Numerical investigation of the characteristics of an ion drag pump

Simple, lightweight electrohydrodynamic pumps having no moving parts and producing no mechanical vibration or noise can enhance heat transfer, control fluid flows, and increase drying. This paper reports a numerical investigation of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pumps having one centrally located emitter and two collector electrodes. Results show that optimum sizes exist in the length of and spacing between the collectors. Collector electrodes with triangular cross-sections can yield better performance than those having rectangular cross-sections. The magnitude and distribution of the charge density significantly influence pump performance.     

基于碳纳米管的柔性平面微型超级电容器

超薄电子器件的蓬勃发展和日益增长的人性化需求极大促进了可穿戴柔性微器件的发展,但是沉积电极材料在柔性基板上的技术仍处于起步阶段. 本文通过结合四面体制备器辅助涂层法和激光切割叉指构型技术,大规模地将碳纳米管沉积到商用印刷纸上作为电极,切割组装获得了柔性对称微型超级电容器. 制得的微型超级电容器的电化学性能可以通过简单地选择不同的四面体制备器模型制备不同厚度的碳纳米管薄膜进行调控. 优化获得的碳纳米管薄膜基微型超级电容器在0.02 mA的电流下,具有高达4.56 mF/cm²的面电容. 微型超级电容器经过连续10000次循环,器件的性能仍然可以保持接近100%. 四面体制备器辅助涂层方法和激光切割叉指构型技术为制备经济的微电子器件提供了新的视角. 附着碳纳米管的纸电极实现了可调控的面电容,在未来制备平面构型的不对称微超级电容器方面展示了广阔的应用前景.     

Reduction of the contact resistance in copper phthalocyanine thin film transistor with UV/ozone treated Au electrodes

Bottom-contact (BC) copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) thin film transistor with UV/ozone treated Au as a source/drain electrode was fabricated and the contact resistance was estimated from the transmission line method (TLM). Comparing the properties of OTFT with untreated Au electrode, the performance of the BC CuPc-TFT with the UV/ozone treated Au electrodes was significantly improved: saturation mobility increased from 4.69 × 10⁻³ to 2.37 × 10⁻² cm²/V s, threshold voltage reduced from −29.1 to −6.4 V, and threshold swing varied from 5.08 to 2.25 V/decade. The contact resistance of the device with UV/ozone treated Au electrodes was nearly 20 times smaller than that of the device with untreated Au electrodes at the gate voltage of −20 V. This result indicated that using the UV/ozone treated Au electrode is an effective method to reduce the contact resistance. The present BC configuration with UV/ozone treated Au electrodes could be a significant step towards the commercialization of OTFT technology.     

Comparative study of InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with different base surface treatments

The interesting InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with different surface passivations on the base surface are fabricated and studied. Experimentally, the HBT device with sulfur treatment passivation displays the lowest offset voltage. However, the device with a 0.02 μm-thick emitter ledge structure reveals better transistor behaviors such as higher current gain and lower base surface recombination current. In addition, it also exhibits improved thermal stability. For the reliability test, the device with a 0.02 μm-thick emitter ledge structure shows the best performance. Therefore, from experimental results, the HBT device performance could be improved by appropriate base surface treatments, e.g., sulfur passivation and emitter ledge structure.     

Optical and electrical characteristics of InGaP/AlGaAs/GaAs composite emitter heterojunction bipolar/phototransistors (CEHBTs/CEHPTs)

We report on new InGaP/AlGaAs/GaAs composite emitter heterojunction bipolar and phototransistors (CEHBTs/CEHPTs) with a low turn-on voltage. The composite emitter comprised of the digital graded superlattice emitter and the InGaP sub-emitter is used to smooth out potential spike associated with the emitter–base heterojunction and to obtain a low emitter–base turn-on voltage. A fabricated CEHBT exhibits a small offset voltage of 55 mV and a low turn-on voltage of 0.83 V with a dc current gain as high as 150. In case of a CEHPT’s collector–emitter characteristics with base floating, optical gains increase with increasing input optical power. Furthermore, the collector current saturation voltage is small due to a low turn-on voltage. We obtain an optical gain larger than 6.83 with a collector current saturation voltage smaller than 0.5 V. On the other hand, performance results of a CEHPT with two- and three-terminal configuration were investigated and compared.     

Ultrasound-aided synthesis of gold-loaded boron-doped graphene quantum dots interface towards simultaneous electrochemical determination of guanine and adenine biomolecules

To acquire substantial electrochemical signals of guanine-GUA and adenine-ADE present in deoxyribonucleic acid-DNA, it is critical to investigate innovative electrode materials and their interfaces. In this study, gold-loaded boron-doped graphene quantum dots (Au@B-GQDs) interface was prepared via ultrasound-aided reduction method for monitoring GUA and ADE electrochemically. Transmission electron microscopy-TEM, Ultraviolet–Visible spectroscopy-UV–Vis, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy-XPS, cyclic voltammetry-CV, and differential pulse voltammetry-DPV were used to examine the microstructure of the fabricated interface and demonstrate its electrochemical characteristics. The sensor was constructed by depositing the as-prepared Au@B-GQDs as a thin layer on a glassy carbon-GC electrode by the drop-casting method and carried out the electrochemical studies. The resulting sensor exhibited a good response with a wide linear range (GUA = 0.5–20 μM, ADE = 0.1–20 μM), a low detection limit-LOD (GUA = 1.71 μM, ADE = 1.84 μM), excellent sensitivity (GUA = 0.0820 µAµM⁻¹, ADE = 0.1561 µAµM⁻¹) and selectivity with common interferents results from biological matrixes. Furthermore, it seems to have prominent selectivity, reproducibility, repeatability, and long-lasting stability. The results demonstrate that the fabricated Au@B-GQDs/GC electrode is a simple and effective sensing platform for detecting GUA and ADE in neutral media at low potential as it exhibited prominent synergistic impact and outstanding electrocatalytic activity corresponding to individual AuNPs and B-GQDs modified electrodes.     

Geometrical optimization of a surface DBD powered by a nanosecond pulsed high voltage

In this study, surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) actuators powered by nanosecond pulsed high voltage are investigated. The goal is to experimentally characterize the surface DBD actuators in terms of electrical and geometrical parameters.The actuators are made of two conducting electrodes separated by a thin dielectric (Kapton films) and arranged asymmetrically. The active electrode is connected to a pulsed high voltage power supply (voltage up to ±10 kV, rise and fall times of 50 ns and pulse width of 250 ns) and the second electrode is grounded.The experimental results show that the energy per pulse (normalized by the length of the active electrode) is smaller when one increases the inter-electrode spacing between 1 and 3 mm, the thickness of the dielectric barrier between 120 and 360 μm or the length of the electrodes between 10 and 50 cm, for both applied voltage polarities.Optical characterization of the plasma layer for different electrode gaps has been investigated by using an ICCD camera. Results indicate that the plasma produced by positive and negative rising voltage propagates in a streamer-like regime with numerous and well-distributed channels, for any electrode gap distance. However, the positive and negative falling voltage produces similar discharges only for large electrode gaps. In this case, the plasma layer starts from a corona spot in contact with the active electrode and expands in the direction of the grounded electrode in a plume shape.     

Dark current suppression in an erbium-germanium-erbium photodetector with an asymmetric electrode area

In this work, suppression of the dark current level in a metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetector fabricated on the intrinsic (i) Ge is achieved by exploiting (1) the Er electrode, providing a relatively high hole barrier, and (2) the concept of asymmetric electrode area, to minimize the Schottky barrier height lowering effect. Compared with a symmetric MSM photodetector fabricated with Ti electrodes, the dark current level was reduced by a factor of about 80. This low dark current i-Ge MSM photodetector is promising for applications requiring low power and a high photo-to-dark-current ratio.     

A novel asymmetric arrayed waveguide grating with different lengths of input/output slabs

A novel arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with asymmetric configuration is proposed. In this configuration, the length of the output slab region, the width and the spacing of the output waveguides are unequal to the corresponding parts of the input ones. Compared to a conventional symmetric AWG, the asymmetric AWG proposed in this paper has a smaller size without degrading its performance The analytic method used in a conventional symmetric AWG is extended to the asymmetric AWG. A design example of an asymmetric AWG with low insertion loss, low channel crosstalk and wide bandwidth is presented.     

Simulations and analysis of a piezoelectric micropump

A number of micropumps have been proposed in the last few years based on different actuating principles and fabricated by different technologies. However, many of those micropumps have been designed taking into account primarily available microfabrication technologies rather than appropriate pump performance analysis. In fact, not all papers are available in the literature presenting theoretical models usable to describe the functioning and predict the performance of those micropumps. In this paper, we present a new micropump model and FEA method suitable for guiding the design and predicting the performance of a micropump actuated by a piezoelectric actuator. The model takes into account the influence of piezoelectric transducer and pump geometry. Simulations have been performed and compared with results of experiments on a prototype micropump fabricated in our laboratory.     

EHD flow in a wide electrode spacing spike–plate electrostatic precipitator under positive polarity

In this work, results of two- and three-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements of the flow velocity fields in a wide spacing spike–plate electrostatic precipitator (ESP) under positive polarity are presented. A DC voltage of positive polarity (up to 28 kV) was applied to the spike electrode. The average gas flow velocity was 0.6 m/s. The PIV measurements were carried out in four planes perpendicular to the plate electrodes. Three parallel planes passed along the ESP while one plane passed across the ESP duct. The results show that electrohydrodynamic (EHD) secondary flow with relatively strong vortices exist in the ESP. The EHD secondary flow pattern depends on applied voltage and measuring plane position in respect to the spike tip. The strongest vortices occur in the plane passing through the tip of the upstream-directed spike. These relatively strong EHD vortices may hinder collection of the particles in the diameter range of 0.1–1 μm in the wide electrode spacing spike–plate ESPs.     

Charge storage performance of lithiated iron phosphate/activated carbon composite as symmetrical electrode for electrochemical capacitor

In this study, a symmetric electrochemical capacitor was fabricated by adopting a lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO₄)-activated carbon (AC) composite as the core electrode material in 1.0 M Na₂SO₃ and 1.0 M Li₂SO₄ aqueous electrolyte solutions. The composite electrodes were prepared via a facile mechanical mixing process. The structural properties of the nanocomposite electrodes were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis. The electrochemical performances of the prepared composite electrode were studied using cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge–discharge (CD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The experimental results reveal that a maximum specific capacitance of 112.41 F/g was obtained a 40 wt% LiFePO₄ loading on an AC electrode compared with that of a pure AC electrode (76.24 F/g) in 1 M Na₂SO₃. The improvement in the capacitive performance of the 40 wt% LiFePO₄–AC composite electrode is believed to be attributed to the contribution of the synergistic effect of the electric double layer capacitance (EDLC) of the AC electrode and pseudocapacitance via the intercalation/extraction of H⁺, OH⁻, Na⁺ and SO₃²⁻ and Li⁺ ions in LiFePO₄ lattices. In contrast, it appears that the incorporation of LiFePO₄ into AC electrodes does not increase the charge storage capability when Li₂SO₄ is used as the electrolyte. This behaviour can be explained by the fact that the electrolyte system containing SO₄²⁻ only exhibits EDLC in the Fe-based electrodes. Additionally, Li⁺ ions that have lower conductivity and mobility may lead to poorer charge storage capability compared to Na⁺ ions. Overall, the results reveal that the AC composite electrodes with 40 wt% LiFePO₄ loading on a Na₂SO₃ neutral electrolyte exhibit high cycling stability and reversibility and thus display great potential for electrochemical capacitor applications.     

Optimization and fabrication of a planar thermoelectric generator for a high-performance solar thermoelectric generator

A planar thermoelectric generator (TEG) could be used as an energy harvester for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Its planar configuration offers the advantages of miniaturization and low-cost fabrication. Herein, we report the fabrication of a device based on a co-evaporated thick film of Bi–Te. Before fabrication we studied quantitative optimization dimensions for the planar TEG via finite element method (FEM) simulations. The planar TEG was also used in a high-performance solar thermoelectric generator (STEG) that concentrated heat from solar radiation via a solar absorber to generate a temperature difference (ΔT) between two thermoelectric and electrode junctions. When exposed to a solar simulator, the STEG produced a ΔT of about 6 °C and generated 2.3 μW of power. The demonstrated high flexibility and mechanical stability of this device suggests applications in wearable electronics.     

TEA CO2激光器非对称电极系统的电场分布

 设计了一种非对称电极,这种非对称电极的阳极是Chang电极或Ernst电极,阴极是由直线和圆弧构成的简单电极。通过比较和分析非对称电极和对称电极的特点发现,非对称电极系统中简单电极的边缘电场起伏最大。采用有限元方法计算了非对称电极系统中的简单电极取不同的直线长度和弧线半径时,非对称电极系统的电场分布,给出了选择非对称电极系统中的简单电极参数的依据。结果表明：这种非对称电极系统结合了解析电极和简单电极的优点,通过选择非对称电极系统的简单电极参数,它可以在TEA CO₂激光器中产生边缘电场起伏小于0.06,且满足电极表面均匀场面积宽度要求的电场。     

GaN基垂直结构LED的n型电极结构设计及芯片制备

首先利用电流路径模型分析n型电极尺寸及间距等对垂直结构发光二极管(VS-LEDs)电流分布均匀性的影响,依此设计出一种螺旋状环形结构电极。其次,通过建立有限元分析软件Comsol仿真模型模拟VSLEDs有源层的电流密度分布,发现螺旋状环形结构电极的环间距越小,电流密度分布越均匀。最后,利用VS-LEDs芯片制备技术实现具有螺旋状环形电极的垂直结构LED芯片。实验结果显示,在350 m A电流驱动下,电极环间距为146.25μm的芯片具有最大的功能转换效率,达到26.8%。     

An improved planar-gate triode with CNTs field emitters by electrophoretic deposition

An improved planar-gate triode with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) field emitters has been successfully fabricated by conventional photolithography, screen printing and electrophoretic deposition (EPD). In this structure, cathode electrodes and ITO arrays linked with gate electrodes were interdigitated and paralleled on the same plane although the gate electrodes and cathode electrodes were isolated by dielectric layer, a so-called improved planar-gate triode structure. An electrophoretic process was developed to selectively deposit CNTs field emitters onto cathode electrodes in the CNTs suspension by an applied voltage between the gate electrodes and cathode electrodes. The optical microscopy and FESEM image showed that the CNTs emitters with the uniform packing density were selectively defined onto the cathode electrodes. In addition, field emission characteristics of an improved planar-gate triode with CNTs field emitters were investigated. The experiment results indicated that the turn-on voltage of this triode structure at current density of 1 μA/cm² was approximately 55 V. The anode current and gate current came to 396 μA and 325 μA, at gate voltage and anode voltage of 100 V and 4000 V, respectively and at the anode-cathode spacing of 2000 μm. The emission image became brighter and the luminous image with dot matrix on the anode plate obviously increased with the increase of the gate voltage. Moreover, the emission current fluctuation was smaller than 5% for 11 h, which indicated that the improved planar-gate triode has a good field emission performance and long lifetime.     

Impedance studies on bismuth-ruthenate-based electrodes

Doped bismuth ruthenates and bismuth ruthenate-stabilized bismuth oxide composites were studied as prospective cathode material for solid oxide fuel cells. Symmetric cells were fabricated on gadolinium-doped ceria electrolytes and studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Ca- and Ag-doped bismuth ruthenate electrodes (5–10 mol%) showed the same characteristic frequency as undoped bismuth ruthenate but with higher activation energy and slightly better performance above ∼550 °C. At 700 °C, area-specific resistance (ASR) of undoped, 5 mol% Ca and 5 mol% Sr-doped bismuth ruthenate electrode was 1.45, 1.24, and 1.41  Ωcm², respectively. The change in ASR as a function of oxygen partial pressure and current bias suggests that the rate-limiting steps for oxygen reduction in bismuth ruthenate systems are charge transfer and surface diffusion of dissociatively adsorbed oxygen to triple phase boundaries. Introduction of the erbia-stabilized bismuth oxide (ESB) phase reduced both the rate-limiting steps resulting in much improved electrode performance. At 700 °C, composite electrodes containing 31.25–43.75 wt% ESB exhibited an ASR of 0.08–0.11 Ωcm².     

Current-voltage characteristics of diodes based on a four-component chalcogenide glass

An experimental study was made of film diodes based on a chalcogenide glass with symmetric and asymmetric electrodes and with two lower symmetric electrodes. Film diodes with aluminum electrodes can be used as varistors. The electrodes affect the shape of the current-voltage characteristics. Diodes having two lower electrodes have a longer useful lifetime than do those having an upper electrode and a lower one. Generation in the negative-resistance region is described.Translated from Izvestiya VUZ. Fizika, No. 12, pp. 30–33, December, 1969.The author thanks P. T. Oreshkin for constant interest in this study.     

Tailoring resistive switching characteristics in WOx films using different metal electrodes

We have investigated the role of the metal/oxide junction interface on the resistive switching (RS) characteristics in WO_3+x films. The WO_x films are fabricated on Pt substrates by magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Top metal contact (Au or Al) is fabricated by using thermal evaporator. The thicknesses of WO_x films and top electrodes are 1 μm and 200 nm, respectively. It has been found that the bi-polar RS direction is dependent on the choice of top metal electrode, Au or Al. The sample with a Au top electrode shows clockwise (CW) RS mode whilst the sample with a Al top electrode shows counter-clockwise (CCW) RS mode. The on/off ratio is 10 times for Au/WO_x/Pt and 100 times for Al/WO_x/Pt. The bi-polar RS modes are modeled in terms of the difference in the electronegativity of the top and bottom electrodes.     

Efficient Yb:KGW lasers end-pumped by high-power diode bars

The laser performance of Yb:KGW under end-pumping with high-power diode bars has been investigated. In one configuration, the pump is delivered through an optical fiber yielding a symmetric but unpolarized pump spot. In the second configuration, the pump is delivered through an optical lens system yielding a polarized but asymmetric pump spot. Both configurations resulted in a maximum optical to optical efficiency of 47% and a maximum power of 12.4 W has been generated with the fiber coupled pump source. The output power was limited by crystal fracture, which occurred at an estimated temperature gradient of 1.2×10⁵ K/m. Thermal lensing and laser tuning characteristics are also investigated. PACS 42.55.Xi; 42.60.Lh