Impact of nonuniform graded dopant profile in polysilicon gate on gate leakage current

In a MOSFET, a nonuniform, graded vertical dopant profile in the polysilicon gate causes a potential drop at the polysilicon/oxide interface. In this paper, the effect of this potential drop on the gate leakage current has been evaluated for the first time. The extent of variations of this affected gate leakage current with gate oxide thickness, gate length, and gate and drain bias conditions have been assessed with device simulation for an nMOS at 0.13 /spl mu/m low-voltage process. The results provide a guideline to the severity of this effect from the point of view of device and circuit operation and standby power consumption.     

Growth and optical properties of In x Ga1−x P nanowires synthesized by selective-area epitaxy

Ternary Ⅲ-Ⅴ nanowires (NWs) cover a wide range of wavelengths in the solar spectrum and would greatly benefit from being synthesized as position-controlled arrays for improved vertical yield,reprodudbility,and tunable optical absorption.Here,we report on successful selective-area epitaxy of metal-particle-free vertical InxGa1-xP NW arrays using metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy and detail their optical properties.A systematic growth study establishes the range of suitable growth parameters to obtain uniform NW growth over a large array.The optical properties of the NWs were characterized by room-temperature cathodoluminescence spectroscopy.Tunability of the emission wavelength from 870 nm to approximately 800 nm was achieved.Transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray measurements performed on crosssection samples revealed a pure wurtzite crystal structure with very few stacking faults and a slight composition gradient along the NW growth axis.     

NearFar: A computer program for nearside-farside decomposition of heavy-ion elastic scattering amplitude

The NearFar program is a package for carrying out an interactive nearside-farside decomposition of heavy-ion elastic scattering amplitude. The program is implemented in Java to perform numerical operations on the nearside and farside angular distributions. It contains a graphical display interface for the numerical results. A test run has been applied to the elastic scattering at Elab=1503 MeV.

Program summary

Title of program: NearFarCatalogue identifier: ADYP_v1_0Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADYP_v1_0Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: noneComputers: designed for any machine capable of running Java, developed on PC-Pentium-4Operating systems under which the program has been tested: Microsoft Windows XP (Home Edition)Program language used: JavaNumber of bits in a word: 64Memory required to execute with typical data: case dependentNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 3484Number of bytes distributed program, including test data, etc.: 142 051Distribution format: tar.gzOther software required: A Java runtime interpreter, or the Java Development Kit, version 5.0Nature of physical problem: Interactive nearside-farside decomposition of heavy-ion elastic scattering amplitude.Method of solution: The user must supply a external data file or PPSM parameters which calculates theoretical values of the quantities to be decomposed.Typical running time: Problem dependent. In a test run, it is about 35 s on a 2.40 GHz Intel P4-processor machine.     

Parametric Studies on the Behavior of Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls under Earthquake Loading

The finite element procedures are extremely useful in gaining insights into the behavior of reinforced soil retaining walls. In this study, a validated finite element procedure was used for conducting a series of parametric studies on the behavior of reinforced soil walls under construction and subject to earthquake loading. The procedure utilized a nonlinear numerical algorithms that incorporated a generalized plasticity soil model and a bounding surface geosynthetic model. The reinforcement layouts, soil properties under monotonic and cyclic loadings, block interaction properties, and earthquake motions were among major variables of investigation. The performance of the wall was presented for the facing deformation and crest surface settlement, lateral earth pressure, tensile force in the reinforcement layers, and acceleration amplification. The effects of soil properties, earthquake motions, and reinforcement layouts are issues of major design concern under earthquake loading. The deformation, reinforcement force, and earth pressure increased drastically under earthquake loading compared to end of construction.     

Highly Reliable Flexible Active Optical Links

We present a process to embed commercially available optical material layers into a flexible foil. Patterning of the embedded layers results in highly transparent low loss flexible waveguides . Bending of the foil down to a bending radius of 5 mm causes no additional optical propagation losses. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes (VCSELs) and photodiodes are thinned down to 20 $mu{hbox {m}}$ and embedded inside the cladding layer of the waveguides. They are optically coupled with the use of embedded micro-mirrors. The result is a thin foil of 150- $mu{hbox {m}}$ thickness with embedded active optical low-loss links. Accelerated aging tests prove the reliability of the embedded optical links exposed to humidity and temperature cycling.      

Coupling Analysis of GaAs-Based Microdisk Lasers With Different External Claddings

In this paper, we analyze the coupling of light from a GaAs microdisk laser into a waveguide. Starting from an air cladding, we examine several configurations to couple light into the waveguide with different cladding structures aimed to foster light coupling into the waveguide: photonic crystal and metallic (plasmonic cladding). In these coupling schemes, we tried to optimize the coupling of the emitted light into the waveguide, while maintaining a reasonable quality factor to allow the lasing operation of the device. We show that a plasmonic layer, introduced beside the waveguide can lead to a significant improvement in the coupling efficiency, reaching an efficiency close to 80%.     

Behavior of Buried Flexible Pipe under High Fills and Design Implications

The existing design guidelines for buried flexible pipes are limited to depth up to 10?m. The increasing use of difficult terrains for infrastructure, landfills, and residential and industrial developments has prompted installation of drainage pipelines under 20–30?m high fills. This paper presents the behavior of an instrumented flexible pipe buried under a 47.1?m deep fill. For filling above 20?m, the measured vertical stress above the pipe exhibited a concave distribution, corresponding to 90 and 110% of the average vertical pressure at the center and edges of the pipe, respectively. The measured results suggest that a triangular lateral pressure distribution can lead to overly conservative and uneconomical results for high fills while Spangler’s analysis is unconservative. Based on the measured results, a revised vertical and lateral earth pressure diagram was proposed for the design of flexible pipe under high fills >20?m. This paper proposes closed-form analyses for estimating the moments and displacements of the pipe subjected to high fill earth pressures. These closed-form solutions agree well with the measured pipe displacements and strains.     

The effect of a pressure garment on post-surgical drainage and seroma formation in breast cancer patients

BACKGROUND: The treatment of choice for cancer of the breast are mastectomy and axillary clearance or wide excision with axillary clearance. The most common complication following such a procedure is seroma formation. Various methods have been used to prevent it. However, the use of a pressure garment in this context has not been fully evaluated in the current literature. RESULTS: In a randomised trial comparing patients with a pressure garment with those without one, we have found no improvement in post-operative drainage with the use of a pressure garment. There were more complications in the group without the pressure garment (19%) compared with those with the garment (15.7%). The only seroma occurred in those patients not using the garment. The use of the pressure garment appeared to increase the duration of use of the drain (6.8 vs 6.1 days), these differences in the two groups was not significant. One of the patients in the pressure garment group was unable to tolerate the warmth and discontinued wearing the garment in the third post-operative day. This gave a rejection rate of 5%. CONCLUSION: The use of a pressure garment does not reduce the post-operative drainage, however, the complication rate appears to be higher when the pressure garment is not being used.