Fabrication of Thick Germanium-on-Insulator (GeOI) Substrates

Fabrication of germanium-on-insulator (GeOI) substrates with a 160-nm-thick Ge layer is reported. Such thick GeOI substrates were fabricated by thermal intermixing and subsequent condensation of epitaxially grown high-Ge- content SiGe on Si-on-insulator (SOI) substrates. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the GeOI layer was single crystalline. The high-resolution rocking curve and reciprocal lattice map obtained from X-ray diffraction measurements showed a relaxed GeOI. This was further confirmed by micro-Raman measurements, where the Ge-Ge optical phonon peak shift represented a nearly strain-free Ge layer. Using this methodology, GeOI substrates with Ge layers 120–160 nm thick have been fabricated with thickness variations of less than 4 nm across 200 mm wafers.     

Low velocity impact and axial loading response of hybrid fibre aluminium laminates

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - Fibre metal laminates (FMLs) are layered materials based on stacking arrangements of metals and fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) composite laminates....     

Stray Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (STRAFI) of Water Transport in Ceramic Substrates

Measurements of water transport in ceramic tiles made using the stray field magnetic resonance imaging technique (STRAFI) are reported. STRAFI represents one method of accomplishing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of solids and confined liquids.Water was demonstrated to saturate a sample, cored from an unglazed wall tile, within 4 minutes of exposure. The sample was in constant contact with water at the upper surface and open to air at the bottom. The water ingress was characteristically Fickian in its dynamics. Samples cored from glazed wall and floor tiles were demonstrated to be waterproof (down to 50 m spatial resolution) up to 20 h. Water was shown to ingress samples from abraded, glazed floor tiles, in which the glaze layer was damaged. In this situation, a dynamic equilibrium was established between water entering the upper surface and evaporating from the bottom surface. A gradient of water content through the tile developed. These observations held not only for the abraded tiles, but also for certain household tiles of lower porosity than the unglazed wall tile.     

Electronic structures and reactivities of monometallic and bimetallic clusters of Au and Cu

The variation of the Au 4f binding energy of Au clusters with the cluster size has been established by measuring the binding energies of clusters whose size distributions were independently determined by HREM and STM. The binding energy increases significantly when the cluster size is less than 2 nm. Au-Cu bimetallic clusters of the composition Cu₃Au have been deposited for the first time on carbon substrates. The shifts in the core level binding energies of the bimetallic clusters show the effect of alloying in the case of large clusters, but show effects of both alloying and cluster size in the case of the small clusters. The interaction of CO with Cu₃Au clusters is stronger than with a bulk Cu metal. The interaction of CO with small Cu clusters also seems to be stronger than with bulk Cu or with large Cu clusters.     

Integrated high-/spl kappa/ (/spl kappa/ /spl sim/19) MIM capacitor with Cu/low-/spl kappa/ interconnects for RF application

We demonstrate a high-performance metal-high /spl kappa/ insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor integrated with a Cu/low-/spl kappa/ backend interconnection. The high-/spl kappa/ used was laminated HfO/sub 2/-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ with effective /spl kappa/ /spl sim/19 and the low-/spl kappa/ dielectric used was Black Diamond with /spl kappa/ /spl sim/2.9. The MIM capacitor (/spl sim/13.4 fF//spl mu/m/sup 2/) achieved a Q-factor /spl sim/53 at 2.5 GHz and 11.7 pF. The resonant frequency f/sub r/ was 21% higher in comparison to an equivalently integrated Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/-MIM capacitor (/spl sim/0.93 fF//spl mu/m/sup 2/) having similar capacitance 11.2 pF. The impacts of high-/spl kappa/ insulator and low-/spl kappa/ interconnect dielectric on the mechanism for resonant frequency improvement are distinguished using equivalent circuit analysis. This letter suggests that integrated high-/spl kappa/ MIM could be a promising alternative capacitor structure for future high-performance RF applications.     

Parametric studies on drill-string motions

Experimental and numerical investigations are conducted into drill-string motions. The numerical efforts are carried out by using a reduced-order model with attention to stick–slip interactions between a drill string and an outer shell. These efforts are complemented by experimental studies conducted with a unique, laboratory scale model. Qualitative and quantitative changes in the system behavior are studied with respect to the rotation speed and mass imbalance. Comparisons are made between the numerical findings and the corresponding experimental results. In addition, the influence of contact conditions between the drill string and the outer shell on the drill-string dynamics is also examined. The findings of the work suggest that small changes in the system rotation speed can have a significant influence on the nature of drill-string motions and they also provide guidelines for steering the system out of regions of undesirable dynamics and maintaining drill-string motions close to the center of a borehole.     

Enhancing methane production by anaerobic co-digestion of extruded organic wastes from slaughterhouse and vegetable market in batch and continuous processes

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - The organic wastes generated from centralized wholesale markets from urban centres are predominantly disposed in dumpsites/landfills. Although...     

Germanium-Rich SiGe Nanowires Formed Through Oxidation of Patterned SiGe FINs on Insulator

In this study, the authors report on the fabrication of Ge-rich SiGe nanowires (SGNWs) by oxidation of SiGe fins on insulator. Nanowires of different shapes and size are obtained by varying the initial fin shape, Ge content, oxidation process temperature, and oxidation time. Transmission electron microscopy observations revealed nanowires with rectangular, square, elliptical, circular, octagonal, and hexagonal cross-sections, with different Ge content. The elliptical, octagonal, and hexagonal facets are unique shapes formed with low-index faces belonging to (110) groups. These possess very high Ge content up to 95%, and were obtained in the samples oxidized from 850°C to 875°C. In␣addition, the in-plane strain in the fabricated SGNWs is evaluated using micro-Raman spectroscopy. The possible mechanism behind the formation and transformation of different nanowire shapes is discussed.     

Inversion to obtain aerosol size distributions from measurements with a differential mobility analyzer

To measure size distributions of submicrometer aerosols with an electrical differential mobility analyzer (DMA) requires an inversion procedure. The Knutson (1976) and the Hoppel (1978) inversion procedures were numerically investigated for the case of log-normal aerosol size distributions. It was found that the Hoppel procedure converges to the same result as that given by the Knutson procedure. The computational range for geometric mean diameter ( _g) was 0.025-0.25 μm, and for geometric standard deviation (σ_g) was 1.1–2.4. The inversion error was found to be greater than 10% in certain “forbidden zones” of _g and σ_g values. For the case of an ideal DMA having no lower mobility limit, only one forbidden zone exists, this consisting of small σ_g values. The boundary of this forbidden zone intercepts the computational range boundaries at σ_g = 1.25, and σ_g = 1.62, . These results also apply to an actual DMA when the size distribution of particles larger than the DMA singly charged mobility limit is available a priori. If such information is not available, the concentration of these larger particles is assumed to be zero in performing the inversion. This assumption adds a second forbidden zone, consisting of large σ_g values and having the intercepts σ_g = 2.44, and σ_g = 1.50, . The first forbidden zone remains nearly the same.     

Structural,Mechanical and Biological Insights on Reduced Graphene Nanosheets Reinforced Sonochemically Processed Nano‐Hydroxyapatite Ceramics

In this study, we have attempted to prepare reduced graphene nanosheets (RGNS) reinforced nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp) nanocomposites via different sonochemical treatments of nHAp. Structural properties of RGNS-nHAp nanocomposites were investigated by XRD and Raman analysis. In vitro bioactivity of RGNS-nHAp nanocomposites were examined by immersing them in hank's balanced salt solution and further in vitro apatite layer formation was confirmed by systematic investigations using FESEM and ICP-OES analyses. Interactions of RGNS, pure nHAp and their nanocomposites with human erythrocytes were explored. Hemocompatibility of BGO-nHAp nanocomposites were found to be superior to pristine RGNS. The nanocomposites were mechanically improved when compared to nHAp through effective load transfer onto their 2D lattice of RGNS. However, 20PGO-nHAp nanocomposites were mechanically weaker than 20BGO-nHAp due to the formation of β-TCP as an additional phase, thus decreases its mechanical strength.