Localized Collection of Airborne Analytes: A Transport Driven Approach to Improve the Response Time of Existing Gas Sensor Designs

The detection of single binding has been a recent trend in sensor research introducing various sensor designs where the active sensing elements are nanoscopic in size. Currently, transport and collection of airborne analytes for gas sensors is either diffusion based or non‐localized and it becomes increasingly unlikely for analytes to interact with sensing structures where the active area is shrunk, trading an increased sensitivity with a slow response time. This report introduces a corona discharge based analyte charging method and an electrodynamic nanolens based analyte concentration concept to effectively transport airborne analytes to sensing points to improve the response time of existing gas sensor designs. Localized collection of analytes over a wide range, including microscopic particles, nanoparticles, and small molecules, is demonstrated. In all cases, the collection rate is several orders of magnitudes higher than in the case where the collection is driven by diffusion. The collection scheme is integrated on an existing SERS (surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy) based sensor. In terms of response time, the process is able to detect analytes at 9 ppm (parts per million) within 1 s. As a comparison, 1 h is required to reach the same signal level when diffusion‐only‐transport is used.     

Plasma-Cleaned InSb (112)B for Large-Area Epitaxy of HgCdTe Sensors

Plasma etching of (112)B InSb to prepare this semiconductor for the heteroepitaxy deposition of CdTe and initial studies of CdTe epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on InSb (112)B substrates cleaned with various plasma treatments are presented. X-ray diffraction rocking curve maps of the MBE CdTe epilayers on 3-inch InSb (112)B substrates have full-width at half-maxima (FWHM) values in the range of 20 arcsec to 30 arcsec. An etch pit density analysis of the 3-inch CdTe epilayers reveals a defect density of 1.0 × 10⁷ cm⁻² and 7.7 × 10⁵ cm⁻² at the center and edge of the wafer, respectively. Evaluation of a standard HgCdTe annealing process suggests that the removal of the InSb substrate is likely to be needed prior to any postgrowth annealing in Hg overpressure. Finally, we present a low-energy helium plasma exposure of wet-etched InSb (112)B substrates that provides a uniform epi-ready surface that is nearly stoichiometric, and free of oxide and residual contaminants.     

Relevance of Thermal Mismatch in Large-Area Composite Substrates for HgCdTe Heteroepitaxy

It is well known that the large lattice mismatch (>14%) associated with CdTe/Si, CdTe/Ge, and CdTe/GaAs composite substrates, is a great contributor to large dislocation densities and other defects that limit the performance of HgCdTe-based infrared detectors. Though thermal expansion mismatch is another possible contributor to material defects, little work has been done towards documenting and understanding its effects in these systems. Here, we perform studies to determine the relative contributions of lattice and thermal mismatch to CdTe film characteristics, including dislocation density and residual stress. Unannealed and thermally cycled films are characterized using x-ray diffraction, defect decoration, and Nomarski and transmission electron microscopy. For CdTe/Si, the residual stress is consistently observed to be tensile, while for CdTe/Ge and CdTe/GaAs, a compressive residual film stress is measured. We show based on theoretically predicted stress levels that the experimental measurements imply the dominance of thermal mismatch in the residual stress characteristics.     

Structural Analysis of CdTe Hetero-epitaxy on (211) Si

X-ray diffraction full-width at half-maximum (XRD FWHM), reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) indicate a mosaic structure for molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) (211)B CdTe/Si. AFM measurements indicate long, thin, small-angle-disoriented grains for CdTe/Si epilayers. These disoriented grains are ~1 μm in the [] direction and are ~40 nm in the [] direction. The RHEED pattern in the [] direction depicts nearly ideal single-crystal periodicity. The RHEED pattern in the [] direction is indicative of small-angle-disoriented crystalline grains. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), AFM, and XRD measurements all indicate an approximate factor of 10 increase in the Everson etch pit density (EPD) over standard Nomarski microscopy Everson EPD determination.     

Impact of Tellurium Precipitates in CdZnTe Substrates on MBE HgCdTe Deposition

State-of-the-art (112)B CdZnTe substrates were examined for near-surface tellurium precipitate-related defects. The Te precipitate density was observed to be fairly uniform throughout the bulk of the wafer, including the near-surface region. After a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) preparation etch, exposed Te precipitates, small pits, and bumps on the (112)B surface of the CdZnTe wafer were observed. From near-infrared and dark field microscopy, the bumps and small pits on the CdZnTe surface are associated with strings of Te precipitates. Raised bumps are Te precipitates near the surface of the (112)B CdZnTe where the MBE preparation etch has not yet exposed the Te precipitate(s). An exposed Te precipitate sticking above the etched CdZnTe surface plane occurs when the MBE preparation etch rapidly undercuts a Te precipitate. Shallow surface pits are formed when the Te precipitate is completely undercut from the surrounding (112)B surface plane. The Te precipitate that was previously located at the center of the pit is liberated by the MBE preparation etch process.     

Polarization asymmetry in waves backscattering from highly absorbant random media

Within the range in which light penetration depth is approximately the same as or less than the diameter of the particles in the medium, particulate media with considerable absorption behave as two-dimensional, rough-surface structures. As penetration depth increases, a complicated transition between volume and surface effects is seen. For these media, low-order scattering sequences have small spatial extent, making observation of polarization characteristics difficult. We present an experimental technique to access the low-order scattered photons by artificially reinjecting them through total internal reflections. Using a dielectric layer in contact with the high-absorption medium, we are able to observe fourfold polarization asymmetry in backscattering from highly absorbant media. We discuss the origin of the polarization patterns in a ray-optics approximation and suggest possibilities for solving practical problems encountered in characterizing composites with appreciable absorption.     

High Levels of Solar Electricity Require More Gas-Supply Flexibility

Most of the discussion of the adoption of high levels of renewable energy in the electricity sector has focused on the adaptations and flexibility of the electricity power system. When these studies are made with assumptions about flexible natural gas generation, there is rarely a mention of the impacts on gas pipeline operations. The gas industry—in particular, the pipeline operators—has an opportunity to adapt to changes in the electric power system by recognizing and meeting the growing need for operational flexibility.     

Stepwise‐refinement for performance: a methodology for many‐core programming

Many‐core hardware is targeted specifically at obtaining high performance, but reaching high performance is often challenging because hardware‐specific details have to be taken into account. Although there are many programming systems that try to alleviate many‐core programming, some providing a high‐level language, others providing a low‐level language for control, none of these systems have a clear and systematic methodology as a foundation. In this article, we propose stepwise‐refinement for performance: a novel, clear, and structured methodology for obtaining high performance on many‐cores. We present a system that supports this methodology, offers multiple levels of abstraction to provide programmers a trade‐off between high‐level and low‐level programming, and provides programmers detailed performance feedback. We evaluate our methodology with several widely varying compute kernels on two different many‐core architectures: a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) and the Xeon Phi. We show that our methodology gives insight in the performance, and that in almost all cases, we gain a substantial performance improvement using our methodology. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.