scholarly journals Digital Control of Active Network Microstructures on Silicon Wafers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongjing Ren ◽  
Jianping Yuan ◽  
Peng Yan

This chapter presents a promising digital control of active microstructures developed and tested on silicon chips by current division and thus independent Joule heating powers, especially for planar submillimeter two-dimensional (2-D) grid microstructures built on silicon wafers by surface microfabrication. Current division on such 2-D grid networks with 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and n × n loops was modeled and analyzed theoretically by employing Kirchhoff’s voltage law (KVL) and Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL), which demonstrated the feasibility of active control of the networks by Joule heating effect. Furthermore, in situ testing of a typical 2-D microstructure with 2 × 2 loops by different DC sources was carried out, and the thermomechanical deformation due to Joule heating was recorded. As a result, active control of the current division has been proven to be a reliable and efficient approach to achieving the digital actuation of 2-D microstructures on silicon chips. Digital control of such microstructural networks on silicon chips envisions great potential applications in active reconfigurable buses for microrobots and flexible electronics.

Author(s):  
D. Loretto ◽  
J. M. Gibson ◽  
S. M. Yalisove ◽  
R. T. Tung

The cobalt disilicide/silicon system has potential applications as a metal-base and as a permeable-base transistor. Although thin, low defect density, films of CoSi2 on Si(111) have been successfully grown, there are reasons to believe that Si(100)/CoSi2 may be better suited to the transmission of electrons at the silicon/silicide interface than Si(111)/CoSi2. A TEM study of the formation of CoSi2 on Si(100) is therefore being conducted. We have previously reported TEM observations on Si(111)/CoSi2 grown both in situ, in an ultra high vacuum (UHV) TEM and ex situ, in a conventional Molecular Beam Epitaxy system.The procedures used for the MBE growth have been described elsewhere. In situ experiments were performed in a JEOL 200CX electron microscope, extensively modified to give a vacuum of better than 10-9 T in the specimen region and the capacity to do in situ sample heating and deposition. Cobalt was deposited onto clean Si(100) samples by thermal evaporation from cobalt-coated Ta filaments.


Author(s):  
J. V. Maskowitz ◽  
W. E. Rhoden ◽  
D. R. Kitchen ◽  
R. E. Omlor ◽  
P. F. Lloyd

The fabrication of the aluminum bridge test vehicle for use in the crystallographic studies of electromigration involves several photolithographic processes, some common, while others quite unique. It is most important to start with a clean wafer of known orientation. The wafers used are 7 mil thick boron doped silicon. The diameter of the wafer is 1.5 inches with a resistivity of 10-20 ohm-cm. The crystallographic orientation is (111).Initial attempts were made to both drill and laser holes in the silicon wafers then back fill with photoresist or mounting wax. A diamond tipped dentist burr was used to successfully drill holes in the wafer. This proved unacceptable in that the perimeter of the hole was cracked and chipped. Additionally, the minimum size hole realizable was > 300 μm. The drilled holes could not be arrayed on the wafer to any extent because the wafer would not stand up to the stress of multiple drilling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 154 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel García Caballero ◽  
Donella Beckwith ◽  
Nadezhda V. Shilova ◽  
Adele Gabba ◽  
Tanja J. Kutzner ◽  
...  

Abstract The concept of biomedical significance of the functional pairing between tissue lectins and their glycoconjugate counterreceptors has reached the mainstream of research on the flow of biological information. A major challenge now is to identify the principles of structure–activity relationships that underlie specificity of recognition and the ensuing post-binding processes. Toward this end, we focus on a distinct feature on the side of the lectin, i.e. its architecture to present the carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD). Working with a multifunctional human lectin, i.e. galectin-3, as model, its CRD is used in protein engineering to build variants with different modular assembly. Hereby, it becomes possible to compare activity features of the natural design, i.e. CRD attached to an N-terminal tail, with those of homo- and heterodimers and the tail-free protein. Thermodynamics of binding disaccharides proved full activity of all proteins at very similar affinity. The following glycan array testing revealed maintained preferential contact formation with N-acetyllactosamine oligomers and histo-blood group ABH epitopes irrespective of variant design. The study of carbohydrate-inhibitable binding of the test panel disclosed up to qualitative cell-type-dependent differences in sections of fixed murine epididymis and especially jejunum. By probing topological aspects of binding, the susceptibility to inhibition by a tetravalent glycocluster was markedly different for the wild-type vs the homodimeric variant proteins. The results teach the salient lesson that protein design matters: the type of CRD presentation can have a profound bearing on whether basically suited oligosaccharides, which for example tested positively in an array, will become binding partners in situ. When lectin-glycoconjugate aggregates (lattices) are formed, their structural organization will depend on this parameter. Further testing (ga)lectin variants will thus be instrumental (i) to define the full range of impact of altering protein assembly and (ii) to explain why certain types of design have been favored during the course of evolution, besides opening biomedical perspectives for potential applications of the novel galectin forms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 403-411
Author(s):  
Youliang Cheng ◽  
Mingjie Wang ◽  
Changqing Fang ◽  
Ying Wei ◽  
Jing Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract To change the optical properties and improve the antibacterial performances of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) and Ag NPs, mesoporous SiO2 spheres were combined with them to form the composites. In this paper, CQDs with a uniform size of about 3.74 nm were synthesized using glucose as carbon source. Then, CQDs/mesoporous SiO2/Ag NPs composites were obtained in situ under UV light irradiating by using mesoporous SiO2 and Ag NO3 as the carrier and silver resource, respectively. The diameter of CQDs/mesoporous SiO2/Ag NPs particles was in the range of 200–250 nm. With the increase in irradiating time, the red-shift in the UV-Vis spectrum for as-prepared CQDs/mesoporous SiO2/Ag NPs composites was found, and the adsorption peak was widened. In addition, the composites showed a high antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli via disc diffusion method. These results indicated that inhibition circles for Ag NPs/mesoporous SiO2/CQDs and mesoporous SiO2/Ag NPs were similar in diameter. Furthermore, the two composites had a better bactericidal performance compared with other particles. Therefore, as-prepared CQDs/mesoporous SiO2/Ag NPs composites in this paper have great potential applications for fluorescent materials and antibacterial materials.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengcheng Wu ◽  
Zhenwei Wang ◽  
Xinhua Yao ◽  
Jianzhong Fu ◽  
Yong He

A recyclable, self-healing conductive nanoclay and corresponding stamping process are developed for printing flexible electronics directly and quickly in situ.


2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1762-1767
Author(s):  
Nicholas W. Botterill ◽  
David M. Grant ◽  
Jianxin Zhang ◽  
Clive J. Roberts

A novel approach in determining the transition temperatures of NiTi shape memory alloys was investigated and compared with conventional techniques. The technique is based on microthemal analysis using a scanning thermal microscope (SThM). In particular, this method has the potential to allow the transformation temperatures of thin films to be investigated in situ. Thin film shape memory alloys have potential applications, such as microactuators, where conventional analysis techniques are either not directly applicable to such samples or are difficult to perform.


1990 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Im ◽  
Jung H. Shin ◽  
Harry A. Atwater

AbstractIn situ electron microscopy has been used to observe crystal nucleation and growth in amorphous Si films. Results demonstrate that a repeated intermediate temperature ion irradiation/thermal annealing cycle can lead to suppression of nucleation in amorphous regions without inhibition of crystal growth of existing large crystals. Fundamentally, the experimental results indicate that the population of small crystal clusters near the critical cluster size is affected by intermediate temperature ion irradiation. Potential applications of the intermediate temperature irradiation/thermal anneal cycle to lateral solid epitaxy of Si and thin film device technology are discussed.


Materials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Li ◽  
Bing Xie ◽  
Kai Xia ◽  
Yingchun Li ◽  
Jing Han ◽  
...  

Nano titanium dioxide (TiO2) with photocatalytic activity was firstly modified by diethanolamine, and it was then doped with broad spectrum antibacterial silver (Ag) by in situ method. Further, both Ag doped TiO2-chitosan (STC) and TiO2-chitosan (TC) composites were prepared by the inverse emulsion cross-linking reaction. The antibacterial activities of STC composites were studied and their antibacterial mechanisms under visible light were investigated. The results show that in situ doping and inverse emulsion method led to good dispersion of Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles on the cross-linked chitosan microsphere. The STC with regular particle size of 1–10 μm exhibited excellent antibacterial activity against E. coli, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus under visible light. It is believed that STC with particle size of 1–10 μm has large specific surface area to contact with bacterial cell wall. The increased antibacterial activity was attributed to the enhancement of both electron-hole separations at the surface of nano-TiO2 by the silver ions under the visible light, and the synergetic and sustained release of strong oxidizing hydroxyl radicals of nano-TiO2, together with silver ions against bacteria. Thus, STC composites have great potential applications as antibacterial agents in the water treatment field.


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yidong Liu ◽  
Lingfeng Jian ◽  
Tianhua Xiao ◽  
Rongtao Liu ◽  
Shun Yi ◽  
...  

CO2 has been regarded as one of the most promising blowing agents for polystyrene (PS) foam due to its non-flammability, low price, nontoxicity, and eco-friendliness. However, the low solubility and fast diffusivity of CO2 in PS hinder its potential applications. In this study, an attapulgite (ATP)/polypyrrole (PPy) nanocomposite was developed using the in situ polymerization method to generate the hierarchical cell texture for the PS foam based on the supercritical CO2 foaming. The results demonstrated that the nanocomposite could act as an efficient CO2 capturer enabling the random release of it during the foaming process. In contrast to the pure PS foam, the ATP/PPy nanocomposite reinforced PS foam is endowed with high cell density (up to 1.9 × 106) and similar thermal conductivity as the neat PS foam, as well as high compression modulus. Therefore, the in situ polymerized ATP/PPy nanocomposite makes supercritical CO2 foaming desired candidate to replace the widely used fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons as PS blowing agents.


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