Impact of sidewalls on electrical characterization

In this article the impact of sidewalls, formed during reactive ion etching, on the electrical behavior of thin film structures is presented. The presence of sidewalls was experimentally characterized by sheet resistance measurements on Van der Pauw structures. The effect of these sidewalls on the extraction of specific contact resistance from Cross Bridge Kelvin Resistance (CBKR) structures is discussed

Bias dependent specic contact resistance of phase change material to metal contacts

Knowledge of contact resistance of phase change materials (PCM) to metal electrodes is important for scaling, device modeling and optimization of phase change random access memory (PCRAM) cells. In this article, we report the systematic determination of the speci_c contact resistance (_c) with voltage bias for doped Sb2Te to TiW metal electrodes. These data are reported for both the amorphous and the crystalline state of the PCM

Improving Screening Strategies for Prostate Cancer

Th is thesis describes research on screening for prostate cancer. To improve understanding of the thesis, some background information will be provided in this introduction. First, a short description of the prostate and of prostate cancer will be given in Chapter 1, followed by more detailed background information on screening for prostate cancer in Chapter 2. Th e fi nal part of this introduction, Chapter 3, will outline the scope of this thesis

Fabrication and characterization of the charge-plasma diode

We present a new lateral Schottky-based rectifier called the charge-plasma diode realized on ultrathin silicon-oninsulator. The device utilizes the workfunction difference between two metal contacts, palladium and erbium, and the silicon body. We demonstrate that the proposed device provides a low and constant reverse leakage-current density of about 1 fA/μm with ON/OFF current ratios of around 107 at 1-V forward bias and room temperature. In the forward mode, a current swing of 88 mV/dec is obtained, which is reduced to 68 mV/dec by back-gate biasing

Analysis of the entanglement between two individual atoms using global Raman rotations

Making use of the Rydberg blockade, we generate entanglement between two atoms individually trapped in two optical tweezers. In this paper we detail the analysis of the data and show that we can determine the amount of entanglement between the atoms in the presence of atom losses during the entangling sequence. Our model takes into account states outside the qubit basis and allows us to perform a partial reconstruction of the density matrix describing the two atom state. With this method we extract the amount of entanglement between pairs of atoms still trapped after the entangling sequence and measure the fidelity with respect to the expected Bell state. We find a fidelity $F_{\rm pairs} =0.74(7)$ for the 62% of atom pairs remaining in the traps at the end of the entangling sequence

Entanglement of two individual neutral atoms using Rydberg blockade

We report the generation of entanglement between two individual $^{87}$Rb atoms in hyperfine ground states $|F=1,M=1>$ and $|F=2,M=2>$ which are held in two optical tweezers separated by 4 $\mu$m. Our scheme relies on the Rydberg blockade effect which prevents the simultaneous excitation of the two atoms to a Rydberg state. The entangled state is generated in about 200 ns using pulsed two-photon excitation. We quantify the entanglement by applying global Raman rotations on both atoms. We measure that 61% of the initial pairs of atoms are still present at the end of the entangling sequence. These pairs are in the target entangled state with a fidelity of 0.75.Comment: text revised, with additional reference

Influence of the head model on EEG and MEG source connectivity analysis

The results of brain connectivity analysis using reconstructed source time courses derived from EEG and MEG data depend on a number of algorithmic choices. While previous studies have investigated the influence of the choice of source estimation method or connectivity measure, the effects of the head modeling errors or simplifications have not been studied sufficiently. In the present simulation study, we investigated the influence of particular properties of the head model on the reconstructed source time courses as well as on source connectivity analysis in EEG and MEG. Therefore, we constructed a realistic head model and applied the finite element method to solve the EEG and MEG forward problem. We considered the distinction between white and gray matter, the distinction between compact and spongy bone, the inclusion of a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) compartment, and the reduction to a simple 3-layer model comprising only skin, skull, and brain. Source time courses were reconstructed using a beamforming approach and the source connectivity was estimated by the imaginary coherence (ICoh) and the generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC). Our results show that in both EEG and MEG, neglecting the white and gray matter distinction or the CSF causes considerable errors in reconstructed source time courses and connectivity analysis, while the distinction between spongy and compact bone is just of minor relevance, provided that an adequate skull conductivity value is used. Large inverse and connectivity errors are found in the same regions that show large topography errors in the forward solution. Moreover, we demonstrate that the very conservative ICoh is relatively safe from the crosstalk effects caused by imperfect head models, as opposed to the GPDC

Entanglement of two individual atoms using the Rydberg blockade

We report on our recent progress on the manipulation of single rubidium atoms trapped in optical tweezers and the generation of entanglement between two atoms, each individually trapped in neighboring tweezers. To create an entangled state of two atoms in their ground states, we make use of the Rydberg blockade mechanism. The degree of entanglement is measured using global rotations of the internal states of both atoms. Such internal state rotations on a single atom are demonstrated with a high fidelity.Comment: Proceeding of the 19th International Conference on Laser Spectroscopy ICOLS 2009, 7-13 June 2009, Hokkaido, Japa

Electrical characterization of Thin-Film structures with redeposited sidewall

Accurate electrical characterization of test structures and devices requires identification and correction for parasitic current paths in the measurement network. The sidewalls formed during reactive ion etching of thin-film phase-change material layers in argon plasma can result in parasitic current paths in the structures. In this paper, thin-film structures with redeposited sidewalls are realized, and they are experimentally characterized by electrical resistance measurements on van der Pauw test structures. The impact of conducting sidewalls on contact resistance measurements and data extraction from cross-bridge Kelvin resistor structures is discussed. The error introduced in the electrical resistance measurements from these test structures is analytically modeled. The impact on the electrical performance of devices due to the formation of sidewalls is also discussed