Materials and Wireless Microfluidic Systems for Electronics Capable of Chemical Dissolution on Demand

Electronics that are capable of destroying themselves, on demand and in a harmless way, might provide the ultimate form of data security. This paper presents materials and device architectures for triggered destruction of conventional microelectronic systems by means of microfluidic chemical etching of the constituent materials, including silicon, silicon dioxide, and metals (e.g., aluminum). Demonstrations in an array of home‐built metal‐oxide‐semiconductor field‐effect transistors that exploit ultrathin sheets of monocrystalline silicon and in radio‐frequency identification devices illustrate the utility of the approaches.     

Strong adsorption of phosphate by amorphous zirconium oxide nanoparticles

Phosphate removal is important in the control of eutrophication of water bodies. Adsorption is one of the promising approaches for the removal of phosphate, which could serve as a supplement for the biological phosphate removal process commonly used in the wastewater treatment industry to meet the discharge requirement when the biological performance is deteriorated from changes of operation conditions. Amorphous zirconium oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by a simple and low-cost hydrothermal process, and their phosphate removal performance was explored in aqueous environment under various conditions. A fast adsorption of phosphate was observed in the kinetics study, and their adsorption capacity was determined at about 99.01 mg/g at pH 6.2 in the equilibrium adsorption isotherm study. Commonly coexisting anions showed no or minimum effect on their phosphate adsorption performance. The phosphate adsorption showed little pH dependence in the range from pH 2 to 6, while it decreased sharply with the pH increase above pH 7. After adsorption, phosphate on these am-ZrO₂ nanoparticles could be easily desorbed by NaOH solution washing. Both the macroscopic and microscopic techniques demonstrated that the phosphate adsorption mechanism of am-ZrO₂ nanoparticles followed the inner-sphere complexing mechanism, and the surface hydroxyl groups played a key role in the phosphate adsorption.     

H @ -Robustness properties preservation in SISO systems when applying SPR substitutions

The preservation of both robust stability and weighted robust performance properties of controlled linear time-invariant single input single output (SISO) systems is studied, when performing substitutions (of the complex Laplace variable s ) by a particular class of rational strictly positive real functions ( SPR functions), the so-called strictly positive real functions of zero relative degree ( SPR0 functions). Concerning weighted robust performance and model-matching, we provide some results on preservation of controller optimality.     

Model for thermodynamic point identification in laser cutting

In recent years, laser cutting has been introduced and developed to such an extent that it is now thought to be one of the leading and indispensable manufacturing tools. At the present time, dross‐free and accurately‐cut parts are basically regarded as the major targets to aim for, because the costs and efforts associated with dross removal by postprocessing cut parts are considerable. Therefore, control of dross formation during laser cutting is an important factor in maintaining edge quality. The initial aim of this paper is to describe the importance of physico‐mechanical material properties that need to be taken into account in modeling of laser material processing in order to control melting of the material.     

Impact of preanneal process on threshold voltage of MOS transistors for trench DRAM

As the first step of DRAM manufacture, preanneal process plays an important role in determining the threshold voltage variation. It is found that the higher trans-1,2-dichloroethene flow in pad oxide growth and the higher nitrogen flow in high-temperature annealing step would respectively engender a lower boron segregation coefficient and higher nitridation of the oxide, both modify the boron distribution in the substrate and consequently the behavior of the threshold voltage. As the feature size of DRAM devices enter nanometer regime, besides gate oxidation, ion implantation and related thermal processes, the impact of preanneal process condition should be prudentially taken into consideration for rigorous control of the threshold voltage in the advanced DRAM production.     

In situ crosslinking of hyperbranched polyglycerol in casting solutions and its effect on the structure and properties of porous PVDF membranes

Porous membranes were prepared via phase inversion process from casting solutions composed of poly(vinylidene fluoride), hyperbranched polyglycerol (HPG), and N,N‐dimethylacetamide. To seek a stable presence of HPG in the resulting membranes, it was crosslinked in the casting solutions using 4,4′‐oxydiphthalic anhydride as the crosslinking agent. The membranes were characterized in terms of morphology, surface and bulk chemical compositions, water contact angle, porosity, water flux, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption experiments. The effects of HPG content and crosslinking degree on the membrane structure and properties were investigated. The increasing of crosslinking degree resulted in a significant improvement in HPG stability in the membrane matrix, and a remarkable enrichment of the crosslinked HPG at the separation surface was observed when the membrane was shaken in water at a relatively high temperature (60°C). This enrichment led to a decrease in the value of water contact angle and an improvement in fouling‐resistance. To optimize the membrane performance, a small amount of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) was used as an additive, and it was found that the addition of PVP led to a considerable increase in water flux. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Processing and properties of 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.35PbTiO3 thick films

We have investigated the processing of 0.65Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃–0.35PbTiO₃ (PMN–PT) thick films on platinised alumina substrates. Nanosized PMN–PT powder with 2 mol% of excess PbO was prepared by high-energy milling and deposited on the substrate using screen-printing technology. The films were then sintered at 950 °C in a PbO-rich atmosphere. The influence of the sintering time and the amount of PbO-containing packing powder was studied and related to the structural, microstructural, dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the film. In order to obtain a homogeneous and dense thick film without any secondary phase, the PMN–PT films had to be sintered in the presence of a PbO-based liquid phase that had to be completely removed from the thick film during the final stage of the sintering. Under optimal sintering conditions we obtained a room temperature relative dielectric permittivity of 3600, dielectric losses of 0.036, a T_m of 174 °C, a permittivity at the T_m of 21,000 and a d₃₃ of 140 pC/N.