A Highly Controlled Fabrication of Porous Anodic Aluminium Oxide Surface with Versatile Features by Spatial Thermo-anodization

Thermo-anodization technology has been considered as an effective means to improve the thermal, physical and chemical properties for metal alloy. In this work, we achieve a porous black layer on the surface of aluminium alloy through an environmentally friendly anodic oxidation process, with a high thermal emittance (0.96) and a high solar absorptivity (0.921). In addition, the black thermo-anodized coating layer shows a unique anti-corrosion property under UV irradiation. A hybrid hydrophobic surface has been facilitated through treating the thermo-anodized porous layer with silane. Moreover, an anti-icing feature can be realised that can effectively delay the freezing of water droplet on the surface of AA2024 aluminium alloy. As such, the specific anodic process of coating provides a simple method for improving the solar absorptivity and infrared emittance of aluminium alloys, enabling broad applications in aerospace engineering

Failure mechanisms in flexible electronics

ABSTRACTThe rapid evolution of flexible electronic devices promises to revolutionize numerous fields by expanding the applications of smart devices. Nevertheless, despite this vast potential, the reliability of these innovative devices currently falls short, especially in light of demanding operation environment and the intrinsic challenges associated with their fabrication techniques. The heterogeneity in these processes and environments gives rise to unique failure modes throughout the devices’ lifespan. To significantly enhance the reliability of these devices and assure long-term performance, it is paramount to comprehend the underpinning failure mechanisms thoroughly, thereby enabling optimal design solutions. A myriad of investigative efforts have been dedicated to unravel these failure mechanisms, utilizing a spectrum of tools from analytical models, numerical methods, to advanced characterization methods. This review delves into the root causes of device failure, scrutinizing both the fabrication process and the operation environment. Next, We subsequently address the failure mechanisms across four commonly observed modes: strength failure, fatigue failure, interfacial failure, and electrical failure, followed by an overview of targeted characterization methods associated with each mechanism. Concluding with an outlook, we spotlight ongoing challenges and promising directions for future research in our pursuit of highly resilient flexible electronic devices

An Inter/Intra-Chip Optical Network for Manycore Processors

Manycore processor system is becoming an attractive platform for applications seeking both high performance and high energy efficiency. However, huge communication demands among cores, large power density, and low process yield will be three significant limitations for the scalability of future manycore processors. Breaking a large chip into multiple smaller ones can alleviate the problems of power density and yield, but would worsen the problem of communication efficiency due to the limited off-chip bandwidth. In response, we propose an inter/intra-chip optical network, which will not only fulfill the intra-chip communication requirements but also address the inter-chip communication, by exploiting the advantages of optical links with high bandwidth and energy efficiency. The network is composed of an inter-chip subnetwork and multiple intra-chip subnetworks, and the subnetworks closely coordinate with each other to balance the traffic. The proposed network effectively explores the distinctive properties of optical signals and photonic devices, and dynamically partitions each data channel into multiple sections. Each section can be utilized independently to boost performance as well as reduce energy consumption. Simulation results show that our network can achieve higher throughput with lower power consumption than alternative designs under most of synthetic traffics and real applications