Fast Measurement of Dielectric Conductivity for Space Application by Surface Potential Decay Method

Surface potential decay of polymers for electrical insulation can help to determine the dark conductivity for spacecraft charging analysis. Due to the existence of radiation-induced conductivity, it decays fast in the first few hours after irradiation and exponentially slowly for the remaining time. The measurement of dark conductivity with this method usually takes the slow part and needs a couple of days. Integrating the Fowler formula into the deep dielectric charging equations, we obtain a new expression for the fast decay part. The experimental data of different materials, dose rates and temperatures are fitted by the new expression. Both the dark conductivity and the radiation-induced conductivity are derived and compared with other methods. The result shows a good estimation of dark conductivity and radiation-induced conductivity in high-resistivity polymers, which enables a fast measurement of dielectric conductivity within about 600 rain after irradiation.

Contribution of Surface Defects to the Interface Conductivity of SrTiO_3/LaAlO_3

Based on the first-principles method, the structural stability and the contribution of point defects such as O, Sr or Ti vacancies on two-dimensional electron gas of n- and p-type LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces are investigated. The results show that O vacancies at p-type interfaces have much lower formation energies, and Sr or Ti vacancies at n-type interfaces are more stable than the ones at p-type interfaces under O-rich conditions. The calculated densities of states indicate that O vacancies act as donors and give a significant compensation to hole carriers, resulting in insulating behavior at p-type interfaces. In contrast, Sr or Ti vacancies tend to trap electrons and behave as acceptors. Sr vacancies are the most stable defects at high oxygen partial pressures, and the Sr vacancies rather than Ti vacancies are responsible for the insulator-metal transition of n-type interface. The calculated results can be helpful to understand the tuned electronic properties of LaAlO3 /SrTiO3 heterointerfaces.

Surface plasmon polaritons induced reduced hacking

There is always need for secure transmission of information and simultaneously compact-size photonic circuits. This can be achieved if surface plasmon-polaritons(SPPs) are used as source of information, and the reduced hacking as the transmission phenomenon. In this article, an SPP-based reduced hacking scheme is presented at interface between atomic medium and metallic conductor. The SPP propagation is manipulated with conductivity of the metal. The delay or advance of the SPP is found to create nanosecond time gap which can be used for storing and sending the information safely. The reduced hacking is further modified with conductivity of the metal and the control parameters of the atomic medium.

Ab initio study of oxygen-vacancy LaAlO_3(001) surface

Density functional theory is used to investigate the surface structures and the energies of two possible terminated LaAlO3 （001） surfaces with oxygen vacancies, i.e. LaO- and AlO2-terminated surfaces. The large displacements of ions, deviated from their crystalline sites, can lead to the formation of the surface rumpling. From thermodynamics analysis, the AlO2-terminated surface with oxygen-vacancies is less stable than the LaO-terminated one. Some states in the gap lie under the Fermi level by about -1eV in the LaO-terminated surface with oxygen vacancies. For the AlO2- terminated oxygen-vacancy surface, some O 2p states move into the mid-gap region and become partially unoccupied. The two types of termination surfaces exhibit conduction related to oxygen vacancies. Our results can contribute to the application of LAO films to high dielectric constant materials.

Suppressing Effects of Ag Wetting Layer on Surface Conduction of Er Silicide/Si(001) Nanocontacts

Current-voltage electrical characteristics of Er silicide/Si（001） nanocontacts are measured in situ in a scanning tunneling microscopy system. Introduced as a new technique to suppress surface leakage conduction on Si（001）,a silver wetting layer is evaporated onto the substrate surface kept at room temperature with Er Si2 nanoislands already existing. The effects of the silver layer on the current-voltage characteristics of nanocontacts are discussed.Our experimental results reveal that the silver layer at coverage of 0.4–0.7 monolayer can suppress effectively the current contribution from the surface conduction path. After the surface leakage path of nanocontacts is obstructed, the ideality factor and the Schottky barrier height are determined using the thermionic emission theory, about 2 and 0.5 eV, respectively. The approach adopted here could shed light on the intrinsic transport properties of metal-semiconductor nanocontacts.

Carrier transport characteristics of H-terminated diamond films prepared using molecular hydrogen and atomic hydrogen

The H-terminated diamond films, which exhibit high surface conductivity, have been used in high-frequency and high-power electronic devices. In this paper, the surface conductive channel on specimens from the same diamond film was obtained by hydrogen plasma treatment and by heating under a hydrogen atmosphere, respectively, and the surface carrier transport characteristics of both samples were compared and evaluated. The results show that the carrier mobility and carrier density of the sample treated by hydrogen plasma are 15 cm^2·V^（-1）·s^（-1） and greater than 5 × 1012 cm^（-2）, respectively, and that the carrier mobilities measured at five different areas are similar. Compared to the hydrogen-plasma-treated specimen, the thermally hydrogenated specimen exhibits a lower surface conductivity, a carrier density one order of magnitude lower, and a carrier mobility that varies from 2 to 33 cm^2·V^（-1）·s^（-1）. The activated hydrogen atoms restructure the diamond surface, remove the scratches, and passivate the surface states via the etching effect during the hydrogen plasma treatment process, which maintains a higher carrier density and a more stable carrier mobility.

Effect of Chemical Doping and Ion Implantation on Cond uctivity of Poly(p-phenylene vinylene) Derivatives

The surface conductivity of poly [ 2-methoxy-5-（3＇-methyl） butoxy]-p-phenylene vinylene （PMOMBOPV） films doped with FeCl3 and H2SO4 by chemical method and implanted by N^＋ ions was studied and the comparison of environmental stability of conductive behavior was also investigated. The energy and dose of N^＋ ions were in the rang 15～35 keV and 3. 8×10^15～9. 6×10^16 ions/cm^2, respectively. The conductivity of PMOMBOPV film was enhanced remarkably with the increases of the energy and dose of N^＋ ions. For example, the conductivity of PMOMBOPV film was 3. 2×10^-2S/cm when ion implantation was performed with an energy of 35 keV at a dose of 9. 6 × 10^14 ions/cm^2 , which was almost seven orders of magnitude higher than that of film unimplanted. The environmental stability of conductive behavior for ionimplanted film was much better than that of chemical doped films. Moreover, the conductive activation energy of ion-implanted films was measured to be about 0.17 eV.

Measurement of Moisture Inside the Hermetic Package of Semiconductor Device

The mositure content inside the hermetic package of semiconductor device has been quantitatively measured by using in-site sensor technique and computer-aided-test system.The principle and apparatus for measurement are introduced.The results show good repeatability and consistency.This technology can be used as a standard test for controlling the moisture content within semiconductor device package.

Effect of carboxymethyl cellulose on dissolution kinetics of carboxymethyl cellulose-sodium carbonate two-component tablet

Sodium carbonate and carboxymethyl cellulose powders are compressed into two-component tablets with three mass ratios,97%:3%,95%:5% and 93%:7%.The dissolution tests for two-component tablets and reference pure sodium carbonate tablets are carried out at various temperatures.The dissolution process of each tablet is measured by electrical conductivity tracking method and the concentration of dissolved sodium carbonate is quanti fied with calibrated conductivity-concentration converting equation of sodium carbonate.The quanti fied dissolution data is fitted with both surface reaction model and diffusion layer model and the results clearly show that surface reaction model is suggested as the appropriate dissolution model for all measured tablets.Therefore,it is determined that carboxymethyl cellulose is a stable element to remain the dissolution mechanism of tablet unchanged.The dissolution rate constant quanti fied with surface reaction model presents that carboxymethyl cellulose-sodium carbonate two-component tablets obtain signi ficant higher dissolution rate constant than pure sodium carbonate tablet and higher proportion of carboxymethyl cellulose leads to apparent higher dissolution rate constant.The results prove for the usage of carboxymethyl cellulose in most practical applications at a relative low-level,the effect of carboxymethyl cellulose is effective and positive for two-component tablet to enhance the dissolution process and improve dissolution rate constant and this effect is speculated coming from its dynamic physical transforming process in water including dilation and conglutination.

Preparation, Antibacterial and Antistatic Properties of PP/Ag-Ms/CB Composites

Polypropylene（PP） composites that contain silver micro-particles（MILLION KILLER, denoted as Ag-Ms） and conductive carbon black（CB） have both antibacterial and antistatic properties. In the present study, the antibacterial and antistatic PP/Ag-Ms/CB composites were prepared by melt blending. The results showed that when the content was 0.8 wt%, Ag-Ms could be uniformly dispersed in the PP matrix and the mechanical properties of the composites remained stable. And the reduction percentages of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were more than 80% which showed the good antibacterial behavior. In addition, conductive carbon black had reinforcing and toughening effects on the mechanical properties of PP/Ag-Ms/CB composites. When the content of CB was beyond 30 wt%, the surface resistance of the composite was reduced to less than 108 Ω which showed a remarkable antistatic property. According to the different filling content of conductive carbon black, it can flexibly regulate the resistivity of PP, and the conductive effect is durable and stable. We thus can produce permanent antistatic materials.

Facile Approach to Conductive Diamond Submicro-rods Arrays and Their Field Emission Properties

The authors presented a facile approach to prepare highly-ordered sub-micrometer scaled cylindrical diamond arrays based on a chemical vapor deposition method,where the accurate control of the style of crystal seeds dispersion and the growth time are very crucial.The as-prepared diamond array showed good conductivity which was originated from the proper boron doping,and moreover,it exhibited good field emission property with low turn-on field and high emission current.Importantly,this approach can be easily applied to the preparation of various micro-patterned one-dimensional diamond arrays.

A DFT study of the CO adsorption and oxidation at ZnO surfaces and its implication for CO detection

Recently,ZnO-based gas sensors have been successfully fabricated and widely studied for their excellent sensitivity and selectivity,especially in CO detection.However,detailed explorations of their mechanisms are rather limited.Herein,aiming at clarifying the sensing mechanism,we carried out density functional theory(DFT)calculations to track down the CO adsorption and oxidation on the ZnO(1010)and(1120)surfaces.The calculated results show that the lattice O of ZnO(1010)is more reactive than that of ZnO(1120)for CO oxidation.From the calculated energetics and structures,the main reaction product on both surfaces can be determined to be CO2 rather than carbonate.Moreover,the surface conductivity changes during the adsorption and reaction processes of CO were also studied.For both ZnO(1010)and(1120),the conductivity would increase upon CO adsorption and decrease following CO oxidation,in consistence with the reported experimental results.This work can help understand the origins of ZnO-based sensors’performances and the development of novel gas sensors with higher sensitivity and selectivity.

Bi-Spectrum Scattering Model for Conducting Randomly Rough Surface

A scattering model is developed to predict the scattering coefficient of a conducting randomly rough surface by analyzing the randomly rough surface in the spectral domain using the bi-spectrum method. For common randomly rough surfaces without obvious two-scale characteristics, a scale-compression filter can divide the auto-correlation spectrum into two parts with different correlation lengths. The Kirchhoff approximation and the small perturbation method are used to obtain the surface field, then a bistatic scattering model, the bi-spectrum model (BSM), is used to derive an explicit expression from the surface field. Examples using the integral equation model (IEM), finite difference of the time domain (FDTD) method, and BSM show that the BSM accuracy is acceptable and its range of validity is similar to IEM. BSM can also be extended to a scattering model for dielectric randomly rough surfaces.