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The metallic bipolar plates of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) consist of a shielded slot plate and a center plate. Among these, the shielded slot plate (the current collector) supports the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) mechanically. The anode gases and the cathode gases pass through a space between individual slot patterns. The catalysts are located in the upper part of the shielded slot plate. Therefore, triple phase boundaries can be generated, and carbonate ions can act as the mobile charge carrier for the MCFC. Due to these properties, the shielded slot plate should have a sheared corrugated pattern. In order to form a sheared corrugated pattern, a slitting process is required during the first stage of the forming process. However, it is not possible to obtain a high aspect ratio in a sheared corrugated trapezoidal pattern due to the plastic strain concentration on the upper round region of the pattern. Therefore additional forming processes are required to form a high aspect‐ratio pattern. For example, the two additional processes such as a “stretching process using a preform” and a “final forming process” can be done subsequent to the first slitting process. Before the final forming process, a stretching process, which forms an intermediate shape (perform), can make the strain distribution more uniform. Hence, various examples of performs were evaluated by using FEM simulation employing simplified boundary conditions. Finally, experiments involving microscopic and macroscopic observations using the proposed shape of a preform were conducted to characterize the formability of the sheared corrugated pattern. It was found that the numerical simulations are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Implementation of Cu interconnects into Silicon Integrated Circuits (IC’s) has been instrumental in the continuing improvement of IC device performance. Copper as a well known Gate Oxide Integrity (GOI) killer [1, 2] requires extensive protocols to minimize the possibility of cross contamination. Despite such protocols the risk for cross contamination exists, and consequently there is the need for in‐line Cu cross‐contamination detection metrology. Preferably the metrology will be non‐destructive, fast, and capable of mapping on product wafers. Up to now the most common approaches for monitoring Cu contamination in IC fabrication lines either measure Cu in the bulk Si, which is not applicable to Cu cross‐contamination monitoring because Back‐End‐of‐the‐Line thermal budgets restrict the ability to diffuse the surface Cu into the bulk Si; or the techniques are not optimal for in‐line monitoring due to their destructive, time‐consuming, or costly nature. In this work we demonstrate for the first time the application of the ac‐Surface Photo Voltage (ac‐SPV) surface lifetime approach [3] to in‐line, full wafer coverage mapping of low level (

We discuss the possibility of dropping masses of kaons in dense matter. Kaon production in heavy ion collisions provide a unique environment where we can test the kaonic properties in dense system. We found that the current experiment is consistent with reduced kaon masses. This supports the idea that reduced kaon mass can soften the neutron star equation of states, reducing the maximum mass of neutron star.