Noise Measurement Setup for Quartz Crystal Microbalance

Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is a high sensitive chemical sensor which has found widespread spectrum of applications. There are several mechanisms that are related to fluctuation phenomena. Since the aim of our research is oriented to study the sensitivity and influence of different kind of noises on sensor resolution, we modified an existing method to measure the small frequency fluctuation of QCM. The paper describes our measurement setup, in which a quartz crystal oscillator with coated active layers and a reference quartz oscillator are driven by two oscillator circuits. Each one regulates a frequency of a crystal at the minimum impedance which corresponds to the series resonance. A data-acquisition card triggers on the rise-edges of the output signal and stores these corresponding times on which the instantaneous frequency is estimated by own-written software. In comparison to other measurement setups, our approach can acquire immediate change of QCM frequency, thus, chemical processes can be even described on the basis of high-order statistics. The experiments were provided on quartz crystals with the sorption layer of polypyrrole, which is suitable for the construction of QCM humidity sensors

Noise in piezoelectric ceramics at the low temperatures

The piezoelectric ceramic belongs to materials with widespread spectrum of applications. It can be found in sensors as well as in ceramic capacitors. The main sources of voltage or current fluctuation in piezoelectric ceramics are thermal noise, polarization noise and low frequency 1/f noise. The observed spectra of fluctuating voltage or current can be very well described by the generalized Nyquist relation for linear dissipative system. In this work, we focused on validity of the Nyquist relation for piezoelectric ceramics in temperatures 150 K-270 K. The electrical impedance and noise spectral density are measured and compared in frequency range 100 kHz - 1 MHz. The measurements were made in thermal stable condition and under equilibrium conditions in the case of noise measurement

Testis growth in "polish merino" and "ile-de-france" rams and its relationship with prolificacy of ewes

International audienc

Rationale for the treatment of children with CCSK in the UMBRELLA SIOP-RTSG 2016 protocol

The International Society of Paediatric Oncology-Renal Tumour Study Group (SIOP-RTSG) has developed a new protocol for the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up monitoring of childhood renal tumours-the UMBRELLA SIOP-RTSG 2016 protocol (the UMBRELLA protocol). This protocol has been designed to continue international collaboration in the treatment of childhood renal tumours and will be implemented in over 50 different countries. Clear cell sarcoma of the kidney, which is a rare paediatric renal tumour that most commonly occurs in childre

Ultrasonic spectroscopy of silicon single crystal

Specimens of Si single crystals with different crystal orientation [100] and [110] were studied by Electro-Ultrasonic Spectroscopy (EUS) and Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy (RUS). A silicon single crystal is an anisotropic crystal, so its properties are different in different directions in the material relative to the crystal orientation. EUS is based on interaction of two signals: an electric AC signal and an ultrasonic signal, which are working on different frequencies. The ultrasonic wave affects the charge carriers' transport in the structures and the intermodulation electrical signal which is created due to the interaction between the ultrasonic wave and charge carriers, is proportional to the density of structural defects. RUS enables to measure natural frequencies of free elastic vibrations of a simply shaped specimen by scanning a selected frequency range including the appropriate resonances of the measured specimens