Thermal expansion of liquid Ti–6Al–4V measured by electrostatic levitation

The liquid density of Ti–6Al–4V was measured over a temperature range from 1661 to 1997 K that included undercooling by as much as 280 K. The sample was levitated in an electrostatic levitator and video imaging technique was used to capture the volume changes as a function of temperature. Over the temperature range the liquid density can be expressed by rholiq(T)=4123–0.254 (T–Tm) kg/m^3, where the melting temperature Tm is 1943 K. The corresponding volume expansion coefficient is alphaliq=6.05×10^–5 K^–1 near Tm

Thermophysical and elastic properties of Cu50Zr50 and (Cu50Zr50)95Al5 bulk-metallic-glass-forming alloys

By employing a containerless high-temperature high-vacuum electrostatic levitation technique, the thermophysical properties, including the ratio between the specific heat capacity and the hemispherical total emissivity, the specific volume, and the viscosity, of Cu50Zr50 and (Cu50Zr50)95Al5 bulk-metallic-glass (BMG)-forming liquids have been measured. Compared with Cu50Zr50, the improved glass-forming ability of (Cu50Zr50)95Al5 can be attributed to its dense liquid structure and its high value of viscosity. Additionally, the relationship between the viscosity of various BMG forming liquids at the melting temperature and the elastic properties of the corresponding glasses at room temperature will be compared

Neutrino Oscillations and Lepton Flavor Mixing

In view of the recent announcement on non-zero neutrino mass from Super-Kamiokande experiment, it would be very timely to investigate all the possible scenarios on masses and mixings of light neutrinos. Recently suggested mass matrix texture for the quark CKM mixing, which can be originated from the family permutation symmetry and its suitable breakings, is assumed for the neutrino mass matrix and determined by the four combinations of solar, atmospheric and LSND neutrino data and cosmological hot dark matter bound as input constraints. The charged-lepton mass matrix is assumed to be diagonal so that the neutrino mixing matrix can be identified directly as the lepton flavor mixing matrix and no CP invariance violation originates from the leptonic sector. The results favor hierarchical patterns for the neutrino masses, which follow from the case when either solar-atmospheric data or solar-HDM constraints are used.Comment: Latex, 9 page

Modeling of electromigration in through-silicon-via based 3D

Abstract Electromigration (EM) is a critical problem for interconnect reliability of modern IC design, especially as the feature size becomes smaller. In 3D IC technology, the EM problem becomes more severe due to drastic dimension mismatches between metal wires, through-silicon-vias (TSVs), and landing pads. Meanwhile, the thermo-mechanical stress due to TSV can further interact with EM and shorten the lifetime of the structure. However, there is very little study on EM issues with respect to TSV for 3D ICs. In this paper, we perform detailed and systematic studies on: (1) EM lifetime modeling of TSV structure, (2) impact of TSV stress on EM lifetime of BEOL wires, and (3) EM-robust design guidelines for TSV-based 3D ICs. Our results show EMinduced lifetime of TSV structure and neighboring wire largely depend on the TSV-induced stress. Also, lifetime of a wire can vary significantly depending on the relative position with the nearby TSV. I. Introduction As semiconductor technologies are pushed forward for higher performance with smaller power and area, threedimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) have attracted a lot of attention from both academia and industry. 3D ICs can be realized with stacked dies and through-silicon-vias (TSVs) to communicate vertically. 3D ICs can help increase the bandwidth by reducing the interconnect length, reduce the footprint of the system, and achieve heterogeneous integration of the system. However 3D ICs introduce many new challenges, in particular the reliability issues which have become more critical. The temperature characteristics of 3D ICs can be worse, additional stress can be generated due to the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between TSV and silicon materials, and current density of the interconnects needs to be increased to feed more transistors in spite of high loading capacitance of TSVs. Electromigration (EM) has been one of the major reliability problems even in conventional 2D IC designs. EM refers to the mass transport in metal structures. It is affected by geometrical shapes, temperature distribution, mechanical stress, current density, and material properties However in 3D ICs, despite of importance of EM which can shorten the lifetime of the system, only a few papers have been published regarding this issue. Shayan et al. considered mean time to failure (MTTF) due to the EM based on Black's equation, for a power distribution network (PDN) for 3D IC

Nano-ilmenite FeTiO3 : synthesis and characterization

In general, ilmenite FeTiO3 is synthesized by solid-state reaction at very high pressure and high temperature. Synthesis of FeTiO3 is not an easy task as the Fe2+ ions are not stable. Therefore, it is really challenging to prepare this material. In this work nano-ilmenite FeTiO3 was synthesized by the sol-gel method. Structural, optical and magnetic characterizations were performed. The bandgap of FeTiO3 was determined to be 2.8 eV showing FeTiO3 as suitable wide bandgap material for technological applications. The FeTiO3 nanoparticles exhibit weak ferromagnetic properties at and below room temperature. The Neel temperature was observed to be around 52 K.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT