Design of Novel Coplanar Counter Circuit in Quantum Dot Cellular Automata Technology

One of the emerging technology that can be used for replacing CMOS technology is Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology. Counter circuits are widely used circuits in the design of digital circuits. This paper presents and evaluates circuits for 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-bit coplanar counter in the QCA technology. The designed QCA coplanar counter circuits are based on the modified D-Flip-Flop (D-FF) circuit that is designed in this paper. The designed QCA circuits are implemented and verified by using QCADesigner tool version 2.0.3. The results show that the designed circuits for 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-bit coplanar counter contain 44 (0.03 μm²), 93 (0.07 μm²), 160 (0.13 μm²), and 245 (0.2 μm²) quantum cells (area). The comparison results indicate that the designed circuits have advantages compared to other QCA circuits in terms of cost, area, and cell count.

     

Ni@Pd core–shell nanoparticles immobilized on yolk–shell Fe3O4@polyaniline composites as a highly efficient,magnetically separable and atom‐economical catalyst for reduction of nitrobenzenes

The preparation of Ni@Pd core–shell nanoparticles immobilized on yolk–shell Fe₃O₄@polyaniline composites is reported. Fe₃O₄ nanoclusters were first synthesized through the solvothermal method and then the SiO₂ shell was coated on the Fe₃O₄ surface via a sol–gel process. To prepare Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@polyaniline composites, polyvinylpyrrolidone was first grafted on to the surface of Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ composites and subsequently polymerization of aniline was carried out via an ultrasound‐assisted in situ surface polymerization method. Selective etching of the middle SiO₂ layer was then accomplished to obtain the yolk–shell Fe₃O₄@polyaniline composites. The approach uses polyaniline (PANI) conductive polymer as a template for the synthesis of Ni@Pd core–shell nanoparticles. The catalytic activity of the synthesized yolk–shell Fe₃O₄@PANI/Ni@Pd composite was investigated in the reduction of o‐nitroaniline to benzenediamine by NaBH₄, which exhibited conversion of 99% in 3 min with a very low content of the catalyst. Transmission electron microscopy, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, TGA, X‐ray diffraction, UV–visible, scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray energy dispersion spectroscopy and FT‐IR were employed to characterize the synthesized nanocatalyst. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards Multilayer QCA SISO Shift Register Based on Efficient D-FF Circuits

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is a new technology for replacing CMOS technology at nano-scale dimansion. Shift registers have commonly used circuit in the digital circuits design. In this paper, a new 3-bit Serial Input-Serial Output (SISO) QCA shift register is presented. The proposed circuit uses 3 novel D-Flip-Flops (D-FFs) that are developed in this paper. The proposed circuits are implemented by using QCADesigner tool version 2.0.3. The developed QCA SISO shift register has 120 cells and 0.03 μm² area. The results show that the developed circuits have advantages compared to other QCA circuits in terms of area.