Microfabrication of electrode patterns for high-frequency ultrasound transducer arrays.

High-frequency ultrasound is needed for medical imaging with high spatial resolution. A key issue in the development of ultrasound imaging arrays to operate at high frequencies (≥30 MHz) is the need for photolithographic patterning of array electrodes. To achieve this directly on 1-3 piezocomposite, the material requires not only planar, parallel, and smooth surfaces, but also an epoxy composite filler that is resistant to chemicals, heat, and vacuum. This paper reports, first, on the surface finishing of 1-3 piezocomposite materials by lapping and polishing. Excellent surface flatness has been obtained, with an average surface roughness of materials as low as 3 nm and step heights between ceramic/polymer of ∼80 nm. Subsequently, high-frequency array elements were patterned directly on top of these surfaces using a photolithography process. A 30-MHz linear array electrode pattern with 50-μm element pitch has been patterned on the lapped and polished surface of a high-frequency 1-3 piezocomposite. Excellent electrode edge definition and electrical contact to the composite were obtained. The composite has been lapped to a final thickness of ∼55 μm. Good adhesion of electrodes on the piezocomposite has been achieved and electrical impedance measurements have demonstrated their basic functionality. The array was then packaged, and acoustic pulse-echo measurements were performed. These results demonstrate that direct patterning of electrodes by photolithography on 1-3 piezocomposite is feasible for fabrication of high-frequency ultrasound arrays. Furthermore, this method is more conducive to mass production than other reported array fabrication techniques.

Design guidelines for granular particles in a conical centrifugal filter

Essential design criteria for successful drying of granular particles in a conical continuous centrifugal filter are developed in a dimensionless fashion. Four criteria are considered: minimum flow thickness (to ensure sliding bulk flow rather than particulate flow), desaturation position, output dryness and basket failure. The criteria are based on idealised physical models of the machine operation and are written explicitly as functions of the basket size lout, spin velocity Ω and input flow rate of powder Qp. The separation of sucrose crystals from liquid molasses is taken as a case study and the successful regime of potential operating points (lout, Ω) is plotted for a wide range of selected values of flow rate Qp. Analytical expressions are given for minimum and maximum values of the three independent parameters (lout, Ω, Qp) as a function of the slurry and basket properties. The viable operating regime for a conical centrifugal filter is thereby obtained as a function of the slurry and basket properties. © 2012 The Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Variables affecting melanoidins removal from molasses wastewater by coagulation/flocculation

Coagulation/flocculation process was applied in the polishing treatment of molasses wastewater on a bench-scale. Important operating variables, including coagulant type and dosage, solution pH, rapid mixing conditions as well as the type and dosage of polyeletrolytes were investigated based on the maximum removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color, residual turbidity and settling characteristics of flocs. HPSEC was utilized to evaluate the removal of molecular weight fractions of melanoidins-dominated organic compounds. Experimental results indicate that ferric chloride was the most effective among the conventional coagulants, achieving 89% COD and 98% color eliminations; while aluminum sulfate was the least effective, giving COD and color reductions of 66% and 86%, respectively. In addition to metal cations, counter-ions exert significant influence on the coagulation performance since Cl--based metal salts attained better removal efficiency than SO42--based ones at the optimal coagulant dosages. Coagulation of molasses effluent is a highly pH-dependent process, with better removal efficiency achieved at lower pH levels. Rapid mixing intensity, rather than rapid mixing time, has relatively strong influence on the settling characteristics of flocs formed. Lowering mixing intensity resulted in increasing settling rate but the accumulation of floating flocs. When used as coagulant aids, synthetic polyelectrolytes showed little effects on the improvement in organic removal. On the other hand, cationic polyacrylamide was observed to substantially enhance the settleability of flocs as compared to anionic polyacrylamide. The effects of rapid mixing conditions and polymer flocculants on the coagulation performance were discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Quantitative structure-property relationship study on reductive dehalogenation of selected halogenated aliphatic hydrocarbons in sediment slurries

In this study, by the use of partial least squares (PLS) method and 26 quantum chemical descriptors computed by PM3 Hamiltonian, a quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) model was developed for reductive dehalogenation rate constants of 13 halogenated aliphatic compounds in sediment slurry under anaerobic conditions. The model can be used to explain the dehalogenation mechanism. Halogenated aliphatic compounds with great energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (E-lumo), total energy (TE), electronic energy (EE), the smallest bond order of the carbon-halogen bonds (BO) and the most positive net atomic charges on an atom of the molecule (q(+)) values tend to be reductively dehalogenated slow, whereas halogenated aliphatic compounds with high values of molecular weight (Mw), average molecular polarizability (a) and core-core repulsion energy (CCR) values tend to be reductively dehalogenated fastest. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

Blue-violet Lasing of Optically Pumped GaN-Based Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser With Dielectric Distributed Bragg Reflectors

Optically pumped GaN-based vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with two Ta2O5/SiO2 dielectric distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) was fabricated via a simplifled procedure direct deposition of the top DBR onto the GaN surface exposed after substrate removal and no use of etching and polishing processes. Blue-violet lasing action was observed at a wavelength of 397.3 ran under optical pumping at room temperature with a threshold pumping energy density of about 71.5 mJ/cm(2). The laser action was further confirmed by a narrow emission linewidth of 0.13 nm and a degree of polarization of about 65%. The result suggests that practical blue-violet GaN-bsaed VCSEL can be realized by optimizing the laser lift-off technique for substrate removal.

ICP-OES的悬浮进样方式及ICP-MS的碰撞/反应池技术的研究与应用

本论文分为两部分：1. 综述部分（第一章和第二章），评述了悬浮进样方式在电感耦合等离子体发射光谱法（ICP-OES）中的研究与应用；电感耦合等离子体质谱（ICP-MS）中碰撞/反应池技术研究的新进展。2. 实验部分（第三章至第九章），内容包括针对不同性质的样品悬浮液选择适当的稳定剂和悬浮雾化ICP-OES的校准方法研究；以混合碰撞/反应气体解决难度较大的高纯氧化钕中稀土杂质测定的干扰问题；以及浊点萃取-石墨炉原子吸收法测定环境样品中痕量镉、氢化物发生-原子荧光光谱法测定铅基合金中砷和植物样品中锗等实用性强的分析方法研究。 ICP的传统进样方式是将样品转化成水溶液形式，以溶液方式进样。然而大多数样品是以固态形式存在，许多样品相当难溶或难熔。采用直接固体进样方法对这些样品进行分析，是分析工作者追求的目标之一。悬浮液进样是一种固体直接进样方法，除了具有其它固体进样技术的优点外，其最大优点是可以像溶液雾化一样用标准水溶液校准。本研究针对实际分析工作中遇到的具体样品，对悬浮进样ICP-OES技术进行了比较深入的研究，成功解决了样品处理繁琐和样品难以处理等困难。对特殊地质样品和激光晶体材料（Nd:YAG）的悬浮进样分析进行了探索。主要工作为：①建立分析地质样品中主量和微量元素的方法，标准水溶液可以成功地用于校准。优点是可以同时对地质样品中的Si和其它元素进行分析，避免了传统分析时需分别处理样品的麻烦。②探索了分析铌钽矿中铌和钽的应用。由于铌和钽具有强抗化学腐蚀性，所以溶液进样分析时样品处理过程复杂。结果表明，以标准水溶液校准时，只要样品研磨时间延长至5 h，即可获得悬浮进样的满意的回收率。③研究了分析掺钕钇铝石榴石(Nd:YAG)中钕掺杂量的可行性。研究表明，加入适量聚丙烯酸作分散剂并调节pH为6，可以得到稳定悬浮液；以通用标准加入法（GSAM）校准可以得到满意的结果。 我国的稀土资源占世界的80％以上，高纯稀土氧化物是高科技领域中的重要材料。碰撞/反应池技术是目前四极杆ICP-MS消除干扰的先进技术，可以选择性地减少某些基体干扰，使背景和检测限得到显著的改进。本实验选择氧化钕（有7个同位素）作为研究对象，采用碰撞/反应池技术重点解决四极杆ICP-MS方法对高纯Nd2O3中稀土杂质进行测定时，基体Nd对Tb、Dy和Ho严重的氧化物或氢氧化物干扰难题。研究结果如下：①在四极杆高分辨率模式下，可以消除Nd对Pr的相邻峰的拖尾干扰；②采用碰撞/反应池技术，设计了10% O2-10% Ar-80% He混合气体作为碰撞/反应气，将Tb、Dy和Ho分别转化为相应的氧化物离子进行测定，成功地消除了基体Nd对Ho的干扰；Nd对Tb和Dy造成干扰的表观浓度显著降低。本方法可直接测定纯度为6N的高纯Nd2O3中的Ho；对纯度为6N的高纯Nd2O3中的Tb和Dy进行扣除，可以分析纯度达5N的高纯Nd2O3中的Tb和Dy。与文献报道的其它消除基体Nd干扰的方法相比较，此方法能够对纯度更高的Nd2O3进行直接分析，且操作简便。此方法也可进一步拓宽，有望解决其它轻稀土氧化物对中重稀土检测的质谱干扰问题。 论文的7～9章的工作包括：浊点萃取-GFAAS测定环境样品中痕量镉、HG-AFS分析铅基合金中砷和植物样品中锗的研究。针对实际分析工作中的具体困难，以上工作分别解决了分析元素含量低、测定干扰严重及样品处理的问题，建立了实用性强、准确度高的分析方法，具有实际应用价值。

Effects of Cu-Wire Surface Fluctuations on Early Failures

Different chemical mechanical polishing （CMP） slurries are used to obtain single-damascene Cu-wires with different surface fluctuations as well as pre-existing surface-defects in wires with rougher surfaces. The presence of such pre-existing defects strongly increases the rate of early failures to almost 100%, reduces electromigration lifetime rapidly to the level of early failures, and changes the multimodal failure distribution into monomodal. The activation energy （0. 74±0.02eV） for the failure mechanism associated with these pre-existing defects confirms a dominant surface diffusion. It shows how a weakest link approximation analysis can he applied to a single wire by dividing the wire into relevant segments and assigning different failure mechanisms to the various segments. The analysis confirms that, although surface-defects are not the fastest early failure mechanism, the ten times higher surface-defectdensity in the rougher wires is responsible for the observed high early-failure rate and unreliable performance.

Design,Fabrication,and Testing of Single-Side Alignment of 16×0.8nm Arrayed-Waveguide Grating

A novel design of 100GHz-spaced 16channel arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) based on silica-on-silicon chip is reported.AWG is achieved by adding a Y-branch to the AWG and arranging the input/output channel in a neat row,so the whole configuration can be aligned and packaged using only one fiber-array.This configuration can decrease the device's size,enlarge the minimum radius of curvature,save time on polishing and alignment,and reduce the chip's fabrication cost.