Using a Plane-Wave Pseudo-Potential (PWPP) method, total energy and band structure calculations for M2TaN3, ε-TaN and MTa2N3 (M = a transition metal, TM) compounds have been performed in order to understand their structural stability and electronic properties. To do that, we first focus on ε-TaN compounds. The exchange correlation is treated using the Generalized Gradient Approximation (GGA). The Virtual Crystal Approximation (VCA) is then used to examine the structural stability when substituting Ti, Zr or Hf to a Ta atom either in a cell corner [c(M)(Ta2N3)] or inside the cell [in(M2)(TaN3)]. Actually, substitution of Ta by a Ti, Zr or Hf atom at a corner site does slightly change the corresponding lattice constant. Also we calculate ground-state quantities such as elastic constants, shear moduli, Young’s modulus and bulk modulus as well as Poisson’s ratio. The corresponding results for band structures and densities of states are shown as well. As far as we know our work is a pioneer attempt to determine elastic, mechanic and electronic properties for M2TaN3 and MTa2N3 (M = TM) compounds.

We document the magnetotransport properties of multicomponent La0.6Pb0.4Mn0.8Ru0.2O3 oxide thin films deposited using Pulsed Electron Deposition. This is a model composition in this series, which shows adequate hole transport aided by the presence of both Mn4+ and Ru5+ ions with similar t2gand eg parentage. The optimized metal to insulator transition temperature (Tmit) of the film has been found to be ~298 K and the magnetoresistance (—MR%) ratio of about —65% near the Tmit was observed for the La0.6Pb0.4Mn0.8Ru0.2O3 thin films. High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) studies reveal a good epitaxial growth along the (0 0 1) direction on LaAlO3 (LAO) substrate, with the width of the rocking curves (ω scans) <0.6°.

Electroabsorption spectroscopy of well-identified index-defined semiconducting carbon nanotubes is reported. The measurement of high definition electroabsorption spectra allows direct indexation with unique nanotube chirality. Results show that at least for a limited range of diameters, electroabsorption is directly proportional to the exciton binding energy of nanotubes. Electroabsorption is a powerful technique which directly probes into carbon nanotube excitonic states, and may become a useful tool for in situ study of excitons in future nanotube-based photonic devices such as electroabsorption modulators.

In0.18 Ga0.82As/GaAs quantum well sample is prepared by molecular beam epitaxy. The integrated photoluminescence dependence on the excitation power intensity is studied. The critical exciton temperature is found to be around 210 K. The high critical exciton temperature is due to the increased in-plane confinement potential. To understand the photoluminescence behavior in this sample an assumption of the existence of trapping centers that has quantum dot-like effect is introduced. These trapping centers are due to In-atom segregation during growth, a multi-peak Gaussian fitting showed additional broad peak in the high energy side of the photoluminescence spectrum which is attributed to the segregated In-atoms. The segregated In-atoms cause additional confinement to be added to the system, and hence excitons survive longer with temperature. The results show that electron hole pairs in the studied quantum well sample are weakly correlated in the near room temperature region.

Co2+ doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) using PEG as a capping agent were prepared by colloidal wet-chemical method. The structure, morphology and characteristics of as-prepared samples were investigated. X-ray diffraction patterns studies revealed wurtzite crystal phase. STM-TEM micrographs show a spherical shape and nearly well distribution with an average particle size of ~15–20 nm. UV-VIS spectra show the presence of exciton peak at 349 nm which can be effectively tuned versus cobalt doping and PEG concentration. PL studies were done under the excitation of 347 nm, which exhibited a UV (~386 nm) and visible (blue-orange) emission peak because of free-exciton recombination and oxygen vacancy.

ZnO nanorods arrays were prepared on soda lime glass substrate by pulsed laser deposition method. Hexagonal rod-like ZnO rods were obtained under different conditions. Well-defined ZnO nanorods arrays were selected among different samples having various morphologies and sizes already studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Here, we report on the contact angle measurement (CAM) of one of these samples. A systematic change of the surface wettability is observed in W-doped ZnO nanostructures. The water contact angle (WCA) of a 1 wt.% of WO3 target content was found to be the transition doping level from hydrophilic surface to a hydrophobic surface. We attributed the transition in surface wettability of the film with the doping to incorporation increase of tungsten into the film. Such characteristic surface wettability can play a key role in the adhesion of various layers on W-ZnO nanorods arrays for optoelectronic device applications.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the areal mass distribution (defined as the X-ray transmission image) of paper from its optical transmission image. A Bayesian inversion framework was used in the related deconvolution process so as to combine indirect optical information with a priori knowledge about the type of paper imaged. The a priori knowledge was expressed in the form of an empirical Besov space prior distribution constructed in a computationally effective way using the wavelet transform. The estimation process took the form of a large-scale optimization problem, which was in turn solved using the gradient descent method of Barzilai and Borwein. It was demonstrated that optical transmission images can indeed be transformed so as to fairly closely resemble the ones that reflect the true areal distribution of mass. Furthermore, the Besov space prior was found to give better results than the classical Gaussian smoothness prior (here equivalent to Tikhonov regularization).

The concentration and temperature dependence of the self-diffusion of benzene adsorbed in the metal-organic framework MOF-5 (IRMOF-1) is studied by pulsed field gradient (PFG) NMR spectroscopy. When increasing the loading from 10 to 20 molecules per unit cell of MOF-5, the experimental diffusion data drop by a factor of about 3 while current molecular dynamic (MD) simulations predict slightly increasing diffusion coefficients for this range of loadings. The observation is rationalized using the recently predicted clustering of adsorbate molecules in microporous systems for temperatures well below the adsorbate critical temperature. Necessary improvements of molecular simulation models for predicting diffusivities under such conditions are discussed.

In order to investigate the formation reason and influence factors of anode melting pool rotation in high-current vacuum arcs (HCVAs) subjected to axial magnetic field (AMF), the rotational symmetric magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of anode melting pool flow (AMPF) phenomena in HCVA is established. Based on this model, the influence of different anode current density distributions (ACDDs) on AMPF is simulated and analyzed. Simulation results show that the influence of ACDDs on rotational velocity of AMPF is significant. According to simulation results, the more nonuniform ACDDs can lead to the more rotational velocity. That is to say, the more serious current constriction in HCVA will lead to the larger rotational velocity of AMPF. The changing trend of rotational velocity in simulation results at different moments is in agreement with the experimental observation. Experimental and simulation results both show that the maximal rotational velocity appears at 9–10 ms moments.

The change in dielectric constant relaxation time over temperature (35–590 °C) and frequency (45 Hz–5 MHz) in ceramics of Pb0.77K0.115Gd0.115Nb2O6 (PKGN, Tc = 340 °c) has been studied. Powder X-ray diffraction revealed the single-phase formation with orthorhombic crystal structure. The P-E hysteresis loop parameters are Ps = 21.77 μC/cm2, Pr = 17.09 μC/cm2, Ec = 11.86 kV/cm; the piezoelectric constants, Kp = 31.7%, Kt = 47%, d33 = 115 × 10−12 C/N, d31 = −41 × 10−12 C/N, are determined in the material and some transducer applications are discussed. Cole-Cole (Zll vs. Zl) plots showed a non-Debye type relaxation. Conductivity obeyed Jonscher’s universal power law, σ = σ0 + Aωn. The theoretical values of εl and σ are computed using the parameters ‘A(T)’ and ‘n(T)’ (0 < n < 1) and are well fitted with the experimental data. The hopping ion frequency (ωp) and charge carrier concentration (Kl) have been analyzed using Almond-West formalism. The dielectric relaxation processes are associated with localized oxygen vacancies conduction at high frequency region. A long-range conductivity by Gd3+ ions is found to be predominant at low frequency region. The activation energies from impedance and modulus formalisms revealed the ionic type conduction in PKGN.

There is increasing evidence that animal morphogenesis consists of a large scale tissue flow, which defines the gross characteristics of the animal body at a very early developmental stage. We have studied the vertebrate embryo cell trajectories between a moment when it is flat and formless, to a moment when the body plan is recognizable (chicken embryo days 2–3 of development). We find that a large vortex flow patterns the vertebrate bauplan, and especially the limb territories, both hindlimbs and forelimbs. In vivo velocity measurements show that the vortices are dragged by a localized shear oriented along the median axis. A simple hydrodynamic model accounts for the lenticular shape of the limb plates. On the hindlimb plate, the flow propagates in the form of a solid-body vortex on the limb plate, dragged by a Poiseuille flow along the backbone. In vivo tonometry measurements show that there exist stress gradients in the embryonic tissue, and that the flow pattern is congruent with the direction of decrease of stress magnitude.

In this paper, a new model is proposed for the heat transfer characteristics of power law non- Newtonian fluids. The effects of power law viscosity on temperature field were taken into account by assuming that the temperature field is similar to the velocity field with modified Fourier’s law of heat conduction for power law fluid media. The solutions obtained by using Boubaker Polynomials Expansion Scheme (BPES) technique are compared with those of the recent related similarity method in the literature with good agreement to verify the protocol exactness.

Recent smart textile fabrication methods that are aimed at increasing the integration of electronics with textiles have involved fabricating micro-electronic components directly at the yarn level. Our approach to creating smart textiles is to fabricate thin-film devices and interconnects on plastic strips to create ‘e-fibers’ and weave them into a textile using a commercial weaving machine. e-Fibers are exposed to bending radii as small as 165 μm during weaving. If patterned interconnect lines and device layers on the surface of the e-fiber are not designed correctly, they will crack due to the high strain and lose their electronic functionality. Brittle sensor and transistor device layers may be protected locally using rigid encapsulation materials, but cracking remains an issue for long metal interconnect lines which require flexibility. We investigated two strain-control methods to prevent the thin-film interconnect lines from cracking during weaving: (1) patterning the metal interconnect lines with a geometric design to slow propagation and merging of cracks and (2) encapsulation of interconnect lines to shift the deposited films to the neutral plain of the substrate. The mechanical behavior of interconnect lines exposed to tensile bending was studied by measuring the change in interconnect resistance versus bending radii ranging from 5 mm to 50 μm. The critical bending radius, XC, defined as the radius at which the normalized interconnect resistance changes to 1.1 (indicating the onset of film rupturing) was 150 μm for standard interconnect lines. Patterned interconnect lines had a radius XC of 115 μm while encapsulated interconnect lines never reached this critical bending radius and showed a maximum resistance change of 1.02 at 100 μm. These results show that it is possible to design interconnect lines with reduced cracking behavior when exposed to high strain during commercial weaving.

One of the important parameters in understanding the mechanism of the early stage of organic thin-film growth is the critical nucleus size i*. Here, submonolayer films of para-sexiphenyl grown on amorphous silicon dioxide substrates were investigated by means of atomic-force microscopy and have been analyzed using the recently proposed capture-zone scaling. Applying the generalized Wigner surmise we determine from the capture-zone distribution i* at room temperature and 373 K. The results are compared to traditional analysis by island-size scaling and the applicability of the capture-zone scaling is critically discussed with respect to island shape.

The presence of impurities in the molecular crystals of organic semiconductors is a key limiting factor for the performance of related electronic devices. For this reason, the atomic-scale details of impurity incorporation are important elements for modeling and optimization of organic electronic systems. In this article, we use first-principles density-functional theory calculations to describe the vibrational spectrum of typical impurity culprits in the prototype organic semiconductor pentacene. First, we validate the computational approach by comparing results on vibrational modes of impurity-free pentacene with available theoretical and experimental data. We then analyze the effect of oxygen, water, and hydrogen impurities on the modes of pentacene crystals. The results identify distinct impurity-related features which can help understand the evolution of impurities in pentacene samples.

Thin-film transistors (TFTs) fabricated on flexible plastic substrates are an integral part of future flexible large-area electronic devices like displays and smart textiles. Devices for such applications require stable electrical performance under electrical stress and also during applied mechanical stress induced by bending of the flexible substrate. Mechanical stress can be tensile or compressive strain depending on whether the TFT is located outside or inside of the bending plane. Especially the impact of compressive bending on TFT performance is hard to measure, because the device is covered with the substrate in this case. We present a method which allows us to continuously measure the electrical performance parameters of amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinc Oxide (a-IGZO) based TFTs exposed to arbitrary compressive and tensile bending radii. To measure the influence of strain on a TFT it is attached and electrically connected to a flexible carrier foil, which afterwards is fastened to two plates in our bending tester. The bending radius can be adjusted by changing the distance between these plates. Thus it is possible to apply bending radii in the range between a totally flat substrate and ≈1 mm, corresponding to a strain of ≈3.5%. The tested bottom-gate TFTs are especially designed for use with our bending tester and fabricated on 50 μm thick flexible Kapton® E polyimide substrates. To show the different application areas of our bending method we characterized our TFTs while they are bent to different tensile and compressive bending radii. These measurements show that the field effect mobilities and threshold voltages of the tested a-IGZO TFTs are nearly, but not absolutely, stable under applied strain, compared to the initial values the mobilities shift by ≈3.5% in the tensile case and ≈−1.5% in the compressive one, at a bending radius of 8 mm. We also measured the influence of repeated bending (2500 cycles over ≈70 h), where a shift of the performance parameters can be observed, too. The saturation mobility of the flat device decreases by 4.5%, and the threshold voltage raises 0.1 V. These results show that it is possible to characterize the influence of different kinds of bending on flexible thin-film devices in a very reliable way with one experimental setup.

Aggregated systems of silver (Ag) and gold (Au) nanoparticles coated with cationic polythiophene were prepared, which showed optical properties typical for strongly coupled plasmonic excitations. The procedure allowed tune up the three-dimensional arrangement of nanoparticles assembly for achieving strong SERS effect at the excitation wavelength depending on the polymer concentration. By combination with an anionic derivative of polythiophene thin multilayer films composed of alternating anionic and cationic polythiophene with mutually interacting plasmonic Au nanoparticles were successfully prepared using layer-by-layer deposition.

We developed the novel pressure-annealing method for fabricating printed low-work function metal patterns and printed metal alloy patterns. The printed diode having various rectification properties was successfully produced by using the printed metal alloy electrode pressure-annealed.

Flexibility will significantly expand the application scope of electronics, particularly large-area electronics. Over the last 10 years, printed organic electronic is believed to be one of the next major technological breakthroughs in the field of microelectronic and the use of printing technology to process organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) opens promising perspectives for low-cost, large-area circuits integrated on flexible, plastic substrates. With amorphous polymer-based thin film transistors acceptable electrical performances are now achieved with relatively good stability at ambient air. In the literature a lot of work has been devoted to study degradation of device characteristics under bias stress conditions but only few papers deal with the mechanical behavior. In this paper, we review our first reliability results obtained on flexible organic thin film transistors under mechanical stresses. The variations of electrical characteristics under bending tests, both in compression and tension, have been studied. Using specific equipment, we have also evaluated the reliability of transistors under cyclic bending tests. The stress dependency of the transfer characteristic deviates from the one observed for inorganic material like silicon.