Understanding the Role of Entrepreneur’s Personal Brand in SMEs Total Brand

During the past two decades, we have seen an increasing focus towards the role and importance of branding, and brand management as a key factor for achieving market penetration and market leadership. Our current literaturedemonstrates that this expansion has been mainly the concern of large businesses. As we move towards Glocal organizations, we are creating SMEs organizations which are part of the larger organizations. At the same time entrepreneurs are creating new SME ventures based on market opportunities. This is creating increased competition within the SME sector. SME branding isbecoming a key issue for addressing competition for SME organizations.Entrepreneurial SMEs have different features such as the strong role of the entrepreneur that differ their branding from large corporations. The effect of different aspects of entrepreneurs such as their traits, skills and capabilities on SMEs has been studied so far. Since SME’s brand is influenced by its entrepreneur and founder (Krake, 2005; Spence & Essoussi, 2010), entrepreneur’s personal brand, a concept which includes his traits, values and role, is defined here as a key variable and its impact on SME’s brand will be reviewed. The results are obtained from interviews, focus groups and questionnaires distributed among entrepreneurial SMEs in Tehran and Yazd provinces, Iran and the conceptual model is analyzed via structural equations model using Lisrel software. The results confirm that entrepreneur’s personal brand affects SME’s total brand, via entrepreneur’s influence

The Role of Corporate Brand in the Entrepreneurial SMEs Total Brand

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make an important part of the economy of countries and are companied by employment and economic blossoming. Even so, these companies have never been the focus of the science of brand and most of the literature on brand has been written about large companies which have different specifications from SMEs. Thus, SME brand is a new area that recently has introduced the corporate brand as an appropriate framework for branding in the SMEs, but there are limited numbers of scientific models of SME corporate brand. This research tries to study the effect and influence of corporate brand in SME brand. The conceptual model was compiled upon making semi-structured interviews and the focus group with a number of successful entrepreneurs in Tehran and Yazd provinces. The questionnaires were distributed through in two provinces. Data were analyzed and modeled by Lisrel software in the form of structural equation modeling. In this research, the SEMs corporate brand is operationally defined, the role of corporate brand in SME brand is confirmed, and strategies are presented on this basis. Key words: Corporate brand; Entrepreneur; SME; Entrepreneurshi

Fabrication, Characterisation, and Epitaxial Optimisation of MOVPE-Grown Resonant Tunnelling Diode THz Emitters

Resonant tunnelling diodes (RTDs) are a strong candidate for future wireless communications in the THz region, offering compact, room-temperature operation with Gb/s transfer rates. We employ the InGaAs/AlAs/InP material system, offering advantages due to high electron mobility, suitable band-offsets, and low resistance contacts. We describe an RTD emitter operating at 353GHz, radiating in this atmospheric transmittance window through a slot antenna. The fabrication scheme uses a dual-pass technique to achieve reproducible, very low resistivity, ohmic contacts, followed by accurate control of the etched device area. The top contact connects the device via the means of an air bridge. We then proceed to model ways to increase the resonator efficiency, in turn improving the radiative efficiency, by changing the epitaxial design. The optimization takes into account the accumulated stress limitations and realities of reactor growth. Due to the absence of useful in-situ monitoring in commercially-scalable metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE), we have developed a robust non-destructive epitaxial characterisation scheme to verify the quality of these mechanically shallow and atomically thin devices. A dummy copy of the active region element is grown to assist with low temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy (LTPL) characterisation. The resulting linewidths limits the number of possible solutions of quantum well (QW) width and depth pairs. In addition, the doping levels can be estimated with a sufficient degree of accuracy by measuring the Moss-Burstein shift of the bulk material. This analysis can then be combined with high resolution X-ray diffractometry (HRXRD) to increase its accuracy

QEPAS based ppb-level detection of CO and N2O using a high power CW DFB-QCL

An ultra-sensitive and selective quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) sensor platform was demonstrated for detection of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrous oxide (N2O). This sensor used a stateof- the art 4.61 μm high power, continuous wave (CW), distributed feedback quantum cascade laser (DFB-QCL) operating at 10°C as the excitation source. For the R(6) CO absorption line, located at 2169.2 cm−1, a minimum detection limit (MDL) of 1.5 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) at atmospheric pressure was achieved with a 1 sec acquisition time and the addition of 2.6% water vapor concentration in the analyzed gas mixture. For the N2O detection, a MDL of 23 ppbv was obtained at an optimum gas pressure of 100 Torr and with the same water vapor content of 2.6%. In both cases the presence of water vapor increases the detected CO and N2O QEPAS signal levels as a result of enhancing the vibrational-translational relaxation rate of both target gases. Allan deviation analyses were performed to investigate the long term performance of the CO and N2O QEPAS sensor systems. For the optimum data acquisition time of 500 sec a MDL of 340 pptv and 4 ppbv was obtained for CO and N2O detection, respectively. To demonstrate reliable and robust operation of the QEPAS sensor a continuous monitoring of atmospheric CO and N2O concentration levels for a period of 5 hours were performed

Radiative recombination of confined electrons at the MgZnO/ZnO heterojunction interface

We investigate the optical signature of the interface in a single MgZnO/ZnO heterojunction, which exhibits two orders of magnitude lower resistivity and 10 times higher electron mobility compared with the MgZnO/Al2O3 film grown under the same conditions. These impressive transport properties are attributed to increased mobility of electrons at the MgZnO/ZnO heterojunction interface. Depth-resolved cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence studies reveal a 3.2 eV H-band optical emission from the heterointerface, which exhibits excitonic properties and a localization energy of 19.6 meV. The emission is attributed to band-bending due to the polarization discontinuity at the interface, which leads to formation of a triangular quantum well and localized excitons by electrostatic coupling

Technology of quantum devices

This overview of solid state physics provides up-to-date developments in semiconductors and nanotechnology. Mathematical results are carefully described in a standardized style and notation, while ample problems illustrate principles throughout the text

Fundamentals of Solid State Engineering 4th ed.

Provides a multidisciplinary introduction to quantum mechanics, solid state physics, advanced devices, and fabrication Covers wide range of topics in the same style and in the same notation Most up to date developments in semiconductor physics and nano-engineering Mathematical derivations are carried through in detail with emphasis on clarity Timely application areas such as biophotonics , bioelectronic

Recent Advances in Room Temperature, High-Power Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser Sources Based on Difference-Frequency Generation

We present the current status of high-performance, compact, THz sources based on intracavity nonlinear frequency generation in mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers. Significant performance improvements of our THz sources in the power and wall plug efficiency are achieved by systematic optimizing the device’s active region, waveguide, and chip bonding strategy. High THz power up to 1.9 mW and 0.014 mW for pulsed mode and continuous wave operations at room temperature are demonstrated, respectively. Even higher power and efficiency are envisioned based on enhancements in outcoupling efficiency and mid-IR performance. Our compact THz device with high power and wide tuning range is highly suitable for imaging, sensing, spectroscopy, medical diagnosis, and many other applications

High Power Mid-Infrared Quantum Cascade Lasers Grown on GaAs

The motivation behind this work is to show that InP-based intersubband lasers with high power can be realized on substrates with significant lattice mismatch. This is a primary concern for the integration of mid-infrared active optoelectronic devices on low-cost photonic platforms, such as Si. As evidence, an InP-based mid-infrared quantum cascade laser structure was grown on a GaAs substrate, which has a large (4%) lattice mismatch with respect to InP. Prior to laser core growth, a metamorphic buffer layer of InP was grown directly on a GaAs substrate to adjust the lattice constant. Wafer characterization data are given to establish general material characteristics. A simple fabrication procedure leads to lasers with high peak power (>14 W) at room temperature. These results are extremely promising for direct quantum cascade laser growth on Si substrates