Deposition of transparent conducting Al-doped ZnO thin films by ICP-assisted sputtering

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is one of the promising transparent conductive oxide materials, which is expected to be an alternative to tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) that for long has been widely used in industry. The authors have been engaged in the development of AZO deposition process using inductively-coupled plasma assisted sputtering in a couple of years. This paper reports the results showing effectiveness of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted sputtering in AZO film deposition process.2010 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON 2010) : Fukuoka, 2010.11.21-2010.11.2

Nematic-crystal phase separations in liquid crystal colloids(Poster session 2, New Frontiers in Colloidal Physics : A Bridge between Micro- and Macroscopic Concepts in Soft Matter)

この論文は国立情報学研究所の電子図書館事業により電子化されました。コロイド粒子は濃度の増加につれて液体相から結晶相へ相転移する。このようなコロイド粒子を液晶分子溶媒と混ぜるとどのような相分離が可能であるか?ここでは液晶分子はネマチック相一等方相の相転移を起こすとする。この様な液晶コロイド系では,コロイド粒子の結晶化と液晶分子のネマチック相転移が競合した新しい相分離が可能である。液晶分子のネマチック相の秩序パラメーターと,コロイド粒子のFccやBccなどの結晶構造を示す結晶化の秩序パラメーターを考慮した自由エネルギーを構築し,温度,濃度や外場(電場や磁場)によってどのような相分離が可能であるかを調べる。このような液晶コロイド系の相分離は,液晶化と結晶化が競合した新しい相分離ダイナミクスによって進行していく。It is well known that there is co-existence of liquid and crystal phases in solutions of hard spherical colloids. How these colloids take place phase separations when they are dispersed in a nematic liquid crystalline solvent? Some experiments have shown that a mixture of a colloidal particle and a liquid crystal solvent (liquid crystal-colloid) has a variety of phase separations. In liquid crystal-colloid mixtures, the phase separation is induced by the co-occurence between orientational ordering of the liquid crystal and crystalline ordering of the colloid. In this paper we present a simple mean field model to describe phase separations in liquid crystal-colloid mixtures. We take into account an orientational order parameter of a nematogen (solvent) and a translational order parameter of colloids to describe a Fcc or Bcc crystalline phase

Deposition of transparent conducting Al-doped ZnO thin films by ICP-assisted sputtering

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is one of the promising transparent conductive oxide materials, which is expected to be an alternative to tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) that for long has been widely used in industry. The authors have been engaged in the development of AZO deposition process using inductively-coupled plasma assisted sputtering in a couple of years. This paper reports the results showing effectiveness of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted sputtering in AZO film deposition process.2010 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON 2010) : Fukuoka, 2010.11.21-2010.11.2

Intraoperative Radiation Exposure from O-arm-based 3D Navigation in Spine Surgery

Introduction: Intraoperative three-dimensional (3D) imaging guide technology, such as the O-arm surgical imaging system, is a beneficial tool in spinal surgery that provides real-time 3D images of a patient's spine. This study aims to determine the exposure dose from intraoperative O-arm imaging. Methods: A consecutive retrospective review of all patients undergoing spinal surgery was conducted between June 2019 and August 2022. Demographic and operative data were collected from electronic medical records. Results: Intraoperative O-arm imaging was conducted in 206 (12.9%) of 1599 patients, ranging from one to 4 scans per patient (1.17±0.43 scans). Single O-arm imaging enabled navigation of seven vertebrae in the cervical spine, seven in the thoracic spine, five in the thoracolumbar spine, and four in the lumbar spine on average. The number of O-arm shots per surgery was 1.15±0.36, 1.06±0.24, 1.61±0.7, and 1.07±0.25 for cervical, thoracic, thoracolumbar, and lumbar spinal cases, respectively. The exposure doses represented by dose length products in single O-arm imaging were 377±19 mGy-cm, 243±22 mGy-cm, 378±38 mGy-cm, and 258±11 mGy-cm for cervical, thoracic, thoracolumbar, and lumbar spine cases, respectively. We observed a weak positive correlation between the number of fused spinal levels and the exposure dose. Conclusions: Intraoperative radiation exposure from O-arm imaging was lower than the national diagnostic reference levels in Japan established based on the International Commission on Radiological Protection publication, demonstrating its safety from the standpoint of radiological protection in most cases. In surgeries with a large range of fixations, such as corrective deformity surgery, the number of imaging sessions and the amount of intraoperative radiation exposure would increase, leading surgeons to pay attention to the risk of radiation in spinal surgery