The Boston University Photonics Center annual report 2005-2006

This repository item contains an annual report that summarizes activities of the Boston University Photonics Center in the 2005-2006 academic year. The report provides quantitative and descriptive information regarding photonics programs in education, interdisciplinary research, business innovation, and technology development. The Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC) is an interdisciplinary hub for education, research, scholarship, innovation, and technology development associated with practical uses of light.This Annual Report is intended to serve as a synopsis of the Boston University Photonics Center’s wide-ranging activities for the period from July 2005 through June 2006, corresponding to the University’s fiscal year. It is my hope that the document is reflective of the Center’s core values in innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and that it projects our shared vision, and our dedication to excellence in this exciting field. For further information, you may visit our new website at www.bu.edu/photonics. Though only recently appointed as Director, my involvement in Center activities dates back to the Center’s formation more than ten years ago. In the early years, I worked with a team of faculty and staff colleagues to design and construct the shared laboratories that now provide every Center member extraordinary capabilities for fabrication and testing of advanced photonic devices and systems. I helped launch the business incubator by forming a company around an idea that emerged from my research laboratory. While that company failed to realize its vision of transforming the compact disc industry, it did help us form a unique vision for our program of academically engaged business acceleration. I co-developed a course in optical microsystems for telecommunications that I taught to advanced undergraduates and graduate students in the new M.S. degree program in Photonics offered through the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. And since the Center’s inception, I have contributed to its scholarly mission through my work in optical microsystem design and precision manufacturing at the Center’s core Precision Engineering Research Laboratory. Recently, I had the opportunity to lead the Provost’s Faculty Advisory Committee on Photonics, charged with broadening the Center’s mission to better integrate academic and educational programs with its more established programs for business incubation and prototype development. [TRUNCATED

The infrared spectrograph during the SIRTF pre-definition phase

A test facility was set up to evaluate back-illuminated impurity band detectors constructed for an infrared spectrograph to be used on the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). Equipment built to perform the tests on these arrays is described. Initial tests have been geared toward determining dark current and read noise for the array. Four prior progress reports are incorporated into this report. They describe the first efforts in the detector development and testing effort; testing details and a new spectrograph concept; a discussion of resolution issues raised by the new design; management activities; a review of computer software and testing facility hardware; and a review of the preamplifier constructed as well as a revised schematic of the detector evaluation facility

Exploitation dynamique des données de production pour améliorer les méthodes DFM dans l'industrie Microélectronique

La conception pour la fabrication ou DFM (Design for Manufacturing) est une méthode maintenant classique pour assurer lors de la conception des produits simultanément la faisabilité, la qualité et le rendement de la production. Dans l'industrie microélectronique, le Design Rule Manual (DRM) a bien fonctionné jusqu'à la technologie 250nm avec la prise en compte des variations systématiques dans les règles et/ou des modèles basés sur l'analyse des causes profondes, mais au-delà de cette technologie, des limites ont été atteintes en raison de l'incapacité à sasir les corrélations entre variations spatiales. D'autre part, l'évolution rapide des produits et des technologies contraint à une mise à jour dynamique des DRM en fonction des améliorations trouvées dans les fabs. Dans ce contexte les contributions de thèse sont (i) une définition interdisciplinaire des AMDEC et analyse de risques pour contribuer aux défis du DFM dynamique, (ii) un modèle MAM (mapping and alignment model) de localisation spatiale pour les données de tests, (iii) un référentiel de données basé sur une ontologie ROMMII (referential ontology Meta model for information integration) pour effectuer le mapping entre des données hétérogènes issues de sources variées et (iv) un modèle SPM (spatial positioning model) qui vise à intégrer les facteurs spatiaux dans les méthodes DFM de la microélectronique, pour effectuer une analyse précise et la modélisation des variations spatiales basées sur l'exploitation dynamique des données de fabrication avec des volumétries importantes.The DFM (design for manufacturing) methods are used during technology alignment and adoption processes in the semiconductor industry (SI) for manufacturability and yield assessments. These methods have worked well till 250nm technology for the transformation of systematic variations into rules and/or models based on the single-source data analyses, but beyond this technology they have turned into ineffective R&D efforts. The reason for this is our inability to capture newly emerging spatial variations. It has led an exponential increase in technology lead times and costs that must be addressed; hence, objectively in this thesis we are focused on identifying and removing causes associated with the DFM ineffectiveness. The fabless, foundry and traditional integrated device manufacturer (IDM) business models are first analyzed to see coherence against a recent shift in business objectives from time-to-market (T2M) and time-to-volume towards (T2V) towards ramp-up rate. The increasing technology lead times and costs are identified as a big challenge in achieving quick ramp-up rates; hence, an extended IDM (e-IDM) business model is proposed to support quick ramp-up rates which is based on improving the DFM ineffectiveness followed by its smooth integration. We have found (i) single-source analyses and (ii) inability to exploit huge manufacturing data volumes as core limiting factors (failure modes) towards DFM ineffectiveness during technology alignment and adoption efforts within an IDM. The causes for single-source root cause analysis are identified as the (i) varying metrology reference frames and (ii) test structures orientations that require wafer rotation prior to the measurements, resulting in varying metrology coordinates (die/site level mismatches). A generic coordinates mapping and alignment model (MAM) is proposed to remove these die/site level mismatches, however to accurately capture the emerging spatial variations, we have proposed a spatial positioning model (SPM) to perform multi-source parametric correlation based on the shortest distance between respective test structures used to measure the parameters. The (i) unstructured model evolution, (ii) ontology issues and (iii) missing links among production databases are found as causes towards our inability to exploit huge manufacturing data volumes. The ROMMII (referential ontology Meta model for information integration) framework is then proposed to remove these issues and enable the dynamic and efficient multi-source root cause analyses. An interdisciplinary failure mode effect analysis (i-FMEA) methodology is also proposed to find cyclic failure modes and causes across the business functions which require generic solutions rather than operational fixes for improvement. The proposed e-IDM, MAM, SPM, and ROMMII framework results in accurate analysis and modeling of emerging spatial variations based on dynamic exploitation of the huge manufacturing data volumes.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Fully integrated microsystem for bacterial genotyping

Methods for bacterial detection and identification has garnered renewed interest in recent years due to the infections they may cause and the antimicrobial resistances they can develop, the potential for bioterrorism threats and possible contamination of food/water supplies. Therefore, the rapid, specific and accurate detection of pathogens is crucial for the prevention of pathogen-related disease outbreaks and facilitating disease management as well as the containment of suspected contaminated food and/or water supplies. In this dissertation an integrated modular-based microfluidic system composed of a fluidic cartridge and a control instrument has been developed for bacterial pathogen detection. The integrated system can directly carry out the entire molecular processing pipeline in a single disposable fluidic cartridge and can detect sequence variations in selected genes to allow for the identification of the bacterial species and even its strain. The unique aspect of this fluidic cartridge is its modular format with a task-specific module interconnected to a fluidic motherboard to permit the selection of a material appropriate for the given processing step(s). In addition, to minimize the amount of finishing steps for assembling the fluidic cartridge, many of the functional components were produced during the polymer molding step used to create the fluidic network. The operation of the fluidic cartridge was provided by electronic, mechanical, optical and hydraulic controls located off-chip and assembled into a small footprint instrument. The fluidic cartridge was capable of performing cell lysis, solidphase extraction of genomic DNA from the whole cell lysate, continuous flow PCR amplification of specific gene fragments, continuous flow ligase detection reaction to discriminate sequence variations and universal DNA array readout, which consisted of DNA probes patterned onto a planar polymer waveguide for evanescent excitation. The performance of the fluidic system was demonstrated through its successful application to the genetic detection of bacterial pathogens, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which are major threats for global heath. The modular system, which could successfully identify several strains of bacteria in \u3c40 min with minimal human intervention and also perform strain identification, represents a significant contribution to pathogen detection

ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION OF ALKALI PHOSPHORUS OXYNITRIDE ELECTROLYTES FOR BEYOND-LITHIUM NANOSCALE BATTERIES

Lithium-ion batteries dominate portable energy storage systems today due to their light weight and high performance. However, with the continuing demand for battery capacity projected to outstrip the supply of lithium, alternative energy storage systems based on the more abundant Na and K alkali metals are attractive from both a resource perspective and their similar charge storage mechanism. Beyond limited lithium resources, there remains significant opportunity for innovation to improve battery architecture and thus performance. Nanostructured solid-state batteries (SSBs) are poised to meet the demands of next-generation energy storage technologies, with atomic layer deposition (ALD) being a powerful tool enabling high-performance nanostructured SSBs that offer competitive performance with their liquid-based counterparts. This dissertation has two main objectives: First, the development of the first reported ALD solid-state Na+ and K+ conductors are presented. Second, by leveraging the work on developing new solid- state Na+ ion conductors, a proof-of-principle nanoscale Na-SSB is fabricated and tested.ALD processes are developed for the Na and K based analogues of the well-known solid- state electrolyte (SSE) lithium phosphorus oxynitride (LiPON). In this case; NaPON and KPON. A comprehensive comparison of the structure, electrochemical, and processing parameters between the APON (A = Li, Na, K) family of materials is presented. The structure of NaPON closely resembles that of ALD LiPON, both possessing a N/P of 1, classifying them as alkali polyphosphazenes. Interestingly, KPON exhibits similar ALD process parameters to NaPON and LiPON, but the resulting film composition is quite different, showing little nitrogen incorporation and more closely resembling a phosphate glass. NaPON is determined to be a promising SSE with an ionic conductivity of 1.0 ́ 10-7 S/cm at 25 °C and a wide electrochemical stability window of 0-6.0V vs. Na/Na+. The electrochemical stability and performance of NaPON as a SSE is tested in liquid-based and all solid-state battery configurations comprised of a V2O5 cathode and Na metal anode. Electrochemical analysis suggests intermixing of the NaPON/V2O5 layers during the ALD NaPON deposition, and further reaction during the Na metal evaporation step. The reaction during the ALD NaPON deposition on V2O5 is determined to be two-fold: (1) reduction of V2O5 to VO2 and (2) Na+ insertion into VO2 to form NaxVO2. The Na metal evaporation process is found to exacerbate this reactivity, resulting in the formation of irreversible interphases leading to poor SSB performance. Despite the relatively poor performance, this work represents the first report of a nanoscale Na-SSB and showcases cryo- TEM as a powerful characterization technique to further the understanding of nanoscale SSBs. Looking forward, the intermixing during the ALD NaPON deposition does not impact the cycling of the NaxVO2 electrode in liquid-based cells, with NaPON-coated electrodes outperforming unsodiated V2O5 electrodes. This may be advantageous for the fabrication of SSBs, as the SSE deposition simultaneously could pre-sodiate a stable cathode material, excluding the need for ex-situ sodiation in liquid solutions or depositing a pre-sodiated electrode material. Strategies to pair this NaxVO2/NaPON cathode/electrolyte with a stable anode are discussed, with a focus on the ultimate realization of a high-performance Na-SSB. This work highlights the high reactivity of Na compared to Li based battery chemistries, not only necessitating the need for interfacial coatings in Na SSBs, but also the extreme caution required during fabrication of Na-SSBs or liquid sodium- ion batteries

NASA Tech Briefs, November 1993

Topics covered: Advanced Manufacturing; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences

Space Photovoltaic Research and Technology 1995

The Fourteenth Space Photovoltaic Research and Technology conference was held at the NASA Lewis Research Center from October 24-26, 1995. The abstracts presented in this volume report substantial progress in a variety of areas in space photovoltaics. Technical and review papers were presented in many areas, including high efficiency GaAs and InP solar cells, GaAs/Ge cells as commercial items, high efficiency multiple bandgap cells, solar cell and array technology, heteroepitaxial cells, thermophotovoltaic energy conversion, and space radiation effects. Space flight data on a variety of cells were also presented

The Third International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology: Symposium proceedings

Papers from the symposium are presented that are relevant to the generation, detection, and use of the terahertz spectral region for space astronomy and remote sensing of the Earth's upper atmosphere. The program included thirteen sessions covering a wide variety of topics including solid-state oscillators, power-combining techniques, mixers, harmonic multipliers, antennas and antenna arrays, submillimeter receivers, and measurement techniques