Thermal and Remote Plasma ALD of Ru from CpRu(CO)2Et and O2

Ruthenium (Ru) is regarded as an electrode candidate on ultrahigh-k SrTiO3 dielectric films for future high-density trench capacitors. To achieve conformal film growth, atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Ru is investigated. To this end, the use of an oxidizing reactant is desired to avoid electronic degradation of the interface properties of SrTiO3 as found when using a NH3 plasma for Ru ALD or when using thermal ALD TiN as electrode. Thermal ALD of Ru using O2 gas, however, generally results in a pronounced nucleation delay and high surface roughness. The current work aims at developing ALD of Ru using an O2 plasma in order to improve the film nucleation and to try to obtain smoother films. Using the novel CpRu(CO)2Et precursor and O2, both thermal and remote plasma ALD of Ru were studied in the same reactor at wafers up to 200 mm. Unlike thermal ALD, the Ru film growth by remote plasma ALD does not rely on the dissociative chemisorption of O2 on the Ru surface and good film nucleation is expected by providing O radicals from the gas phase. In situ spectroscopic ellipsometry, x-ray reflectometry and diffractometry, and electrical measurements clearly show this benefit of the O2 plasma. The Ru films almost immediately nucleate for the plasma-based process, whereas the thermal process showed a nucleation delay of approximately 100 cycles. Once the film growth has started, the growth per cycle (1 Å/cycle), the electrical properties (20 µOcm for >5 nm films), and the polycrystalline structure are similar for both ALD processes. However, despite the drastically improved nucleation, the remote plasma ALD Ru films show higher roughness values than the thermal ALD Ru films (roughness of 13 nm and 8 nm for 20 nm thick films, respectively). To elucidate this unexpected phenomenon, the film nucleation and surface reactions were examined. Mass spectrometry provided insight into the reaction products (CO, CO2 and H2O mainly) and, therefore, into the surface chemistry ruling both ALD processes. Optical emission spectroscopy delivered information on the species created during plasma exposure. A reaction mechanism will be proposed for these oxygen-based ALD Ru processes that accounts not only for the differences in nucleation, but also relates to the roughness development of the Ru films

Atomic layer deposition of Ru from CpRu(CO2)Et using O2 gas and O2 plasma

The metalorganic precursor cyclopentadienylethyl(dicarbonyl)ruthenium (CpRu(CO)2Et) was used to develop an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process for ruthenium. O2 gas and O2 plasma were employed as reactants. For both processes, thermal and plasma-assisted ALD, a relatively high growth-per-cycle of - 1 Å was obtained. The Ru films were dense and polycrystalline, regardless of the reactant, yielding a resistivity of - 16 µO¿cm. The O2 plasma not only enhanced the Ru nucleation on the TiN substrates but also led to an increased roughness compared to thermal ALD

GLONASS CDMA L3 ambiguity resolution and positioning

A first assessment of GLONASS CDMA L3 ambiguity resolution and positioning performance is provided. Our analyses are based on GLONASS L3 data from the satellite pair SVNs 755-801, received by two JAVAD receivers at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. In our analyses, four different versions of the two-satellite model are applied: the geometry-free model, the geometry-based model , the height-constrained geometry-based model, and the geometry-fixed model. We study the noise characteristics (carrier-to-noise density, measurement precision), the integer ambiguity resolution performance (success rates and distribution of the ambiguity residuals), and the positioning performance (ambiguity float and ambiguity fixed). The results show that our empirical outcomes are consistent with their formal counterparts and that the GLONASS data have a lower noise level than that of GPS, particularly in case of the code data. This difference is not only seen in the noise levels but also in their onward propagation to the ambiguity time series and ambiguity residuals distribution

The Online dating romance scam: The psychological impact on victims – both financial and non-financial

This paper examined the psychological impact of the online dating romance scam. Unlike other mass-marketing fraud victims, these victims experienced a ‘double hit’ of the scam: a financial loss and the loss of a relationship. For most, the loss of the relationship was more upsetting than their financial losses (many described the loss of the relationship as a ‘death’). Some described their experience as traumatic and all were affected negatively by the crime. Most victims had not found ways to cope given the lack of understanding from family and friends. Denial (e.g., not accepting the scam was real or not being able to separate the fake identity with the criminal) was identified as an ineffective means of coping, leaving the victim vulnerable to a second wave of the scam. Suggestions are made as to how to change policy with regards to law enforcement deal with this crime

Caring for a child with a learning disability born into the family unit: Women's recollections over time

This is the authors' print-print version of an article published in Scandianavian journal of disability research which is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15017419.2010.540827Caring over time for a child/young adult with a learning disability requires that the family, and in particular the mother, negotiate their needs with services and professionals, and these negotiations are complicated further by significant behavioural issues in the children. This study reports on a series of interviews undertaken with mothers of children and young adults with learning disabilities and a history of challenging behaviours. The interviews were supplemented by documentary data from clinical and other notes in order to provide a more detailed view of the issues arising from caring over time. Detailed thematic analysis revealed five key themes demonstrating the cumulative effect of caring for someone with such complex needs, the centrality of that individual’s needs to the lives of those interviewed and the ongoing negotiation between family and professionals required in order for the former to work out how to continue caring both effectively and on their own terms. All the names of mothers and children are psuedonyms

ANALYTICAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF ITERATIVELY REWEIGHTED LEAST-SQUARES (IRLS) METHOD

The iteratively reweighted least-squares (IRLS) technique has been widelyemployed in geodetic and geophysical literature. The reliability measures areimportant diagnostic tools for inferring the strength of the model validation. Anexact analytical method is adopted to obtain insights on how much iterativereweighting can affect the quality indicators. Theoretical analyses and numericalresults show that, when the downweighting procedure is performed, (1) theprecision, all kinds of dilution of precision (DOP) metrics and the minimaldetectable bias (MDB) will become larger; (2) the variations of the bias-to-noiseratio (BNR) are involved, and (3) all these results coincide with those obtained bythe first-order approximation method

Study on cycle-slip detection and repair methods for a single dual-frequency global positioning system (GPS) receiver

In this work, we assessed the performance of the cycle-slip detection methods: Turbo Edit (TE), Melbourne-Wübbena wide-lane ambiguity (MWWL) and forward and backward moving window averaging (FBMWA). The TE and MWWL methods were combined with ionospheric total electron content rate (TECR), and the FBMWA with second-order time-difference phase ionosphere residual (STPIR) and TECR. Under different scenarios, 10 Global Positioning System (GPS) datasets were used to assess the performance of the methods for cycle-slip detection. The MWWL-TECR delivered the best performance in detecting cycle-slips for 1 s data. The relative comparisons show that the FBMWA-TECR method performed slightly better than its original version, FBMWA-STPIR, detecting 100% and 73%, respectively. For data with a sample rate of 5 s, the FBMWA-TECR performed better than MWWL-TECR. However, the FBMWA is suitable only for post-processing, which refers to applications where the data are processed after the fact

The influence of physical exercise on the generation of TGF-β1, PDGF-AA, and VEGF-A in adipose tissue

Adipose tissue is an important organ that produces and secretes hormones and cytokines, including TGF-β1, PDGF-AA, and VEGF-A. The goal of the present study was to investigate the influence of a single session of acute exercise, as well as the prolonged endurance training on the production of TGF-β1, PDGF-AA, and VEGF-A in the subcutaneous white adipose tissue in rats. Rats were randomly divided into two groups: untrained (UT, n = 30) and trained rats (T, subjected to 6-week endurance training with increasing load, n = 29). Both groups were subjected to an acute exercise session with the same work load. The rats were killed before (UTpre, Tpre), immediately after (UT0h, T0h), or 3 h (UT3h, T3h) after exercise and adipose tissue samples collected. Growth factor mRNA was evaluated using RT-PCR; the protein levels were measured before and after training (UTpre and Tpre) using the immunoenzymatic method. TGF-β1 and PDGF-AA mRNA levels were decreased in the UT3h rats compared to the UTpre rats (P = 0.0001 and P = 0.03, respectively), but the VEGF-A mRNA level remained unchanged in the UT0h and UT3h rats compared to UTpre rats. TGF-β1, PDGF-AA and VEGF-A mRNA levels were decreased in the T3h rats compared to Tpre (P = 0.0002, P = 0.02, and P = 0.03, respectively). TGF-β1, PDGF-AA and VEGF-A mRNA levels significantly increased in the Tpre rats compared to UTpre (all P = 0.0002). However, the protein levels remained constant. In conclusion, prolonged physical exercise increases growth factor mRNA in adipose tissue but not protein levels