A high figure of merit localized surface plasmon sensor based on a gold nanograting on the top of a gold planar film

We investigate the sensitivity and figure of merit （FOM） of a localized surface plasmon （LSP） sensor with gold nanograting on the top of planar metallic film. The sensitivity of the localized surface plasmon sensor is 317 nm/RIU, and the FOM is predicted to be above 8, which is very high for a localized surface plasmon sensor. By employing the rigorous coupled-wave analysis （RCWA） method, we analyze the distribution of the magnetic field and find that the sensing property of our proposed system is attributed to the interactions between the localized surface plasmon around the gold nanostrips and the surface plasmon polarition on the surface of the gold planar metallic film. These findings are important for developing high FOM localized surface plasmon sensors.

High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit of Ag8SnS6 Component Prepared by Electrodeposition Technique

A new thermoelectric material Ag8SnS6, with ultra-low thermal conductivity in thin film shape, is prepared on indium tin oxide coated g/ass （ITO） substrates using a chemical process via the electrodeposition technique. The structural, thermal and electrical properties are studied and presented in detail, which demonstrate that the material is of semiconductor type, orthorhombic structure, with a band gap in the order of 1.56eV and a free carrier concentration of 1.46 × 10^17 cm-3. The thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, thermal conduction mode, Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity are determined using the photo-thermal deflection technique combined with the Boltzmann transport theory and Cahill＇s model, showing that the AgsSnS6 material has a low thermal conductivity of 3.8 Wm - 1K- 1, high electrical conductivity of 2.4 × 10^5 Sm- 1, Seebeck coefficient of -180μVK-1 and a power factor of 6.9mWK-2m-1, implying that it is more efficient than those obtained in recently experimental investigations for thermoelectric devices.

Enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit at near room temperature in n-type binary silver telluride nanoparticles

In the present study,we have synthesized Ag2Te nanoparticles using the hydrothermal method and showed significant improvement in the thermoelectric properties compared to the bulk Ag2Te sample.Ag2Te nanoparticles showed the highest figure of merit(zT)of 1.37 at 373 K,which is the highest zT reported for this undoped material.This high zT in Ag2Te nanoparticles is mainly due to about~2 times higher electrical conductivity(1967 S/cm)and subsequently~2 times lower thermal conductivity(0.53 W/(m$K))as compared to the bulk Ag2Te sample.The higher electrical conductivity in Ag2Te nanoparticles can be accredited for two reasons(i)better mobility of the charge carrier and(ii)increased carrier concentration.The low thermal conductivity is associated with the enhanced scattering of phonons at the interface of the Ag2Te nanoparticles.

Nonlinear optics on silicon-rich nitride--a high nonlinear figure of merit CMOS platform[Invited]

CMOS platforms with a high nonlinear figure of merit are highly sought after for high photonic quantum efficiencies, enabling functionalities not possible from purely linear effects and ease of integration with CMOS electronics. Silicon-based platforms have been prolific amongst the suite of advanced nonlinear optical signal processes demonstrated to date. These include crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon, Hydex glass, and stoichio- metric silicon nitride. Residing between stoichiometric silicon nitride and amorphous silicon in composition, silicon-rich nitride films of various formulations have emerged recently as promising nonlinear platforms for high nonlinear figure of merit nonlinear optics. Silicon-rich nitride films are compositionally engineered to create bandgaps that are sufficiently large to eliminate two-photon absorption at telecommunications wavelengths while enabling much larger nonlinear waveguide parameters （5x-500x） than those in stoichiometric silicon uitride. This paper reviews recent developments in the field of nonlinear optics using silicon-rich nitride platforms, as well as the outlook and future opportunities in this burgeoning field.

Ultra-low lattice thermal conductivity and promising thermoelectric figure of merit in borophene via chlorination

Monolayer boron-based materials are of current interests due to its polymorphism.Herein,motivated by the recent experimental synthesis of semiconducting hydrogenatedαʹ-borophene and the regulation of the physical properties in layered materials by surface functionalization,we study the thermal and electronic properties ofαʹ-borophene with three different types of gas functional groups(H,F,and Cl)based on first-principles and Boltzmann transport theory.It is found thatαʹ-borophene can be well stabilized by fluorination and chlorination and maintain the semiconductor nature.More interestingly,when hydrogen is replaced with fluorine or chlorine,the lattice thermal conductivity changes from 24.3 to 5.2 or 0.73 W/(m·K)along armchair direction at 300 K,exhibiting a huge reduction by two orders of magnitude.The main reason is the decrease of both phonon group velocities and acoustic phonon relaxation time resulting from the strong phonon mode softening due to the weaken B-B bond strength and heavier atomic mass of fluorine and chlorine.Consequently,the chlorinatedαʹ-borophene exhibits a high thermoelectric figure of merit~2 at 300 K along armchair direction.Our study illustrates the importance of the modulation of transport properties by gas functional groups,which may promote the thermoelectric application of boron-based materials.

Fano resonances with a high figure of merit in silver oligomer systems

A silver quadrumer consisting of four parallel aligned rectangular nanobars, with three at the bottom and one at the top, is proposed to provide two Fano resonances. These two resonances can be adjusted either simultaneously or independently simply by tuning the geometrical parameters. Due to the formation of the two resonances in a relatively short wavelength range, one of them can be spectrally squeezed to be very narrow, which induces a very high figure of merit(FoM =45). By decomposing the scattering spectrum into bright modes and dark modes, the double Fano resonances are found to be originated from grouping the unit cells into two different groups. The evolution of the scattering spectrum with the central dimer position along the polarization direction suggests that the symmetry reducing induces the second Fano resonance and improves the Fo M of the first one. By introducing one more nanobar into the quadrumer system, the Fo M can approach the material's limit, although the dip is relatively shallow. The ultrahigh Fo M of the Fano resonance in the proposed quadrumer can provide ultra-sensitive refractive index sensing.Furthermore, the method for providing multiple independently tunable Fano resonances can offer new solutions to designing plasmonic-related nanolasers, photocatalysis, and biochemical sensors, etc.

Figure of Merit Enhancement of Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor Using Ga-Doped Zinc Oxide in Near Infrared Range

This work presents a surface plasmon resonance biosensor for the figure of merit enhancement by using Ga-doped zinc oxide(GZO),i.e.,nanostructured transparent conducting oxide as plasmonic material in place of metal at the telecommunication wavelength.Two-dimentional graphene is used here as a biorecognition element(BRE)layer for stable and robust adsorption of biomolecules.This is possible due to stronger van der Waals forces between graphene’s hexagonal cells and carbon-like ring arrangement present in biomolecules.The proposed sensor shows improved biosensing due to fascinating electronic,optical,physical,and chemical properties of graphene.This work analyses the sensitivity,detection accuracy,and figure of merit for the GZO/graphene SPR sensor on using the dielectric layer in between the prism and GZO.The highest figure of merit of 366.7 RIU^(−1) is achieved for the proposed SPR biosensor on using the nanostructured GZO at the 3000 nm dielectric thickness.The proposed SPR biosensor can be used practically for sensing of larger size biomolecules with due availability of advanced techniques for the fabrication of the nanostructured GZO and graphene.

Investigating the Potential of Quasi-One-Dimensional Organic Crystals of TTT(TCNQ)2 for Thermoelectric Applications

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of investigations on quasi-one-dimensional organic crystals of tetrathiotetracene-tetracyanoquinodi- methane (TTT(TCNQ)2) from the prospective of thermoelectric applications. The calculations were performed after analytical expressions, obtained in the frame of a physical model, more detailed than the model presented earlier by authors. The main Hamiltonian of the model includes the electronic and phonon part, electron-phonon interactions and the impurity scattering term. In order to estimate the electric charge transport between the molecular chains, the physical model was upgraded to the so-called three-dimen- sional (3D) physical model. Numeric computations were performed to determine the electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, thermoelectric power factor and thermoelectric figure-of-merit as a function on charge carrier concentrations, temperatures and impurity concentrations. A detailed analysis of charge-lattice interaction, consisting of the exploration of the Peierls structural transition in TCNQ molecular chains of TTT(TCNQ)2 was performed. As result, the critical transition temperature was determined. The dispersion of renormalized phonons was examined in detail.

Calculation of the Figure of Merit of Linearly Chirped Fiber Gratings for Dispersion Compensation

At first, we systematically sum up and deduce the figure of merit of the compensator using linearly chirped fiber gratings. Secondly, we solve the Reccatti differential equation by the Runge Kutta method and calculate the reflectivity and dispersion of the linearly chirped fiber gratings to obtain the figure of merit numericallu.On the other hand, we also discuss the figure of merit under the circumstances of three kinds of coupling coefficients and compare them Finally, we present one kind of perfect design of the compensator using the Gauss coupling function, and simply discuss the method to realize the Gauss coupling function in the fabrication of linearly chirped fiber gratings in this paper.

The effect of pH on stability and thermal performance of graphene oxide and copper oxide hybrid nanofluids for heat transfer applications:Application of novel machine learning technique

This paper investigates the effects of pH on stability and thermal properties of copper oxide(CuO),graphene oxide(GO),and their hybrid nanofluid(HNF)at different mixing ratios.Initially,sol-gel and Hummer’s method was employed for the synthesis of CuO and GO nanoparticles(NPs),and they are characterized with various techniques.The effects of two different surfactants were analyzed on nanofluid’s(NF’s)stability at different pH values.The properties like thermal conductivity(TC)and viscosity(VST)of NFs were measured at different volume concentration(0.1 vol%to 1.0 vol%)and temperature range of 30-60℃,respectively.The TC and VST of GO/CuO(50:50)HNF are higher than that of GO/CuO(20:80).The figure of merit(FOM)is determined for the studied HNFs.The correlations were presented to calculate the TC as well as VST of HNFs.Two modern novel machine learning-based ensemble approaches were employed for predictive model development for TC and VST of considered HNFs.The comparison of prognostic models with Taylor’s diagram revealed that Bayesian optimized support vector machine(BoASVM)was superior to Bayesian optimized boosted regression trees(BoA-BRT)for both TC and VST models.

Design of multilayer cellular neural network based on memristor crossbar and its application to edge detection

Memristor with memory properties can be applied to connection points(synapses)between cells in a cellular neural network(CNN).This paper highlights memristor crossbar-based multilayer CNN(MCM-CNN)and its application to edge detection.An MCM-CNN is designed by adopting a memristor crossbar composed of a pair of memristors.MCM-CNN based on the memristor crossbar with changeable weight is suitable for edge detection of a binary image and a color image considering its characteristics of programmablization and compactation.Figure of merit(FOM)is introduced to evaluate the proposed structure and several traditional edge detection operators for edge detection results.Experiment results show that the FOM of MCM-CNN is three times more than that of the traditional edge detection operators.

Thermoelectric signature of Majorana zero modes in a T-typed double-quantum-dot structure

The thermoelectric effect of the system is theoretically investigated,by coupling Majorana zero mode to the T-typed double-quantum-dot-structure in different ways.It is found that when a single Majorana zero mode is coupled to one of the quantum dots(QDs),the thermoelectric efficiency is suppressed due to the leakage of Majorana zero modes into the QDs.When the Majorana zero mode is coupled to QD2,the suppression of the thermoelectric efficiency is more serious than that of QD1.Furthermore,when two Majorana zero modes are introduced simultaneously,suppression of the thermoelectric effect still takes place.We believe that such results can be candidates for the detection of Majorana bound states and help us understand the role of Majorana zero mode in thermoelectricity.

Synthesis and Thermoelectric Properties of Polyaniline

Electrical conductivity and seebeck coefficient at different temperatures,and thermal conductivity at room temperature for various doped polyaniline (PAn) samples were measured,and the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT was calculated.The effects of preparation methods and temperature on thermoelectric properties were discussed.The results show that the electrical conductivity and the seebeck coefficient of PAn are strongly dependent on the preparation conditions and temperature.The electrical conductivity becomes larger and the seebeck coefficient becomes smaller as PAn molecular weight increases.Redoping by organic acid and HCl results in an increase in both electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient of PAn,and therefore ZT value.The electrical conductivity increases and the seebeck coefficient decreases as the temperature increases when T<T d (dedoping temperature).The decreasing of the electrical conductivity and increasing of the seebeck coefficient take place by dedoping when T>T d.The thermal conductivity is lower,and insensitive to the sample preparation conditions.

Research Advances of Typical Two Dimensional Layered Thermoelectric Materials

Thermoelectric technologies have caught our intense attention due to their ability of heat conversion into electricity.The considerable efforts have been taken to develop and enhance thermoelectric properties of materials over the past several decades.Recently,twodimensional layered materials are making the promise for potential applications of thermoelectric devices because of the excellent physical and structural properties.Here,a comprehensive coverage about recent progresses in thermoelectric properties of typical two dimensional(2D)layered materials,including the theoretical and experimental results,is provided.Moreover,the potential applications of 2D thermoelectric materials are also involved.These results indicate that the development of 2D thermoelectric materials take a key role in the flexible electronic devices with thermoelectric technologies.

The Role of PZT in Flexible 1-3 Piezoelectric Composite for Smart Structure

Piezoelectric composite materials have the ability to perform both sensing and actuating functions.It is a viable candidate for smart actuation in underwater noise controlling with its higher coupling factor and lower acoustic impedance, when the piezoelectric rods are inclined to control its both the shear and the compression damping characteristics.In this paper, a simple physical model of 1-3 piezoelectric composite is advanced for maximizing the electromechanical coupling factor,the acoustic impedance,and the hydrophone figure of merit.

Electronic and thermoelectric properties of alkali metal-based perovskites CsYbF3 and RbYbF3

The electronic and thermoelectric properties of alkali metal-based fluorides CsYbF3 and RbYbF3 are studied by using Wien2k and BoltzTraP codes.The structural and thermodynamic stability of these materials are confirmed by tolerance factor(0.94 and 0.99 for RbYbF3 and CsYbF3)and negative formation energy.The optimized lattice constants and bulk moduli are consistent with the results reported in the literature.The reported band gap for RbYbF3 is 0.86 eV which decreases to 0.83 eV by the replacement of Cs with Rb.The electrical and thermal conductivities along with Seebeck coefficients decrease with temperature rising from 0 K to 800 K.The large values of thermoelectric parameters for positive chemical potentials show that the character is dominated by electrons.The studied materials have figures of merit 0.82 and 0.81 at room temperature respectively,for RbYbF3 and CsYbF3 and increase with temperature rising.Therefore,the materials under study may have potential application values in thermoelectric generators and refrigerators.

Thermoelectric properties of Sr_(0.61)Ba_(0.39)Nb_2O_(6-δ) ceramics in different oxygen-reduction conditions

The thermoelectric properties of Sr0.61Ba0.39Nb2O6-δ ceramics, reduced in different conditions, are investigated in the temperature range from 323 K to 1073 K. The electrical transport behaviors of the samples are dominated by the thermal-activated polaron hopping in the low temperature range, the Fermi glass behavior in the middle temperature range, and the Anderson localized behavior in the high temperature range. The thermal conductivity presents a plateau at high- temperatures, indicating a glass-like thermal conduction behavior. Both the thermoelectric power factor and the thermal conductivity increase with the increase of the degree of oxygen-reduction. Taking these two factors into account, the oxygen-reduction can still contribute to promoting the thermoelectric figure of merit. The highest ZT value is obtained to be -0.19 at 1073 K in the heaviest oxygen reduced sample.

Performance analysis of surface plasmon resonance sensor with high-order absentee layer

A surface plasmon resonance （SPR） sensor with a high-order absentee layer on the top of metallic film is proposed. The performance of the SPR sensor with NaCl, MgO, TiO2 or AlAs high-order absentee layer is analyzed theoretically. The results indicate that the sensitivity and the full width at half maximum of those SPR sensors decrease with the increasing of the order of absentee layer, but the variation of the figure of merit （FOM） depends on the refractive index of absentee layer. By improving the order of absentee layer with high-refractive-index, the FOM of the SPR sensor can be enhanced. The maximum value of FOM for the SPR sensor with high-order TiO2 （or AlAs） absentee layer is 1.059% （or 2.587%） higher than the one with one-order absentee layer. It is believed the proposed SPR sensor with high-order absentee layer will be helpful for developing the high-performance SPR sensors.

Simulation study of high voltage GaN MISFETs with embedded PN junction

In this paper,we propose a new enhanced GaN MISFET with embedded pn junction,i.e.,EJ-MISFET,to enhance the breakdown voltage.The embedded pn junction is used to improve the simulated device electric field distribution between gate and drain,thus achieving an enhanced breakdown voltage(BV).The proposed simulated device with LGD=15μm presents an excellent breakdown voltage of 2050 V,which is attributed to the improvement of the device electric field distribution between gate and drain.In addition,the ON-resistance(RON)of 15.37Ω·mm and Baliga's figure of merit of 2.734 GW·cm-2 are achieved in the optimized EJ-MISFET.Compared with the field plate conventional GaN MISFET(FPC-MISFET)without embedded pn junction structure,the proposed simulated device increases the BV by 32.54%and the Baliga's figure of merit is enhanced by 71.3%.

Impact of coupling geometry on thermoelectric properties of oligophenyl-base transistor

Thermal and electron transport through organic molecules attached to three-dimensional gold electrodes in two different configurations, namely para and meta with thiol-terminated junctions is studied theoretically in the linear response regime using Green＇s function formalism. We used thiol-terminated（–SH bond） benzene units and found a positive thermopower because the highest occupied molecular orbital（HOMO） is near the Fermi energy level. We investigated the influence of molecular length and molecular junction geometry on the thermoelectric properties. Our results show that the thermoelectric properties are highly sensitive to the coupling geometry and the molecular length. In addition, we observed that the interference effects and increasing molecular length can increase the thermoelectric efficiency of device in a specific configuration.