pH-insensitive fabrication of gold nanoparticles with high concentration by ultrasound-assisted electrochemical process via aid of chitosan

In this work, we report a new pathway to prepare pure gold nanoparticles with high concentrations in acid solutions via the aid of chitosan without the addition of other stabilizers and reductants based on electrochemical methods. Interestingly, this fabrication of gold nanoparticles with high concentrations in solutions is pH-insensitive. The characteristics of prepared gold nanoparticles were examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HRXPS) measurements. Experimental results indicate the concentration and the particle size of Au nanoparticles prepared in 0.1N HCl are ca. 50 ppm and 12 nm in diameter, respectively. Similar experiment performed in 0.1N NaCl with the aid of chitosan shows that the corresponding concentration of prepared Au nanoparticles is ca. 100 ppm. Further similar experiments performed in 0.1N HCl and 0.1N NaCl without the aid of chitosan show that the corresponding concentrations of prepared Au nanoparticles are ca. 1 and 60 ppm, respectively.     

Compact and vertically-aligned ZnO nanorod thin films by the low-temperature solution method

Highly c-axis-oriented ZnO nanorod thin films were obtained on silica glass substrates by a simple solution-growth technique. The most compact and vertically-aligned ZnO nanorod thin film with the thickness of ∼ 800 nm and average hexagonal grain size of ∼ 200 nm exhibits the average visible transmittance 85%, refractive index 1.74, packing density 0.84, and energy band gap 3.31 eV, and it was fabricated under the optimum parameters: 0.05 M, 75 °C, 6 h, multiple-stepwise, and ZnO seed layer with an average grain size of ∼ 20 nm. The photoluminescence spectrum indicates that the densest ZnO nanorod thin film possesses lots of oxygen vacancies and interstitials. As we demonstrate here, the solution-growth technique was used to produce high-quality and dense ZnO nanorod thin films, and is an easily controlled, low-temperature, low-cost, and large-scale process for the fabrication of optical-grade thin films.     

Effects of sputtering pressure and Al buffer layer thickness on properties of AZO films grown by rf magnetron sputtering

Transparent and conductive Al-doped (2 wt.%) zinc oxide (AZO) films were deposited on inexpensive soda-lime glass substrates by using rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature. This study analyzed the effects of argon sputtering pressure, which varied in the range from 0.46 to 2.0 Pa, on the morphological, electrical and optical properties of AZO films. The only (0 0 2) diffraction peak of the film were observed at 2θ～34.45°, exhibiting that the AZO films had hexagonal ZnO wurtzite structure, and a preferred orientation with the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. By applying a very thin aluminum buffer layer with the thickness of 2 nm, findings show that the electrical resistivity was 9.46 × 10⁻⁴ Ω-cm, and the average optical transmittance in the visible part of the spectra was approximately 81%. Furthermore, as for 10 nm thick buffer layer, the electrical resistivity was lower, but the transmittance was decreased.     

ZrO2/hydroxyapatite coating on titanium by electrolytic deposition

In this study, hydroxyapatite (HA) was coated on a titanium (Ti) substrate over a ZrO(2) layer by the electrolytic deposition method, this double layer coating was then compared with a single layer coating of HA. The HA layer was used to increase the bioactivity and osteoconductivity of the Ti substrate, and the ZrO(2) layer was intended to improve the bonding strength between the HA layer and Ti substrate, and to prevent the corrosion of the Ti substrate. The electrolytic deposition formed an HA layer with a thicknesses of approximately 20 mum, which adhered tightly to the Ti substrate. The bonding strength of the HA/ZrO(2) double layer coating on Ti was markedly improved when compared to that of the HA single coating on Ti. The improvement in bonding strength with the use of a ZrO(2) base layer was attributed to the resulting increase in chemical affinity of the ZrO(2) to the HA layer and to the Ti substrate. The osteoblast-like cells cultured on the HA/ZrO(2) coating surface, proliferated in a similar manner to those on the HA single coating and on the pure Ti surfaces. At the same time, the corrosion resistance of Ti was improved by the presence of the ZrO(2) coating, as shown by a potentiodynamic polarization test.     

Three-dimensional measurement of distant objects based on laser-projected CCD images

A novel measuring system based on a single CCD camera and two laser projectors to record images and perform three-dimensional measurement of a distant object is proposed here. Because of the alignment of the laser beams which form in parallel with the optical axis of the CCD camera, projected spots will appear on the same scan line in a CCD image. As a result processing of a single scan line rather than the whole image is only required to identify the projected spots in the CCD image. Complex computation of video signals of the whole image via either pattern recognition or image analysis methods is therefore circumvented. On the basic of an established relationship between the distance and pixel counts between the projected spots in the CCD image, the proposed system not only measures the distance from a distant object but also the length of two arbitrarily designated points on the object. To provide better accuracy, intrinsic parameters of the CCD camera are taken into consideration in the measurement. Furthermore, the effect of laser diffusion is also proved to be irrelevant to the measuring accuracy here. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed measuring method is capable of yielding accurate results of three-dimensional measurement for a distant object in a very responsive way.     

Low power design of CMOS 5-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator from narrowband to wideband with switching capacitor module

In this study, we demonstrated low power and low phase noise of the complementary cross-coupled voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs). Two chips are implemented by TSMC standard 0.18-mum complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process. The first one that employed a memory reduction tail transistor technique is operated from 5.17 to 5.85 GHz at a supply voltage of 1.2 V whereas its tuning range is 12.3%. The power consumption is 1.8 mW whereas the measured phase noise is -126.6 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz frequency offset from 5.17 GHz. The other employed switching capacitor modules to achieve wide tuning range and minimise phase noise, it operated from 3.64 to 5.37 GHz with 38% tuning range. The power consumption is 13.7 mW by a 1.8 V supply voltage and the measured phase noise in all tuning ranges is less than -122 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz frequency offset.     

Camera self-calibration method suitable for variant camera constraints

This paper presents a self-calibration algorithm that seeks the camera intrinsic parameters to minimize the sum of squared distances between the measured and reprojected image points. By exploiting the constraints provided by the fundamental matrices, the function to be minimized can be directly reduced to a function of the camera intrinsic parameters; thus variant camera constraints such as fixed or varying focal lengths can be easily imposed by controlling the parameters of the resulting function. We employed the simplex method to minimize the resulting function and tested the proposed algorithm on some simulated and real data. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm performs well for variant camera constraints and for two-view and multiple-view cases.     

Comparison on characteristics of radiophotoluminescent glass dosemeters and thermoluminescent dosemeters

The radiophotoluminescent glass dosemeter (RPLGD) system is applicable for measurement of radiation dose of X rays and gamma rays by using radiophotoluminescent glass (silver-activated phosphate glass). When the radiophotoluminescent glass is exposed to ionizing radiation, stable luminescent centres are created. During pulsed ultraviolet laser excitation (337.1 nm) in the reader, the centres emit a radiation induced orange fluorescent light (600-700 nm). This phenomenon is called radiophotoluminescence. This study compared the RPLGD system with lithium fluoride (LiF) thermoluminescence dosimetry system and the results of the study revealed that the RPLGD had not only good basic characteristics for reproducibility of readout value, dose linearity, energy dependence and fading, but also infinite repeatable measurements and could be one of the most important radiation dose measurement instruments.     

Organoclay effect on transverse compressive strength of glass/epoxy nanocomposites

This research focuses on the fabrication of glass fiber/epoxy nanocomposites containing organoclay as well as understanding the organoclay effect on the transverse compressive strength of nanocomposites. To demonstrate the organoclay effect, three different loadings of organoclay were dispersed, respectively, in the epoxy resin using a mechanical mixer followed by sonication. The corresponding glass/epoxy nanocomposites were produced by impregnating dry glass fiber with organoclay epoxy compound through a vacuum hand lay-up procedure. Unidirectional block specimens were employed for transverse compression tests on a hydraulic MTS machine. Experimental observations indicate that glass/epoxy nanocomposites containing organoclay exhibit higher transverse compressive strength than conventional composites. Furthermore, the failure mechanisms for all tested specimens were found to be fiber and matrix debonding. Therefore, results indicate that the increasing characteristic in transverse failure stress may be ascribed to the enhanced fiber/matrix adhesion modified by the organoclay.