Contributions of restructuring and oxidation to the aging of the surface of plasma polymers containing heteroatoms

The properties and composition of plasma polymer surfaces stored in air can change considerably over time, especially as a result of oxidative reactions. When plasma polymers contain an element other than O, it is possible to probe for mechanisms in addition to oxidation that contribute to the aging of the surface. Plasma polymers containing N were fabricated from either 1,3-diaminopropane (DAP),n-heptylamine (nHA), or allylamine (AA), and studied by X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) and air/water contact angles (CA). For each of the plasma polymers, a multiexponential increase in the O/C ratio was observed over time using XPS. The N/C ratios remained constant (AA) or decreased somewhat (nHA and DAP). In contrast, the trends in CA values differed, declining for the nHA surfaces, rising for the AA, and changing little for the DAP. Surface roughness, assessed by scanning tunnelling or atomic force microscopy, did not change over time. The diverse adjustments in the polarity of each surface and the similar compositional changes between them are reconcilable if the aging of the plasma polymer surface is a manifestation of the superposition of concurrent oxidative reactions and partial surface reorientation; the former introduce polar groups and the latter transports then from the surface to deeper regions beyond the CA probe depth but within the XPS analysis depth. These processes vary between different plasma polymers. Data for the alkylamine plasma polymers is also compared with that for two plasma polymers fabricated from methanol. The change in composition, but not polarity, of the DAP surface after 4 days of storage demonstrates the importance of using multiple techniques to characterize the aging of plasma polymer surfaces.     

Diagnosis of weaknesses in modern error correction codes: a physics approach

One of the main obstacles to the wider use of the modern error-correction codes is that, due to the complex behavior of their decoding algorithms, no systematic method which would allow characterization of the bit-error-rate (BER) is known. This is especially true at the weak noise where many systems operate and where coding performance is difficult to estimate because of the diminishingly small number of errors. We show how the instanton method of physics allows one to solve the problem of BER analysis in the weak noise range by recasting it as a computationally tractable minimization problem.     

An Improved Technique for Suppression of Intrachannel Four-Wave Mixing in 40-Gb/s Optical Transmission Systems

This letter presents an efficient method for testing the efficiency of modulation techniques for countering the effects of intrachannel four-wave mixing by calculating the sum of all the contributors at a given resonance position (the position affected by the surrounding pulses). In addition to this method, we are proposing a modulation technique that shows a significant Q-factor improvement of up to 7.5 dB (depending on the number of spans and the phase sequence implemented) over the uncoded return-to-zero on-off keying. Although the implementation of this phase modulation technique is simple, it is still very efficient in extending the nonlinearity tolerance and enhancing the performance of a high-speed optical transmission system     

Generalized low-density parity-check codes for optical communication systems

This paper is concerned with investigating the performance of regular and irregular, randomlike and structured generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) codes for long-haul transmission. The proposed GLDPC codes outperform currently known turbo and low-density parity-check (LDPC) coding schemes with comparable parameters utilized in optical communication systems. For a GLDPC coding scheme with 23.6% redundancy, the largest so far reported coding gain of at least 11dB (at 40 Gb/s) is demonstrated.     

Aging of the over-voltage protection elements caused by over-voltages

The aim of this work is examining the influence of the number of the activation––over-voltage pulses to the aging of over-voltage protection elements. Both non-linear (gas-filled surge arresters (GFSA), varistors, over-voltage diodes) and linear (capacitors––constituents of filters) over-voltage protection elements were tested. The instruments employed allow reliable measurements, 1000 consecutive activation were tested. The double-exponential current pulse (amplitude I₁^max=13 A, I₂^max=16 A, rise time T₁=8 μs, fall time T₂=20 μs) for non-linear elements and a double-exponential over-voltage pulse (rise time T₁=1.2 μs, fall time T₂=50 μs) of the amplitude U₁^max=320 V, U₂^max=480 V and U₃^max=640 V for capacitors were used. The experimental results show that the over-voltage diodes are the most reliable elements in view of characteristic modifications that are consequence of aging. However, it was observed that varistors, GFSA and capacitors undergo noticeable changes in characteristics.     

交流调速电梯中的电能质量

因为人们越来越多地使用非线性负载，电网中就存在电源质量问题。在交流传动系统中广泛使用功率变换器，由于其非线性的工作运行状态，导致电压发生畸变，从而影响敏感设备的性能。本文试图分析由功率变换器供电的电梯交流传动系统对电源质量的影响。敏感电气设备和电梯交流传动系统都连接到0．4kV输电线路上。因功率逆变器导致的电压畸变能够导致系统故障甚至电气设备中部分元件的损坏。     

Concurrent restructuring and oxidation of the surface of n-hexane plasma polymers during aging in air

Angle-dependent XPS and air/water contact angle (CA) measurements were performed on specimens of n-hexane plasma polymers at various times after fabrication in order to monitor the aging of the surfaces in contact with air. XPS revealed incorporation of oxygen over extended periods of time. The depth distribution of O changed in the course of aging. CAs decreased over the first 3 weeks, then increased again, and finally stabilized at 5 weeks. These results were interpreted in terms of two concurrent processes: spontaneous oxidation (initiated by trapped radicals), which increased the surface polarity, and surface restructuring, which caused the partial removal of polar groups from the interface with air. The former process made a larger contribution to the overall aging of the surfaces but the latter process also contributed measurably. Over the first 3 weeks, oxidation was rapid and surface restructuring was not competitive. Subsequently, the oxygen uptake slowed down markedly, and the outermost surface layers became oxygen depleted relative to the deeper layers, due to partial surface reorientation. The surface topography, assessed by STM, did not change on aging. The aging of n-hexane plasma polymer surfaces thus is due to superimposed effects arising from post-deposition oxidative processes and partial surface reorientation.     

Piezoelectric diaphragm for vibration energy harvesting

This paper presents a technique of electric energy generation using a mechanically excited unimorph piezoelectric membrane transducer. The electrical characteristics of the piezoelectric power generator are investigated under dynamic conditions. The electromechanical model of the generator is presented and used to predict its electrical performances. The experiments was performed with a piezoelectric actuator (shaker) moving a macroscopic 25 mm diameter piezoelectric membrane. A power of 0.65 mW was generated at the resonance frequency (1.71 kHz) across a 5.6 kOmega optimal resistor and for a 80 N force. A special electronic circuit has been conceived in order to increase the power harvested by the piezoelectric transducer. This electrical converter applies the SSHI (synchronized switch harvesting on inductor) technique, and leads to remarkable results: under the same actuation conditions the generated power reaches 1.7 mW, which is sufficient to supply a large range of low consumption sensors.     

MacNeish-Mann theorem based iteratively decodable codes for optical communication systems

A novel family of low-density parity-check codes is proposed based on MacNeish-Mann theorem for construction of mutually orthogonal Latin squares. Codes from this family have high code rate, girth at least six, large minimum distance, and significantly outperform conventional forward error correction schemes based on Reed-Solomon (RS) and turbo codes.