Ultra-wideband balun and power divider using coplanar waveguide to microstrip transitions

An ultra-wideband transition from coplanar waveguide (CPW) to a pair of microstrip lines is presented in this letter. It is shown that the proposed transition can be used to devise an ultra-wideband T-junction power divider with equally split in-phase output signals. More importantly, it is demonstrated that the out-of-phase magnetic currents in the slots of the CPW can be utilized to achieve an out-of-phase power divider or a balun. Both the T-junction power divider and the balun benefit from compact size and good performance over an ultra wide frequency band from 3 to 16 GHz. Prototypes of both proposed devices are fabricated and measured to provide an experimental verification on the concept and numerically predicted features.     

Fabrication of a planar water gated organic field effect transistor using a hydrophilic polythiophene for improved digital inverter performance

A planar water gated OFET (WG-OFET) structure is fabricated by patterning gate, source and drain electrodes on the same plane at the same time. Transistor output characteristics of this novel structure employing commercial regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (rr-P3HT) as polymer semiconductor and deionized (DI) water as gate dielectric show successful field effect transistor operation with an on–off current ratio of 43 A/A and transconductance of 2.5 μA/V. These output characteristics are improved using P3HT functionalized with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) (P3HT-co-P3PEGT), which is more hydrophilic, leading to on–off ratio of 130 A/A and transconductance of 3.9 μA/V. Utilization of 100 mM NaCl solution instead of DI water significantly increases the on–off ratio to 141 A/A and transconductance to 7.17 μA/V for commercial P3HT and to 217 A/A and to 11.9 μA/V for P3HT-co-P3PEGT. Finally, transistors with improved transconductances are used to build digital inverters with improved characteristics. Gain of the inverters employing P3HT and P3HT-co-P3PEGT are measured as 2.9 V/V and 10.3 V/V, respectively, with 100 mM NaCl solution.     

Multidimensional gas chromatography for the characterization of permanent gases and light hydrocarbons in catalytic cracking process

An integrated gas chromatographic system has been successfully developed and implemented for the measurement of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and light hydrocarbons in one single analysis. These analytes are frequently encountered in critical industrial petrochemical and chemical processes like catalytic cracking of naphtha or diesel fuel to lighter components used in gasoline. The system employs a practical, effective configuration consisting of two three-port planar microfluidic devices in series with each other, having built-in fluidic gates, and a mid-point pressure source. The use of planar microfluidic devices offers intangible advantages like in-oven switching with no mechanical moving parts, an inert sample flow path, and a leak-free operation even with multiple thermal cycles. In this way, necessary features such as selectivity enhancement, column isolation, column back-flushing, and improved system cleanliness were realized. Porous layer open tubular capillary columns were employed for the separation of hydrocarbons followed by flame ionization detection. After separation has occurred, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were converted to methane with the use of a nickel-based methanizer for detection with flame ionization. Flow modulated thermal conductivity detection was employed to measure oxygen and nitrogen. Separation of all the target analytes was achieved in one single analysis of less than 12 min. Reproducibility of retention times for all compounds were found to be less than 0.1% (n = 20). Reproducibility of area counts at two levels, namely 100 ppm_v and 1000 ppm_v over a period of two days were found to be less than 5.5% (n = 20). Oxygen and nitrogen were found to be linear over a range from 20 ppm_v to 10,000 ppm_v with correlation coefficients of at least 0.998 and detection limits of less than 10 ppm_v. Hydrocarbons of interest were found to be linear over a range from 200 ppb_v to 1000 ppm_v with correlation coefficients of greater than 0.999 and detection limits of less than 100 ppb_v.     

Universal point sets for planar three-trees

For every $n\in \mathbb{N}$, we present a set $S_n$ of $O(n^{3/2}\log n)$ points in the plane such that every planar 3-tree with n vertices has a straight-line embedding in the plane in which the vertices are mapped to a subset of $S_n$. This is the first subquadratic upper bound on the cardinality of universal point sets for planar 3-trees, as well as for the class of 2-trees and serial parallel graphs.     

石墨烯嵌锂的拉曼成像

锂离子电池由于具有高能量密度,高循环寿命,低自放电率的优势,成为当前使用最为广泛的储能器件。层状材料是极为常用的负极材料,其微观嵌锂行为的研究对提高电池的能量密度和循环寿命有重要意义。本工作发展了一种新的平板微电池结构,可用于研究锂离子在各类二维层状纳米材料中的嵌锂行为。我们用机械剥离的单片少层石墨烯为正极,热蒸镀的锂金属为负极,构成石墨烯电池,用恒电压放电的方法进行嵌锂测试。采用拉曼成像技术收集石墨烯G峰信号的空间分布,实现对锂的嵌入过程的显微观测。发现了锂在石墨烯中沿层间扩散迁移,以及石墨烯断层对锂扩散的阻碍作用。这些结果有助于理解放电时锂在石墨烯电极中扩散过程,并且这项研究开发的平板微电池结构可用于多种材料的电化学过程中的微观过程表征,同时可实现与光学、电学、电子显微学等多种表征手段的兼容,具有较好的应用前景。     

Observation of room temperature negative differential resistance in solution synthesized ZnO nanorod

We report the observation of negative differential resistance (NDR) in solution synthesized ZnO nanorod. The ZnO nanorod was fabricated as a two terminal planar device using lithographically patterned Au electrodes. The measured current–voltage response of the device has shown a negative differential resistance behavior. The peak-to-valley current ratio of the NDR is found to be greater than 4. The mechanism of this observed NDR effect has been explained based on charge trapping and de-trapping at the nanoscale contacts. It is the first observation of negative differential resistance effect in solution synthesized ZnO nanorod.     

Simplified fabrication of high areal capacitance all-solid-state micro-supercapacitors based on graphene and MnO2 nanosheets

A universal simplified strategy was developed to fabricate all-solid-state planar micro-supercapacitors with high areal capacitance (~355 mF/cm²), based on interdigital patterned films of 2D pseudocapacitive MnO₂ nanosheets and electrochemically exfoliated graphene.