Electrical Conduction in β-Bi2O3 Doped with Sb2O3

Electrical conduction in tetragonal β-Bi₂O₃ doped with Sb₂O₃ was investigated by measuring electrical conductivity, ionic transference number, and Seebeck coefficient. The β-Bi₂O₃ doped with 1 to 10 mol% Sb₂O₃ was stable up to 600°C and showed an oxygen ionic and electronic mixed conduction, where the electron conduction was predominant at low oxygen pressures. The oxygen-ion conductivity showed a maximum at 4 mol% Sb₂O₃, whereas the activation energy for the ionic conduction remained unchanged for 4 to 10 mol% Sb₂O₃-doped specimens. These results were interpreted in terms of the oxygen vacancy concentration and the distortion of the tetragonal structure. The electron conductivity and its oxygen pressure dependence decreased with increasing Sb₂O₃ content. The fact that Sb⁵⁺ is partially reduced by excess electrons in heavily doped β specimens at low oxygen pressures is explained.     

Formation of Lead Zirconate-Lead Titanate Solid Solutions

Formation of the Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ solid solution in the system PbO-TiO₂-ZrO₂ was studied by chemical analysis and X-ray powder diffrac-tometry. Only PbTiO₃ and Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ were found as reaction products. The following three elementary reactions seemed to be reasonable for the formation of the Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ phase: PbO + TiO₂→ PbTiO₃, PbTiO₃+ PbO + ZrO₂→Pb(Zr_1-λTi_λ)O₃, and Pb(Zr_l-λTi_λ)O₃+ PbTiO₃→ Pb(Zr_1-λ'Ti_λ')O₃ (λ<λ').     

Plasma Behavior in a High‐Temperature Noble Gas Plasma Disk‐Shaped MHD Power Generator

R‐θ two‐dimensional numerical simulations have been carried out to clarify the plasma behavior in a high‐temperature noble gas plasma disk‐shaped magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator. At low inlet total temperature and high load resistance, the plasma has spiral structure which is similar to the nonuniform structure under the weak noble gas ionization condition in a seed‐plasma MHD generator. As seen in a linear‐shaped Faraday‐type MHD generator, the plasma becomes stable with increase in the inlet total temperature because the coulomb collision of electrons becomes dominant. Even at low inlet total temperature, the ionization instability can be suppressed for low load resistance, because the relatively low electron temperature due to less Joule heating makes the ionization relaxation time longer than plasma residential time.     

Effect of Axial Slit on Metallic Tube for Wireless Power Transfer via Magnetic Resonance Coupling

Wireless power transfer using a metallic tube with an axial slit was attempted to demonstrate the wireless power transfer using magnetic resonance coupling to the diagnostics infrastructure. The transmission efficiency with variable distance was measured using the transmission and receiver resonators in the tube. Besides, the transmission and receiver resonators were, respectively, set outside and inside the tube. These experiments are carried out in the computational study using FDTD method.     

Thermochromism in Reduced Phosphate Glasses

Coloring and bleaching of reduced phosphate glasses in the systems K₂O-B₂O_r Al₂O₃-P₂O₅ and K₂O-Al₂O₃-P₂O₅, containing no silver halide, were studied. The as-cast glasses, which are colorless and transparent, become tinged with red when they are reheated at high temperatures for long times. The bleached specimens (PTC-RP glass) are obtained by heating at >600°C, then quenching. The PTC-RP glasses exhibit coloring phenomena by irradiation of light or by heating above 200°C; the colored glasses are again bleached thermally. Coloring of the glasses by heating is described in this paper in terms of phase change within the colloidal phosphorus formed in the glasses. The apparent activation energy for the thermocoloring is estimated to be ∼15×10⁴ J/mol (35 kcal/mol).     

Spherical silicon solar cell with reflector cup fabricated by decompression dropping method

A spherical Si solar cell with a reflector cup was successfully fabricated by a dropping method at decompression state. In the dropping method, melted Si droplets were instilled at decompression state (0.5× 105Pa) to reduce crystal growth rate, dominating crystal quality such as dislocation density in crystal grains. Spherical Si solar cells were fabricated using the spherical Si crystals with a diameter of 1 mm and then mounted on a reflector cup. The current-voltage measurement of the solar cell shows an energy conversion efficiency of 11.1% (short-circuit current density ( Jsc ):24.7 mA·cm-2,open-circuit voltage: 601 mV, fill factor:74.6%). Minority carrier diffusion length determined by surface photovoltage method was 98 μm. This value can be enhanced by the improvement of crystal quality of spherical Si crystals. These results demonstrate that spherical Si crystals fabricated by the dropping method has a great potential for substrate material of high-efficiency and low-cost solar cells.     

Plasma Fluid Flow Behavior and Power Generation Characteristics in a High‐Temperature Inert Gas Plasma Faraday MHD Generator

The plasma fluid flow behavior and power generation characteristics in a Faraday magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator using a high‐temperature inert gas (argon) plasma have been examined in a time‐dependent two‐dimensional numerical simulation. The inhomogeneous and unstable plasma at an inlet total temperature of 7000 K results in reductions and fluctuations in the output power. The plasma becomes homogeneous and stable as the inlet total temperature increases to 9000 K. One of the reasons for the suppression of ionization instability may be weakness of the dependency of the electrical conductivity on the electron number density, because the Coulomb collision of electrons becomes dominant during deviation from Saha equilibrium.     

Method for Diffusing Carrier Noise under Zero‐Speed Condition using a Zero‐Sequence Voltage

In this paper, a technique is proposed to reduce the carrier noise of pulse width modulation (PWM) inverters for a permanent magnet motor drive. The carrier noise is generated by the motor and the reactor driven by the inverter and affected by the switching frequency. When a motor rotates and drives a machine, the carrier noise is hidden by the machine noise. However, when the motor speed is approximately zero, the carrier noise becomes dominant and raucous. The typical method to reduce the noise employs a switching frequency higher than the audible frequency of human hearing. However, the increase in switching frequency results in the inverter suffering a higher switching loss and lower efficiency. In particular, when the permanent magnet motor operates at approximately zero‐speed and full‐load, for example, in the hill‐start conditions of electric vehicles and the start and stop conditions of elevators, the current flows in specific power devices and the switching loss further increases. The proposed technique uses a zero‐sequence voltage, which is generated randomly with the M‐sequence signal, and diffuses the frequency components of the ripple contained in the current. The technique is able to reduce the noise without increasing the switching frequency of the inverter when the motor speed is almost zero. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed technique can diffuse the carrier noise and the cycle of the M‐sequence signal changes the diffusion effect of the carrier noise.     

Determination of eigenvalues in Marshall's model reduction

This paper is concerned with the problem of determining eigenvalues, retained in Marshall's reduced order model, which have the largest effect on the retaining state vector or give the best approximate reduced system in the sense of ISE criterion. The main objective is to show that the usual choice of eigenvalues in Marshall's model reduction technique (decomposition of eigenvalues into fast modes and slow modes) does not necessarily give a well approximated reduced order model. Here the measure of approximation is defined and calculated by means of ISE criterion. The effectiveness of this method is explained by two illustrative examples.     

Influence of texture feature size on spherical silicon solar cells

The effects of surface texturing on spherical silicon solar cells were investigated. Surface texturing for spherical Si solar cells was prepared by immersing p-type spherical Si crystals in KOH solution with stirring. Two kinds of texture feature sizes (1 and 5μm pyramids) were prepared by changing stirring speed. After fabrication through our baseline processes, these cells were evaluated by solar cell performance and external quantum efficiency. The cell with 1 and 5μm pyramids shows the short circuit current density ( Jsc ) value of 31.9 and 33.2 mA·cm-2 , which is 9% and 13% relative increase compared to the cell without texturing. Furthermore, the cell with 5 μm pyramids has a higher open-circuit voltage (0.589 V) than the cell with 1 μm pyramids (0.577 V). As a result, the conversion efficiency was improved from 11.4% for the cell without texturing to 12.1% for the cell with 5 μm pyramids.