the ocean roughness. The bulk of the Doppler spread is caused by the rms slope and not by the surface orbital velocity. Our stochastic theory is generalized to include the delay mapping made possible by the existence of the pseudorandom noise code on the GPS L-band carrier. These results can be seen as a generalization of Woodward's theorem for FM signals to delay-Doppler analysis of more complicated signals. Our formulation is amenable to inversion for the determination of geophysical parameters such as surface wind vector and mean sea level. Another novelty in our approach is the inclusion of the sea state     

Influence of Si<Subscript>3</Subscript>N<Subscript>4</Subscript> passivation on surface trapping in SiC metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors

The SiC metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) have been reported to have current instability and strong dispersion caused by trapping phenomena at the surface and in the substrate, which degrade direct-current (DC) and radio-frequency (RF) performance. This paper illustrates the change in electrical characteristics of SiC MESFETs after Si₃N₄ passivation. Because of a reduction of surface trapping effects, Si₃N₄ passivation can diminish current collapse under pulsed DC conditions, increasing the RF power performance. The reduction of surface trapping effects is verified by the change in the ratio of the drain current to the gate current under pinch-off conditions.     

Obtaining Characteristic 4f–4f Luminescence from Rare Earth Organic Chelates

We report a study of a series of heavy rare earth tris‐8‐hydroxyquinolines (REQ₃s), using UV‐visible absorption spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. We show that the heavy REQ₃s are all chemically similar to each other and to aluminium tris‐8‐hydroxyquinoline, at least in terms of the ligand behavior. Characteristic rare earth 4f–4f luminescence is only observed for ErQ₃ and YbQ₃ due to the relatively low energy of the ligand triplet state. We show that a triplet transfer mechanism cannot be responsible for the observed Yb 4f–4f luminescence observed in YbQ₃. Instead, an internal chemiluminescent process is shown to be energetically favorable. The thin film PL spectra of all the heavy REQ₃s are dominated by triplet emission, except for that of ErQ₃, for which transfer to the Er³⁺ ion represents an efficient alternative. The PL spectra of powder samples, which would be expected to consist of approximately equal amounts of both isomers, are dominated by singlet emission. This is in contrast to the results from the thin films, and suggests that the isomer which predominates in the thin films has a much higher intersystem crossing rate than the other isomer.     

10 GHz hybrid modelocking of monolithic InGaAs quantum dot lasers

Hybrid modelocking of monolithic quantum dot lasers is reported for the first time. A marked performance improvement over passive modelocking is demonstrated. Both hybrid and passive modelocking at /spl sim/10 GHz are achieved for the first time in quantum dot lasers.     

Uniaxial-process-induced strained-Si: extending the CMOS roadmap

This paper reviews the history of strained-silicon and the adoption of uniaxial-process-induced strain in nearly all high-performance 90-, 65-, and 45-nm logic technologies to date. A more complete data set of n- and p-channel MOSFET piezoresistance and strain-altered gate tunneling is presented along with new insight into the physical mechanisms responsible for hole mobility enhancement. Strained-Si hole mobility data are analyzed using six band k/spl middot/p calculations for stresses of technological importance: uniaxial longitudinal compressive and biaxial stress on [001] and [110] wafers. The calculations and experimental data show that low in-plane and large out-of-plane conductivity effective masses and a high density of states in the top band are all important for large hole mobility enhancement. This work suggests longitudinal compressive stress on [001] or [110] wafers and <110> channel direction offers the most favorable band structure for holes. The maximum Si inversion-layer hole mobility enhancement is estimated to be /spl sim/ 4 times higher for uniaxial stress on (100) wafer and /spl sim/ 2 times higher for biaxial stress on (100) wafer and for uniaxial stress on a [110] wafer.     

Tomographic fluorescence imaging in tissue phantoms: a novel reconstruction algorithm and imaging geometry

A novel image reconstruction algorithm has been developed and demonstrated for fluorescence-enhanced frequency-domain photon migration (FDPM) tomography from measurements of area illumination with modulated excitation light and area collection of emitted fluorescence light using a gain modulated image-intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) camera. The image reconstruction problem was formulated as a nonlinear least-squares-type simple bounds constrained optimization problem based upon the penalty/modified barrier function (PMBF) method and the coupled diffusion equations. The simple bounds constraints are included in the objective function of the PMBF method and the gradient-based truncated Newton method with trust region is used to minimize the function for the large-scale problem (39919 unknowns, 2973 measurements). Three-dimensional (3-D) images of fluorescence absorption coefficients were reconstructed using the algorithm from experimental reflectance measurements under conditions of perfect and imperfect distribution of fluorophore within a single target. To our knowledge, this is the first time that targets have been reconstructed in three-dimensions from reflectance measurements with a clinically relevant phantom.     

Capillary instabilities in thin films

Very thin films, less than 100 nm-thick, are used in a variety of applications, including as catalysts and for thin film reactions to form patterned silicides in electronic devices. Because of their high surface to volume ratio, these very thin films are subject to cap-illary instability and can agglomerate well below their melting temperatures. In order to develop a general understanding of agglomeration in very thin films, we have studied initially continuous and patterned films of gold on fused silica substrates. Two in situ techniques were used to monitor agglomeration: 1) heating and video recording in a transmission electron microscope, and 2) measurement of the intensity of laser light transmitted through a sample heated in a furnace. Electron microscopy allowed inves-tigation of the role of the microstructure of the Au film and analysis of light transmis-sion during heating allowed determination of temperature-dependent and film-thick-ness-dependent agglomeration rates. These results will be described along with models for the agglomeration process.     

The isolation and nucleation of misfit dislocations in strained epitaxial layers grown on patterned,ion-damaged GaAs

As shown previously, the misfit dislocation density of strained epitaxial III–V layers can be significantly reduced by isolating sections (via patterned etching) of a GaAs substrate before epitaxial growth. A disadvantage of this technique is that the wafer surface is no longer planar, which can complicate subsequent device fabrication. As an alternative, we have investigated growth of 350 nm of In_0.5Ga{0.95}As by molecular beam epitaxy at two temperatures on substrates which were patterned and selectively damaged by Xe ion implantation (300 keV, 10¹⁵ cm²). Selectively etched substrates were prepared as reference samples as well. The propagation of the misfit dislocations was stopped by the ion-implanted regions of the low growth temperature (400° C) material, but the damaged portions also acted as copious nucleation sources. The resulting dislocation structure was highly anisotropic, with dislocation lines occurring in virtually only one direction. At the higher growth temperature (500° C) the defect density fell, but the ion damaged sections no longer blocked dislocation glide. Images from cathodoluminescence and transmission electron microscopy show thatthe low growth temperature material has a dislocation density of 70,000 cm^-1 in the 110 direction and less than 10,000 cm^-1 in the 110 direction. Ion channeling and x-ray diffraction show that strain is relieved in only one direction. The strain relief is consistent with the relief derived from TEM dislocation counts and Burgers vector determination. However, even this high dislocation count is not sufficient to reach the expected equilibrium strain. Reasons for the anisotropy are discussed.