Decorating surface charge of graphite nanoplate using an electrostatic coupling agent for 3-dimensional polymer nanocomposite

Here, we report a facile approach to electrostatically couple the surface charges of graphite nanoplate (GNP) fillers and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) polymer particles using ethylene maleic anhydride (EMA) copolymer as an electrostatic coupling agent. Our strategy involved switching the intrinsic repulsive electrostatic interactions between the directly exfoliated GNPs fillers and the PMMA particles to attractive electrostatic surface interactions for preparing core(PMMA)-shell (GNP) precursor in order to optimizing 3-dimensionally dispersed polymer nanocomposite. As a result, the electrical conductivity of the composites dramatically increased by a factor of 16.7 in the EMA-coupled GNP/PMMA composites compared with that of the EMA-free GNP/PMMA composites. In addition, the percolation threshold was also notably reduced from 0.32 to 0.159 vol% after electrostatic coupling of the GNPs fillers and PMMA particles. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 137, 48390.     

Improvement of RCA transistor using RTA annealing after theformation of interfacial oxide

A polysilicon emitter RCA transistor (an ultra-thin interfacial oxide layer exists between polysilicon and silicon emitter) is presented which can operate at 77 K for the first time. An ultra-thin (1.5 nm) interfacial oxide layer is grown deliberately between polysilicon and silicon emitter using RCA oxidation and excellent device stability is obtained after rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatment in nitrogen atmosphere. The RCA transistor exhibits good electrical performance at very low temperature for an emitter area of 3 × 8 μm². The maximum toggle frequency of a 1:2 static divider is 1.2 GHz and 732 MHz at 300 K and 77 K, respectively     

Facile modifications of polyimide via chloromethylation: II. Synthesis and characterization of thermocurable transparent polyimide having methylene acrylate side groups

From chloromethylated polyimide, a useful starting material for modification of aromatic polyimides, a thermocurable transparent polyimide having acrylate side groups was prepared. In the presence of 1,8‐diazabicyclo[5,4,0]undec‐7‐ene, chloromethylated polyimide was esterified with acrylic acid to synthesize poly(imide methylene acrylate). The polymer was soluble in organic solvent, which makes it possible to prepare a planar film by spin coating. The polymer film became insoluble after thermal treatment at 230 °C for 30 min. Optical transparency of the film at 400 nm (for 1 µm thickness) was higher than 98 % and not affected by further heating at 230 °C for 250 min. Adhesion properties measured by the ASTM D3359‐B method ranged from 4B to 5B. Preliminary results of planarization testing showed a high degree of planarization (DOP) value (>0.53). These properties demonstrate that poly(imide methylene acrylate) could be utilized as a thermocurable transparent material in fabricating display devices such as TFT‐LCD. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Study on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO film on various metal electrodes

ZnO thin film was deposited on various metal electrodes by reactive sputtering, and c-axis preferred orientation of the film has been studied. ZnO, which has high piezoelectricity, is promising for oscillators or filter devices such as surface acoustic wave (SAW) device, gas sensor, and film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). But, for the application of ZnO film for these devices, the film should be grown with c-axis normal to the electrode. In this study, Pt, Al, and Au were deposited on Si wafer, and the surface roughness and crystal structure of the ZnO film on the electrode were investigated using AFM, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Columnar structures of ZnO films were grown with c-axis normal to all electrodes, and among them Pt electrode showed the highest preferred orientation of ZnO film.     

Paper remote: an augmented television guide and remote control

The television (TV) is one of the most common entertainment devices in homes. Searching and finding TV programs is a common task and using TV guides is one way of performing this. This paper presents three studies that are focused on examining audiences’ TV habits and TV guide usage, evaluating a new concept based on linking paper and pen with TV technology, and studying the audiences’ attitudes toward and anticipated interest in the future guide. The results of our first study emphasize the value of using paper based TV guides and also identify the deficiencies. We also found indications that the advantages and disadvantages of paper-based TV guides are related to the physical properties of paper. Thus, we suggest a solution that uses digital pen and paper technology to offer a new interaction method for TV. A research system “Paper Remote”, is developed and used in the two subsequent studies. Viewers tick designated areas on the paper-based guide to perform actions such as channel switching. However, this solution is not a substitute for the remote control device. We argue that these user studies on linking digital paper to the TV for everyday information navigation illuminate the possibilities of providing innovative solutions also for home information systems also.     

Extensions of LDA by PCA mixture model and class-wise features

Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a data discrimination technique that seeks transformation to maximize the ratio of the between-class scatter and the within-class scatter. While it has been successfully applied to several applications, it has two limitations, both concerning the underfitting problem. First, it fails to discriminate data with complex distributions since all data in each class are assumed to be distributed in the Gaussian manner. Second, it can lose class-wise information, since it produces only one transformation over the entire range of classes. We propose three extensions of LDA to overcome the above problems. The first extension overcomes the first problem by modelling the within-class scatter using a PCA mixture model that can represent more complex distribution. The second extension overcomes the second problem by taking different transformation for each class in order to provide class-wise features. The third extension combines these two modifications by representing each class in terms of the PCA mixture model and taking different transformation for each mixture component. It is shown that all our proposed extensions of LDA outperform LDA concerning classification errors for synthetic data classification, hand-written digit recognition, and alphabet recognition.