6,823 research outputs found
Mechanical characterization of solution-derived nanoparticle silver ink thin films
Mechanical properties of sintered silver nanoparticles are investigated via substrate curvature and nanoindentation methods. Substrate curvature measurements reveal that permanent microstructural changes occur during initial heating while subsequent annealing results in nearly elastic behavior of the thinner films. Thicker films were found to crack upon thermal treatment. The coefficient of thermal expansion was determined from linear slopes of curvature curves to be 1.9±0.097 ppm/°C, with elastic modulus and hardness determined via nanoindentation. Accounting for substrate effects, nanoindentation hardness and modulus remained constant for different film thicknesses and did not appear to be a function of annealing conditions. Hardness of 0.91 GPa and modulus of 110 GPa are somewhat lower than expected for a continuous nanocrystalline silver film, most likely due to porosity
On the 2-categories of weak distributive laws
A weak mixed distributive law (also called weak entwining structure) in a
2-category consists of a monad and a comonad, together with a 2-cell relating
them in a way which generalizes a mixed distributive law due to Beck. We show
that a weak mixed distributive law can be described as a compatible pair of a
monad and a comonad, in 2-categories extending, respectively, the 2-category of
comonads and the 2-category of monads. Based on this observation, we define a
2-category whose 0-cells are weak mixed distributive laws. In a 2-category K
which admits Eilenberg-Moore constructions both for monads and comonads, and in
which idempotent 2-cells split, we construct a fully faithful 2-functor from
this 2-category of weak mixed distributive laws to K^{2 x 2}.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX source, final version to appear in Comm. Algebr
Design and analysis of a control system for an optical delay-line circuit used as reconfigurable gain equalizer
The design and analysis of a control system for a coherent two-port lattice-form optical delay-line circuit used as reconfigurable gain equalizer is presented. The design of the control system, which is based on a real device model and a least-square optimization method, is described in detail. Analysis on a five-stage device for the 32 possible solutions of phase parameters showed that, for some filter characteristics, the variations in power dissipation can vary up to a factor of 2. Furthermore, the solution selection has influence on the optimization result and number of iterations needed. A sensitivity analysis of the phase parameters showed that the allowable error in the phase parameters should not exceed a standard deviation of /spl pi//500 in order to achieve a total maximal absolute accuracy error not greater than approximately 0.6 dB. A five-stage device has been fabricated using planar lightwave circuit technology that uses the thermooptic effect. Excellent agreement between simulations and measurements has been achieved
Reversible and irreversible trapping at room temperature in poly(thiophene) thin-film transistors
We measured the bias stress characteristics of poly(thiophene)
semi-crystalline thin-film transistors (TFTs) as a function stress times, gate
voltages and duty-cycles. At room temperature, the bias stress has two
components: a fast reversible component and a slow irreversible component. We
hypothesize that the irreversible component is due to charge trapping in the
disordered areas of the semiconductor film. At low duty-cycle (<2%), the fast
bias stress component is reversed during the off-part of the cycle therefore
the observed VT shift in only caused by irreversible trapping. Irreversible
trapping follows power-law kinetics with a time exponent approximately equal to
0.37. We use these findings to estimate the lifetime of TFTs used as switches
in display backplanes
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Unpacking the new proposed regulations for South African traditional health practitioner
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