A low-cost CMOS programmable temperature

A novel uncalibrated CMOS programmable temperature switch with high temperature accuracy is presented. Its threshold temperature T-th can be programmed by adjusting the ratios of width and length of the transistors. The operating principles of the temperature switch circuit is theoretically explained. A floating gate neural MOS circuit is designed to compensate automatically the threshold temperature T-th variation that results form the process tolerance. The switch circuit is implemented in a standard 0.35 mu m CMOS process. The temperature switch can be programmed to perform the switch operation at 16 different threshold temperature T(th)s from 45-120 degrees C with a 5 degrees C increment. The measurement shows a good consistency in the threshold temperatures. The chip core area is 0.04 mm(2) and power consumption is 3.1 mu A at 3.3V power supply. The advantages of the temperature switch are low power consumption, the programmable threshold temperature and the controllable hysteresis.

An In-Situ Observation On Initial Aggregation Process Of Colloidal Particles Near Three-Phase Contact Line Of Air, Water And Vertical Substrate

The self-assembling process near the three-phase contact line of air, water and vertical substrate is widely used to produce various kinds of nanostructured materials and devices. We perform an in-situ observation on the self-assembling process in the vicinity of the three phase contact line. Three kinds of aggregations, i.e. particle-particle aggregation, particle-chain aggregation and chain-chain aggregation, in the initial stage of vertical deposition process are revealed by our experiments. It is found that the particle particle aggregation and the particle-chain aggregation can be qualitatively explained by the theory of the capillary immersion force and mirror image force, while the chain-chain aggregation leaves an opening question for the further studies. The present study may provide more deep insight into the self-assembling process of colloidal particles.

Failure process analysis of cement under explosive loading with a generalized driven nonlinear threshold model

The microstructural heterogeneity and stress fluctuation play important roles in the failure process of brittle materials. In this paper, a generalized driven nonlinear threshold model with stress fluctuation is presented to study the effects of microstructural heterogeneity on continuum damage evolution. As an illustration, the failure process of cement material under explosive loading is analyzed using the model. The result agrees well with the experimental one, which proves the efficiency of the model.

Effect of process parameters on laser damage threshold of TiO2 coatings

We investigate the laser damage behaviour of an electron-beam-deposited TiO2 monolayer at different process parameters. The optical properties, chemical composition, surface defects, absorption and laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of Elms are measured. It is found that TiO2 Elms with the minimum absorption and the highest LIDT can be fabricated using a TiO2 starting material after annealing. LIDT is mainly related to absorption and is influenced by the non-stoichiometric defects for TiO2 films. Surface defects show no evident effects on LIDT in this experiment.

Realization of low threshold of InGaAs/InAlAs quantum cascade laser

By optimizing the molecule beam epitaxy growth condition, the quality of quantum cascade (QC) material has greatly been improved. The spectrum of double x-ray diffraction indicates that the interface between the constituent layers is very smooth, the lattice mismatch between the epilayer and the substrate is less than 0.1%, and the periodicity fluctuation of the active region is not more than 4.2%. The QC laser with the emission wavelength of about 5.1 mum is operated at the threshold of 0.73 kA/cm(2) at liquid nitrogen temperature with the repetition rate of 10kHz and at a duty cycle of 1%. Meanwhile, the performance of the laser can be improved with suitable post process techniques such as the metallic ohmic contact technology.

Quantifying the Effects of Contact Duration, Loading Rate, and Approach Velocity on P-Selectin-PSGL-1 Interactions Using AFM

Kinetics and its regulation by extrinsic physical factors govern selectin-ligand interactions that mediate tethering and rolling of circulating cells on the vessel wall under hemodynamic forces. While the force regulation of off-rate for dissociation of selectin-ligand bonds has been extensively studied, much less is known about how transport impacts the on-rate for association of these bonds and their stability. We used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to quantify how the contact duration, loading rate, and approach velocity affected kinetic rates and strength of bonds of P-selectin interacting with P-selectin glycoprotein ligand I (PSGL-1). We found a saturable relationship between the contact time and the rupture force, a biphasic relationship between the adhesion probability and the retraction velocity, a piece-wise linear relationship between the rupture force and the logarithm of the loading rate, and a threshold relationship between the approach velocity and the rupture force. These results provide new insights into how physical factors regulate receptor-ligand interactions.

Application of Three-Dimensional Discrete Element Face-to-Face Contact Model with Fissure Water Pressure to Stability Analysis of Landslide in Panluo Iron Mine

Three-dimensional discrete element face-to-face contact model with fissure water pressure is established in this paper and the model is used to simulate three-stage process of landslide under fissure water pressure in the opencast mine, according to the actual state of landslide in Panluo iron mine where landslide happened in 1990 and was fathered in 1999. The calculation results show that fissure water pressure on the sliding surface is the main reason causing landslide and the local soft interlayer weakens the stability of slope. If the discrete element method adopts the same assumption as the limit equilibrium method, the results of two methods are in good agreement; while if the assumption is not adopted in the discrete element method, the critical phi numerically calculated is less than the one calculated by use of the limit equilibrium method for the same C. Thus, from an engineering point of view, the result from the discrete element model simulation is safer and has more widely application since the discrete element model takes into account the effect of rock mass structures.

A Nonlinear Threshold Model Applied to Spallation Analysis

Spallation in heterogeneous media is a complex, dynamic process. Generally speaking, the spallation process is relevant to multiple scales and the diversity and coupling of physics at different scales present two fundamental difficulties for spallation modeling and simulation. More importantly, these difficulties can be greatly enhanced by the disordered heterogeneity on multi-scales. In this paper, a driven nonlinear threshold model for damage evolution in heterogeneous materials is presented and a trans-scale formulation of damage evolution is obtained. The damage evolution in spallation is analyzed with the formulation. Scaling of the formulation reveals that some dimensionless numbers govern the whole process of deformation and damage evolution. The effects of heterogeneity in terms of Weibull modulus on damage evolution in spallation process are also investigated.

The Head-On Colliding Process Of Binary Liquid Droplets At Low Velocity: High-Speed Photography Experiments And Modeling

The experimental and theoretical studies are reported in this paper for the head-on collisions of a liquid droplet with another of the same fluid resting on a solid substrate. The droplet on the hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate remains in a shape of an approximately spherical segment and is isometric to an incoming droplet. The colliding process of the binary droplets was recorded with high-speed photography. Head-on collisions saw four different types of response in our experiments: complete rebound, coalescence, partial rebound With conglutination, and coalescence accompanied by conglutination. For a complete rebound, both droplets exhibited remarkable elasticity and the contact time of the two colliding droplets was found to be in the range of 10-20 ms. With both droplets approximately considered as elastic bodies, Hertz contact theory was introduced to estimate the contact time for the complete rebound case. The estimated result Was found to be on the same order of magnitude as the experimental data, which indicates that the present model is reasonable. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mixed-mode fracture mechanisms near the fatigue threshold of aisi-316 stainless-steel

Near threshold, mixed mode (I and II), fatigue crack growth occurs mainly by two mechanisms, coplanar (or shear) mode and branch (or tensile) mode. For a constant ratio of ΔK_I/ΔK_II the shear mode growth shows a self-arrest character and it would only start again when ΔK_I and ΔK_II are increased. Both shear crack growth and the early stages of tensile crack growth, are of a crystallographic nature; the fatigue crack proceeds along slip planes or grain boundaries. The appearance of the fracture surfaces suggest that the mechanism of crack extension is by developing slip band microcracks which join up to form a macrocrack. This process is thought to be assisted by the nature of the plastic deformation within the reversed plastic zone where high back stresses are set up by dislocation pile-ups against grain boundaries. The interaction of the crack tip stress field with that of the dislocation pile-ups leads to the formation of slip band microcracks and subsequent crack extension. The change from shear mode to tensile mode growth probably occurs when the maximum tensile stress and the microcrack density in the maximum tensile plane direction attain critical values.

On the contact width in generalized plain strain JKR model for isotropic solids

Adhesive contact model between an elastic cylinder and an elastic half space is studied in the present paper, in which an external pulling force is acted on the above cylinder with an arbitrary direction and the contact width is assumed to be asymmetric with respect to the structure. Solutions to the asymmetric model are obtained and the effect of the asymmetric contact width on the whole pulling process is mainly discussed. It is found that the smaller the absolute value of Dundurs' parameter beta or the larger the pulling angle theta, the more reasonable the symmetric model would be to approximate the asymmetric one.

Self-compression of femtosecond pulses in argon with a power close to the self-focusing threshold

Self-compression of femtosecond pulses in noble gases with an input power close to the self-focusing threshold has been investigated experimentally and theoretically. It is demonstrated that either multiphoton ionization (MPI) or space time focusing and self-steepening effects can induce pulse shortening, but they predominate at different beam intensities during the propagation. The latter effects play a key role in the final pulse self-compression. By choosing an appropriate focusing parameter, action distance of the space time focusing and self-steepening effects can be lengthened, which can promote a shock pulse structure with a duration as short as two optical cycles. It is also found that, for our calculation cases in which an input pulse power is close to the self-focusing threshold, either group velocity dispersion (GVD) or multiphoton absorption (MPA) has a negligible influence on pulse characteristics in the propagation process.

Overcoat dependence of laser-induced damage threshold of 355 nm HR coatings

A series of HR coatings, with and without overcoat, were prepared by electron beam evaporation using the same deposition process. The laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) was measured by a 355 nm Nd:YAG laser with a pulse width of 8 ns. Damage morphologies of samples were observed by Leica-DMRXE Microscope. The stress was measured by viewing the substrate deformation before and after coatings deposition using an optical interferometer. Reflectance of the samples was measured by Lambda 900 Spectrometer. The theoretical results of electric field distributions of the samples were calculate by thin film design software (TFCalc). It was found that SiO2 overcoat had improved the LIDT greatly, while MgF2 overcoat had little effect on the LIDT because of its high stress in the HR coatings. The damage morphologies were different among HR coatings with and without overcoats. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparison of TiO2 and ZrO2 films deposited by electron-beam evaporation and by sol-gel process

TiO2 and ZrO2 films are deposited by electron-beam (EB) evaporation and by sol-gel process. The film properties are characterized by visible and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry, x-ray diffraction analysis, surface roughness measure, absorption and laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) test. It is found that the sol-gel Elms have lower refractive index, packing density and roughness than EB deposited films due to their amorphous structure and high OH group concentration in the film. The high LIDT of sol-gel films is mainly due to their amorphous and porous structure, and low absorption. LIDT of EB deposited film is considerably affected by defects in the Elm, and LIDT of sol-gel deposited film is mainly effected by residual organic impurities and solvent trapped in the film.

Influence of SiO2 additional layers on the laser induced damage threshold of Ta2O5 films

A series or Ta2O5 films with different SiO2 additional layers including overcoat, undercoat and interlayer was prepared by electron beam evaporation under the same deposition process. Absorption of samples was measured using the surface thermal lensing (STL) technique. The electric field distributions of the samples were theoretical predicted using thin film design software (TFCalc). The laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) was assessed using an Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm with a pulse length of 12 ns. It was found that SiO2 additional layers resulted in a slight increase of the absorption, whereas they exerted little influence on the microdefects. The electric field distribution among the samples was unchanged by adding an SiO2 overcoat and undercoat, yet was changed by adding an interlayer. SiO2 undercoat. The interlayer improved the LIDT greatly, whereas the SiO2 overcoat had little effect on the LIDT. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.