Fabrication and characterization of plasma polymer thin films from monoterpene alcohols for applications in organic electronics and biotechnology

After more than twenty years of basic and applied research, the use of nanotechnology in the design and manufacture of nanoscale materials is rapidly increasing, particularly in commercial applications that span from electronics across renewable energy areas, and biomedical devices. Novel polymers are attracting significant attention for they promise to provide a low−cost high−performance alternative to existing materials. Furthermore, these polymers have the potential to overcome limitations imposed by currently available materials thus enabling the development of new technologies and applications that are currently beyond our reach. This work focuses on the development of a range of new low−cost environmentally−friendly polymer materials for applications in areas of organic (flexible) electronics, optics, and biomaterials. The choice of the monomer reflects the environmentally−conscious focus of this project. Terpinen−4−ol is a major constituent of Australian grown Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree) oil, attributed with the oil's antimicrobial and anti−inflammatory properties. Plasma polymerisation was chosen as a deposition technique for it requires minimal use of harmful chemicals and produces no hazardous by−products. Polymer thin films were fabricated under varied process conditions to attain materials with distinct physico−chemical, optoelectrical, biological and degradation characteristics. The resultant materials, named polyterpenol, were extensively characterised using a number of well−accepted and novel techniques, and their fundamental properties were defined. Polyterpenol films were demonstrated to be hydrocarbon rich, with variable content of oxygen moieties, primarily in the form of hydroxyl and carboxyl functionalities. The level of preservation of original monomer functionality was shown to be strongly dependent on the deposition energy, with higher applied power increasing the molecular fragmentation and substrate temperature. Polyterpenol water contact angle contact angle increased from 62.7° for the 10 W samples to 76.3° for the films deposited at 100 W. Polymers were determined to resist solubilisation by water, due to the extensive intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonds present, and other solvents commonly employed in electronics and biomedical processing. Independent of deposition power, the surface topography of the polymers was shown to be smooth (Rq <0.5 nm), uniform and defect free. Hardness of polyterpenol coatings increased from 0.33 GPa for 10 W to 0.51 GPa for 100 W (at 500 μN load). Coatings deposited at higher input RF powers showed less mechanical deformation during nanoscratch testing, with no considerable damage, cracking or delamination observed. Independent of the substrate, the quality of film adhesion improved with RF power, suggesting these coatings are likely to be more stable and less susceptible to wear. Independent of fabrication conditions, polyterpenol thin films were optically transparent, with refractive index approximating that of glass. Refractive index increased slightly with deposition power, from 1.54 (10 W) to 1.56 (100 W) at 500 nm. The optical band gap values declined with increasing power, from 2.95 eV to 2.64 eV, placing the material within the range for semiconductors. Introduction of iodine impurity reduced the band gap of polyterpenol, from 2.8 eV to 1.64 eV, by extending the density of states more into the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Doping decreased the transparency and increased the refractive index from 1.54 to 1.70 (at 500 nm). At optical frequencies, the real part of permittivity (k) was determined to be between 2.34 and 2.65, indicating a potential low-k material. These permittivity values were confirmed at microwave frequencies, where permittivity increased with input RF energy – from 2.32 to 2.53 (at 10 GHz ) and from 2.65 to 2.83 (at 20 GHz). At low frequencies, the dielectric constant was determined from current−voltage characteristics of Al−polyterpenol−Al devices. At frequencies below 100 kHz, the dielectric constant varied with RF power, from 3.86 to 4.42 at 1 kHz. For all samples, the resistivity was in order of 10⁸−10⁹ _m (at 6 V), confirming the insulating nature of polyterpenol material. In situ iodine doping was demonstrated to increase the conductivity of polyterpenol, from 5.05 × 10⁻⁸ S/cm to 1.20 × 10⁻⁶ S/cm (at 20 V). Exposed to ambient conditions over extended period of time, polyterpenol thin films were demonstrated to be optically, physically and chemically stable. The bulk of ageing occurred within first 150 h after deposition and was attributed to oxidation and volumetric relaxation. Thermal ageing studies indicated thermal stability increased for the films manufactured at higher RF powers, with degradation onset temperature associated with weight loss shifting from 150 ºC to 205 ºC for 10 W and 100 W polyterpenol, respectively. Annealing the films to 405 °C resulted in full dissociation of the polymer, with minimal residue. Given the outcomes of the fundamental characterisation, a number of potential applications for polyterpenol have been identified. Flexibility, tunable permittivity and loss tangent properties of polyterpenol suggest the material can be used as an insulating layer in plastic electronics. Implementation of polyterpenol as a surface modification of the gate insulator in pentacene-based Field Effect Transistor resulted in significant improvements, shifting the threshold voltage from + 20 V to –3 V, enhancing the effective mobility from 0.012 to 0.021 cm²/Vs, and improving the switching property of the device from 10⁷ to 10⁴. Polyterpenol was demonstrated to have a hole transport electron blocking property, with potential applications in many organic devices, such as organic light emitting diodes. Encapsulation of biomedical devices is also proposed, given that under favourable conditions, the original chemical and biological functionality of terpinen−4−ol molecule can be preserved. Films deposited at low RF power were shown to successfully prevent adhesion and retention of several important human pathogens, including P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, and S. epidermidis, whereas films deposited at higher RF power promoted bacterial cell adhesion and biofilm formation. Preliminary investigations into in vitro biocompatibility of polyterpenol demonstrated the coating to be non−toxic for several types of eukaryotic cells, including Balb/c mice macrophage and human monocyte type (HTP−1 non-adherent) cells. Applied to magnesium substrates, polyterpenol encapsulating layer significantly slowed down in vitro biodegradation of the metal, thus increasing the viability and growth of HTP−1 cells. Recently, applied to varied nanostructured titanium surfaces, polyterpenol thin films successfully reduced attachment, growth, and viability of P. aeruginosa and S. aureus.

Dual-frequency characteristics of Minkowski-square ring antennas

Fractal Minkowski curves to design a compact dual-frequency microstrip ring antenna are proposed. Sides of a square ring have been selectively replaced with first and second iterations of the generalised fractal geometry to design a smaller antenna with dual-frequency operation. This behaviour has been explained based on current distributions on the antenna structure. Measured results compare well with electromagnetic simulations.

A design procedure for micromachined antennas on semiconductor substrates

Micromachined antennas are recieving great interest as carrier frequencies move higher into the frequency spectrum due to their superior performance and amenability for integration with active devices. However their design is cumbersome owing to the complexity of the structure. To overcome this, in this paper, an iterative procedure is suggested to facilitate fast design of micromachined patch antennas based on a simulation study. A microstrip line on a micromachined Silicon substrate is simulated in a full wave simulator by solving for the ports only. From the obtained propagation constant, the effective dilectric constant for the micromachined substrate is estimated. The process is repeated for a number of values of the width of the microstrip and a plot is made for the variation of the effective dielectric constant with the microstrip width. Then an iterative method in combination with the extrapolated permittivity which includes the effect of cavity extensions in all the directions, is used to obtain the width and the corresponding effective dielectric constant. This method has been verified to be quite accurate by comparison with full wave simulations and hence it can function as a good starting point for designers to design micromachined antennas.

High-Rate,2-Group ML-Decodable STBCs for 2(m) Transmit Antennas

A Space-Time Block Code (STBC) in K-variables is said to be g-Group ML-Decodable (GMLD) if its Maximum-Likelihood (ML) decoding metric can be written as a sum of g independent terms, with each term being a function of a subset of the K variables. In this paper, a construction method to obtain high-rate, 2-GMLD STBCs for 2(m) transmit antennas, m > 1, is presented. The rate of the STBC obtained for 2(m) transmit antennas is 2(m-2) + 1/2(m), complex symbols per channel use. The design method is illustrated for the case of 4 and 8 transmit antennas. The code obtained for 4 transmit antennas is equivalent to the rate-5/4 Quasi-Orthogonal design (QOD) proposed by Yuen, Guan and Tjung.

Developement of DSP based educational kit for power electronics and drives

The educational kit was developed for power electronics and drives. The need and purpose of this kit is to train engineers with current technology of digital control in power electronics. The DSP is the natural choice as it is able to perform high speed calculations required in power electronics. The educational kit consists of a DSP platform using TI DSP TMS320C50 starter kit, an inverter and an induction machine-dc machine set. A set of experiments have been prepared so that DSP programming can be learned easily in a smooth fashion. Here the application presented is open loop V/F control of three phase induction using sine pulse width modulation technique.

Coplanar Capacitively Coupled Probe Fed Microstrip Antennas for Wideband Applications

The design and analysis of a coplanar capacitive fed microstrip antenna suspended above the ground plane is presented. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach can be used for designing antennas with impedance bandwidth of about 50% and a good gain to operate in various microwave bands. The model of the antenna incorporates the capacitive feed strip which is fed by a coaxial probe using equivalent circuit approach, and matches simulation and experimental results. The capacitive feed strip used here is basically a rectangular microstrip capacitor formed from a truncated microstrip transmission line and all its open ends are represented by terminal or edge capacitances. The error analysis was carried out for validity of the model for different design parameters. The antenna configuration can be used where unidirectional radiation patterns are required over a wide bandwidth.

Optimum aperture distributions in the presence of blockage

A method is presented for optimising the performance indices of aperture antennas in the presence of blockage. An N-dimensional objective function is formed for maximising the directivity factor of a circular aperture with blockage under sidelobe-level constraints, and is minimised using the simplex search method. Optimum aperture distributions are computed for a circular aperture with blockage of circular geometry that gives the maximum directivity factor under sidelobe-level constraints.

Application of novel method for surface-ray tracing over hyperboloidal scatterers

A novel geodesic constant method has been developed for the hitherto unsolved problem of surface-ray tracing over a class of surface, namely the general hyperboloid of revolution (GHOR). All the ray-geometric parameters are obtained analytically in a one-parameter form. The ray parameters derived here for the first time can be readily used in the UTD formulation for computing the mutual coupling between the antennas located on the GHOR.

A geodesic constant method for computing high-frequency mutual coupling between antennas on general quadric cylinders

A Geodesic Constant Method (GCM) is outlined which provides a common approach to ray tracing on quadric cylinders in general, and yields all the surface ray-geometric parameters required in the UTD mutual coupling analysis of conformal antenna arrays in the closed form. The approach permits the incorporation of a shaping parameter which permits the modeling of quadric cylindrical surfaces of desired sharpness/flatness with a common set of equations. The mutual admittance between the slots on a general parabolic cylinder is obtained as an illustration of the applicability of the GCM.

Waveform synthesis using Walsh functions International Journal of Electronics

A software and a microprocessor based hardware for waveform synthesis using Walsh functions are described. The software is based on Walsh function generation using Hadamard matrices and on the truncated Walsh series expansion for the waveform to be synthesized. The hardware employs six microprocessor controlled programmable Walsh function generators (PWFGs) for generating the first six non-vanishing terms of the truncated Walsh series. Improved approximation to a given waveform may be achieved by employing additional PWFGs.

Surface-ray tracing solution of ellipsoid of revolution for UTD mutual coupling applications

An analytical surface-ray tracing has been carried out for the prolate ellipsoid of revolution using a novel geodesic constant method. This method yields closed form expressions for all the ray-geometric parameters required for the UTD mutual coupling calculations for the antennas located arbitrarily in three dimensions, on the ellipsoid of revolution.

Experimental results of an activated carbon-HFC 134a adsorption cooling system for thermal management of electronics

Results of performance measurement of a small cooling capacity laboratory model of an adsorption refrigeration system for thermal management of electronics are compiled. This adsorption cooler was built with activated carbon as the adsorbent and HFC 134a as the refrigerant to produce a cooling capacity under 5 W using waste heat up to 90 degrees C. The thermal compression process is obtained from an ensemble of four solid sorption compressors. Parametric study was conducted with cycle times of 16 and 20 min, heat source temperatures from 73 to 87 degrees C and cooling loads from 3 to 4.9W. Overall system performance is analyzed using two indicators, namely, cooling effectiveness and normalized exergetic efficiency. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quasi-Orthogonal Design and Performance Analysis of Amplify-And-Forward Relay Networks with Multiple-Antennas

This paper is on the design and performance analysis of practical distributed space-time codes for wireless relay networks with multiple antennas terminals. The amplify-andforward scheme is used in a way that each relay transmits a scaled version of the linear combination of the received symbols. We propose distributed generalized quasi-orthogonal space-time codes which are distributed among the source antennas and relays, and valid for any number of relays. Assuming M-PSK and M-QAM signals, we derive a formula for the symbol error probability of the investigated scheme over Rayleigh fading channels. For sufficiently large SNR, this paper derives closed-form average SER expression. The simplicity of the asymptotic results provides valuable insights into the performance of cooperative networks and suggests means of optimizing them. Our analytical results have been confirmed by simulation results, using full-rate full-diversity distributed codes.