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Silver sulfide in monoclinic phase (α-Ag2S) has attracted significant attention owing to its metal-like ductility and promising thermoelectric properties near room temperature. However, first-principles studies on this material by density functional theory calculations have been challenging as both the symmetry and atomic structure of α-Ag2S predicted from such calculations are inconsistent with experimental findings. Here, we propose that a dynamical approach is imperative for correctly describing the structure of α-Ag2S. The approach is based on a combination of ab initio molecular dynamics simulation and deliberately chosen density functional considering both proper treatment of the van der Waals interaction and on-site Coulomb interaction. The obtained lattice parameters and atomic site occupations of α-Ag2S are in good agreement with experimental data. A stable phonon spectrum at room temperature can be obtained from this structure, which also yields a bandgap in accord with experimental measurements. The dynamical approach thus paves the way for studying this important ductile semiconductor in not only thermoelectric but also optoelectronic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defect formation energy governs the thermodynamics of a specific dopant within the host material. Here, we introduce an approach to decomposing the defect formation energy into intuitive components, each representing a distinct physical step in the process of defect formation. Through this approach, we illustrate that adhering solely to conventional criteria, such as ionic radius, may overlook potential dopants. Taking β-FeSi2, a promising high-temperature thermoelectric material, as an example, we demonstrate that non-intuitive chemical interactions can play a more significant role in lowering the defect formation energy. As a result, Ir on Fe site is found to exhibit unexpected low defect formation energy among the 26 candidate dopants and has been employed in experiment to enhance the thermoelectric figure of merit of n-type β-FeSi2. The understanding gained from this work could be of general interest for addressing the doping limit issue for other potential thermoelectric materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient Ohmic contacts are highly preferred in metal/semiconductor (M/S) junctions to achieve the exceptional intrinsic characteristics of the two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor channel. However, due to the strong Fermi level pinning effect, it is difficult to predict the Schottky barrier heights of heterojunctions, especially those between the M/S electrode and the channel region (i.e., the lateral Schottky barrier heights), which severely hampers the rational design of Ohmic contact. Herein, by using first-principles quantum transport simulations, it is found that the difference between the intrinsic band edges of pristine MoSi2N4 and the work function of pristine MXenes plays a major role in the Schottky barrier heights of vertical contacts. Furthermore, phase diagrams of Schottky barrier heights dependent on metal work function are established, which can facilitate the screening of Ohmic contacts. By selecting nine MXene/MoSi2N4 heterojunctions as demos, it is found that W3N2(OH)2 and V2C(OH)2 form n-type Ohmic contacts to MoSi2N4 in both vertical and lateral directions with 100% tunneling probabilities due to their ultralow work functions, while p-type Ohmic contacts are formed between MoSi2N4 and V3C2O2, V4C3O2, or Ti4N3O2 due to their relatively large work functions. Our findings not only demonstrate great potential of fabricating coherent dopant-free all-2D devices based on MXene/MoSi2N4 contacts but also more importantly deliver a general strategy for fast screening efficient Ohmic contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulk black phosphorus has two optical phonon modes labeled as Ag ² and B2u, respectively, that are nearly degenerate in frequency. However, density functional theory calculations using local or semilocal functionals cannot reproduce this degeneracy. Here, we propose a hybrid functional approach aided by van der Waals (vdW) force fields, which can accurately describe the lattice dynamic and electronic properties of both bulk and few-layer black phosphorus (phosphorene). Using this approach we show that in bilayer phosphorene, the two Raman modes derived from the B2u and Ag ² modes could exhibit strong resonance as a result of the accidental degeneracy so that both modes could be observed in Raman experiment. Without the mode degeneracy, however, the Raman intensity of the B2u-derived mode would be too weak to be observed. We further show that the accidental degeneracy is correlated to the applied strain, which enables Raman spectroscopy to be a powerful tool for characterizing built-in strains in 2D materials, e.g., due to the interaction with substrates, which has emerged as an important issue in vdW epitaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study developed an Ohmic contact formation method for a ZnO:Al (AZO) transparent conductive layer on p-GaN films involving the introduction of an indium oxynitride (InON) nanodot interlayer. An antisurfactant pretreatment was used to grow InON nanodots on p-GaN films in a RF magnetron sputtering system. A low specific contact resistance of 1.12? ×?10-4 Ω cm2 was achieved for a sample annealed at 500?°C for 30?s in nitrogen ambient and embedded with an InON nanodot interlayer with a nanodot density of 6.5?×?108?cm-2. By contrast, a sample annealed in oxygen ambient exhibited non-Ohmic behavior. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy results showed that the oxygen vacancy (Vo) in the InON nanodots played a crucial role in carrier transport. The fitting I-V characteristic curves indicated that the hopping mechanism with an activation energy of 31.6?meV and trap site spacing of 1.1?nm dominated the carrier transport in the AZO/InON nanodot/p-GaN sample. Because of the high density of donor-like oxygen vacancy defects at the InON nanodot/p-GaN interface, positive charges from the underlying p-GaN films were absorbed at the interface. This led to positive charge accumulation, creating a narrow depletion layer; therefore, carriers from the AZO layer passed through InON nanodots by hopping transport, and subsequently tunneling through the interface to enter the p-GaN films. Thus, AZO Ohmic contact can be formed on p-GaN films by embedding an InON nanodot interlayer to facilitate trap-assisted tunneling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SrTiO3 (STO) is attracting lots of research interests due to the rich physics and properties presented at its surfaces and the interfaces of STO with other transition metal oxides. Based on density functional theory methods, we have investigated the influence of hydrogen (H) atoms adsorption at the (001) surface of STO on the geometrical and electronic structures of the surface. We find that H adsorption induces significant antiferrodistortive (AFD) distortion of TiO6 octahedra at the surface. By calculating H adsorption energy, we show that AFD distortion makes a significant contribution to the stability of H adsorbed STO surfaces. The calculated energy position of O-H bond states by hybrid functional method is 9.9 eV below Fermi level, in agreement with experimental value of 10 eV. The electrons donated by H atoms first occupy several dxy bands and then start to fill in degenerate dyz/dxz bands, indicating the metallization of initially insulating STO. The band splitting and occupy sequence calculated here are consistent with recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments. Our results reveal that H adsorption changes the atomic and electronic structures and thus induce fascinating properties at the surface of STO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SrTiO3 (STO) is attracting lots of research interests due to the rich physics and properties presented at its surfaces and the interfaces of STO with other transition metal oxides. Based on density functional theory methods, we have investigated the influence of hydrogen (H) atoms adsorption at the (001) surface of STO on the geometrical and electronic structures of the surface. We find that H adsorption induces significant antiferrodistortive (AFD) distortion of TiO6 octahedra at the surface. By calculating H adsorption energy, we show that AFD distortion makes a significant contribution to the stability of H adsorbed STO surfaces. The calculated energy position of O-H bond states by hybrid functional method is 9.9 eV below Fermi level, in agreement with experimental value of 10 eV. The electrons donated by H atoms first occupy several dxy bands and then start to fill in degenerate dyz/dxz bands, indicating the metallization of initially insulating STO. The band splitting and occupy sequence calculated here are consistent with recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments. Our results reveal that H adsorption changes the atomic and electronic structures and thus induce fascinating properties at the surface of STO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planar anisotropy carbonyl-iron (PACI) particles were prepared from 3 μm diameter sphere-shaped carbonyl-iron materials by high-energy ball milling technique. And the oriented planar anisotropy carbonyl-iron (OPACI) composite was fabricated using rotational orientation method. The OPACI composite possessed much higher real and imaginary permeability and relatively lower real and imaginary permittivity than other absorbers in 1-18 GHz frequency range. The susceptibility versus frequency curves have been fitted quite well using Kittel equation and Debye equation. Compared with natural resonance, the wall displacement susceptibility plays a dominating role for the high real and imaginary permeability. For OPACI composite, the minimum reflection loss (RL) can be as low as -44 dB at 1.8 GHz with the thickness of 2.3 mm, -7.3 dB at 1 GHz, -20 dB at 2 GHz, -5.4 dB at 8 GHz, and the bandwidth can reach 1.9 GHz for the good performance (RL<-10 dB) in the frequency ranges of 1.2-3.1 GHz, indicating a promising absorber for low-frequency broadband application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the electronic and magnetic properties of hole doped KTaO3/PbTiO3 interface using density functional theory methods. Ferromagnetic-nonmagnetic phase transition and metal-insulator phase transition occur simultaneously at the interface with ferroelectric polarization reversal. Furthermore, these two transitions are coupled with each other because hole doping with large concentration of holes gives rise to ferromagnetism. The interfacial magnetization, which is proportional to hole concentration at the interface, can be tuned by ferroelectric polarization, leading to strong intrinsic magnetoelectric effect at the interface of originally nonmagnetic KTaO3 and PbTiO3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the electronic and magnetic properties of hole doped KTaO3/PbTiO3 interface using density functional theory methods. Ferromagnetic-nonmagnetic phase transition and metal-insulator phase transition occur simultaneously at the interface with ferroelectric polarization reversal. Furthermore, these two transitions are coupled with each other because hole doping with large concentration of holes gives rise to ferromagnetism. The interfacial magnetization, which is proportional to hole concentration at the interface, can be tuned by ferroelectric polarization, leading to strong intrinsic magnetoelectric effect at the interface of originally nonmagnetic KTaO3 and PbTiO3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In magnetic recording media, the grains or clusters reverse their magnetization over a range of reversal field, resulting in a switching field distribution. In order to achieve high areal densities, it is desirable to understand and minimize such a distribution. Clusters of grains which contain stacking faults (SF) or fcc phase have lower anisotropy, an order lower than those without them. It is believed that such low anisotropy regions reverse their magnetization at a much lower reversal field than the rest of the material with a larger anisotropy. Such clusters/grains cause recording performance deterioration, such as adjacent track erasure and dc noise. Therefore, the observation of clusters that reverse at very low reversal fields (nucleation sites, NS) could give information on the noise and the adjacent track erasure. Potentially, the observed clusters could also provide information on the SF. In this paper, we study the reversal of nucleation sites in granular perpendicular media based on a magnetic force microscope (MFM) methodology and validate the observations with high resolution cross-section transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) measurements. Samples, wherein a high anisotropy CoPt layer was introduced to control the NS or SF in a systematic way, were evaluated by MFM, TEM, and magnetometry. The magnetic properties indicated that the thickness of the CoPt layer results in an increase of nucleation sites. TEM measurements indicated a correlation between the thickness of CoPt layer and the stacking fault density. A clear correlation was also observed between the MFM results, TEM observations, and the coercivity and nucleation field of the samples, validating the effectiveness of the proposed method in evaluating the nucleation sites which potentially arise from stacking faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Raman spectra of several locally stable structures of the graphene oxide (GO) have been simulated by ab initio calculations. Compared to graphite, the G band of GO is broadened and blueshifted due to the emergence of a series of new Raman peaks. The Raman intensities and positions of the D and G bands depend sensitively on the local atomic configurations. In addition to the normal epoxy and hydroxyl groups, other oxidation groups such as epoxy pairs are also studied. Epoxy pairs induce large blueshift of G band with respect to that of the graphite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the high-frequency damping properties of the ferromagnetic film for the electromagnetic shielding applications, FeCoB films with the thickness of 200 nm were fabricated by the rf magnetron sputtering and subsequently annealed with a static in-plane magnetic field of 2000 Oe under a series of temperatures. The annealed films exhibit excellent soft magnetic and microwave loss properties. The local resonance from the multiphase microstructure and two-magnon scattering at anisotropy inhomogeneities make an additional contribution to the extrinsic damping of the films. As a result, the film annealed at 450 °C achieves a high full width at half maximum Δf up to 6 GHz for the imaginary part of the frequency-dependent permeability. These films could be novel candidates for the electromagnetic shielding applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using six kinds of lattice types (4×4, 5×5, and 6×6 square lattices; 3×3×3 cubic lattice; and 2+3+4+3+2 and 4+5+6+5+4 triangular lattices), three different size alphabets (HP, HNUP, and 20 letters), and two energy functions, the designability of protein structures is calculated based on random samplings of structures and common biased sampling (CBS) of protein sequence space. Then three quantities stability (average energy gap), foldability, and partnum of the structure, which are defined to elucidate the designability, are calculated. The authors find that whatever the type of lattice, alphabet size, and energy function used, there will be an emergence of highly designable (preferred) structure. For all cases considered, the local interactions reduce degeneracy and make the designability higher. The designability is sensitive to the lattice type, alphabet size, energy function, and sampling method of the sequence space. Compared with the random sampling method, both the CBS and the Metropolis Monte Carlo sampling methods make the designability higher. The correlation coefficients between the designability, stability, and foldability are mostly larger than 0.5, which demonstrate that they have strong correlation relationship. But the correlation relationship between the designability and the partnum is not so strong because the partnum is independent of the energy. The results are useful in practical use of the designability principle, such as to predict the protein tertiary structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, magnetic and structural properties of near-equiatomic CoPt thin films, which exhibited a high coercivity in the film-normal direction-suitable for perpendicular magnetic recording media applications-are reported. The films exhibited a larger coercivity of about 6.5 kOe at 8 nm. The coercivity showed a monotonous decrease as the film thickness was increased. The transmission electron microscopy images indicated that the as fabricated CoPt film generally consists of a stack of magnetically hard hexagonal-close-packed phase, followed by stacking faults and face-centred-cubic phase. The thickness dependent magnetic properties are explained on the basis of exchange-coupled composite media. Epitaxial growth on Ru layers is a possible factor leading to the unusual observation of magnetically hard hcp-phase at high concentrations of Pt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interfacial and annealing effects on magnetic properties of CoFeB thin films with Ta and Ru interfaces were investigated. It is found that the thickness of magnetically dead layer of as-deposited CoFeB film strongly depends on the interfaces. After annealing above 150 °C boron atoms seem to diffuse out of CoFeB film and the effective saturation magnetization of CoFeB film increases with annealing temperature and annealing time. In addition, CoFeB film with Ta interfaces remains amorphous while that with Ru interfaces starts to crystallize during the annealing above 250 °C. Furthermore, the annealing-induced anisotropy field of CoFeB film can be modified by using different seed and capping materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomically flat superconducting NbN thin films have been grown on the SrTiO3 (111) substrate by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy for the first time. Using scanning tunneling microscopy and in situ reflection high energy electron diffraction, we investigate the surface structure of epitaxial NbN thin films on the SrTiO3 (111) substrate. The orientation (1011¯)NbN//(1122¯)STO is dominating at substrate temperature above 700 °C. The quality of the as-grown films can be further improved by annealing at elevated temperatures. The homogeneous spatial distribution of superconducting gaps and magnetic vortices further demonstrates the high quality of the NbN films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fine-structure splittings, the magnetic specific heat and susceptibility, and the Jahn–Teller couplings are performed for Fe2+ ions in ZnS by taking into account the cubic crystal–field interaction, the spin–orbit coupling associated with not only the central-metal ions but also the ligands, and the Jahn–Teller coupling of the orbital manifolds of Fe2+ ions with overtones of E and T2 symmetry phonons of ligands. The results are in good agreement with the experimental observations. Some theoretical Jahn–Teller splittings presented are in need of further theoretical and experimental studies. A significant charge transfer in ZnS:Fe2+ is found. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defect formation energy governs the thermodynamics of a specific dopant within the host material. Here, we introduce an approach to decomposing the defect formation energy into intuitive components, each representing a distinct physical step in the process of defect formation. Through this approach, we illustrate that adhering solely to conventional criteria, such as ionic radius, may overlook potential dopants. Taking β-FeSi2, a promising high-temperature thermoelectric material, as an example, we demonstrate that non-intuitive chemical interactions can play a more significant role in lowering the defect formation energy. As a result, Ir on Fe site is found to exhibit unexpected low defect formation energy among the 26 candidate dopants and has been employed in experiment to enhance the thermoelectric figure of merit of n-type β-FeSi2. The understanding gained from this work could be of general interest for addressing the doping limit issue for other potential thermoelectric materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have developed a high-performance graphene electrothermal actuator (ETA). The fabrication method is easy, fast, environmentally friendly, and suitable for preparing both large-size and miniature graphene ETAs. When applied with the driving voltage of 65 V, the graphene ETA achieves a large bending angle of 270° with a fast response of 8 s and the recovery process costs 19 s. The large bending deformation is reversible and can be precisely controlled by the driving voltage. A simple robotic hand prepared by using a single graphene ETA can hold the object, which is more than ten times the weight of itself. By virtue of its large-strain, fast response, and easy-to-manufacture, we believe that the graphene ETA has tremendous potential in extensive applications involving biomimetic robotics, artificial muscles, switches, and microsensors in both macroscopic and microscopic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing thermoacoustic devices are based on a complicated fabrication process, which extremely limits their practical applications. In this paper, we realize a flexible graphene sound device based on laser reduced graphene. The graphene oxide is converted into graphene by a 450 nm laser with a one-step process. The performance of the graphene sound device is affected by the laser power, the scanning speed, and the substrate thickness. The experimental results match well with the theoretical results. Besides, the sound device has the advantages of excellent flexibility, broad frequency spectrum (0-40 kHz), fast fabrication process, and low cost, which will become a promising alternative in the flexible electronic systems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a flexible, wearable, and functional graphene-textile composite is demonstrated. Laser scribing technology is applied to fabricate a graphene film. The thin layer of polydimethylsiloxane is covered on the surface of the graphene-textile film evenly, which would improve the abrasive resistance of the film, enhance the ability to adapt to environmental changes, and extend the service life, while maintaining the device's excellent flexibility and comfort. The graphene-textile composite can achieve constant temperature heating by controlling the input voltage, detect the human movement, and perceive the human pulse signal. The composite presents great commercial prospects and a large value in the medical, daily wear, and other areas that are closely related to human lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous investigations, the authors have examined the adsorption of albumin, immunoglobulin, and fibrinogen to a series of acrylate polymers with different backbone and side-group flexibility. The authors showed that protein adsorption to acrylates with high flexibility, such as poly(lauryl methacrylate) (PLMA), tends to preserve native conformation. In the present study, the authors have continued this work by examining the conformational changes that occur during the binding of complement factor 3 (C3) and coagulation factor XII (FXII). Native C3 adsorbed readily to all solid surfaces tested, including a series of acrylate surfaces of varying backbone flexibility. However, a monoclonal antibody recognizing a “hidden” epitope of C3 (only exposed during C3 activation or denaturation) bound to the C3 on the rigid acrylate surfaces or on polystyrene (also rigid), but not to C3 on the flexible PLMA, indicating that varying degrees of conformational change had occurred with binding to different surfaces. Similarly, FXII was activated only on the rigid poly(butyl methacrylate) surface, as assessed by the formation of FXIIa-antithrombin (AT) complexes; in contrast, it remained in its native form on the flexible PLMA surface. The authors also found that water wettability hysteresis, defined as the difference between the advancing and receding contact angles, was highest for the PLMA surface, indicating that a dynamic change in the interface polymer structure may help protect the adsorbed protein from conformational changes and denaturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, the effects of hot carriers on amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O thin film transistors (TFTs) of different geometric structures were investigated. Three types of via-contact structure TFTs are used in this experiment, defined as source-drain large (SD large), source-drain normal (SD normal), and fork-shaped. After hot-carrier stress, the I-V curves of both SD normal and fork-shaped TFTs with U-shaped drains show a threshold voltage shift along with the parasitic transistor characteristic in the reverse-operation mode. Asymmetrical degradation is exhibited in an ISE-TCAD simulation of the electric field, which shows the distribution of hot electrons injected into the etch-stop layer below the redundant drain electrode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A farfield random array is implemented for noise source identification. Microphone positions are optimized, with the aid of the simulated annealing method. A two-stage localization and separation algorithm is devised on the basis of the equivalent source method (ESM). In the localization stage, the active source regions are located by using the delay-and-sum method, followed by a parametric localization procedure, stochastic maximum likelihood algorithm. Multidimensional nonlinear optimization is exploited in the bearing estimation process. In the separation stage, source amplitudes are extracted by formulating an inverse problem based on the preceding source bearings identified. The number of equivalent sources is selected to be less than that of microphones to render an overdetermined problem which can be readily solved by using the Tikhonov regularization. Alternatively, the separation problem can be augmented into an underdetermined problem which can be solved by using the compressive sensing technique. Traditionally, farfield arrays only give a relative distribution of source field. However, by using the proposed method, the acoustic variables including sound pressure, particle velocity, sound intensity, and sound power can be calculated based on ESM. Numerical and experimental results of several objective and subjective tests are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large differences of magnetic coercivity (HC), exchange coupling field (HE), and tunneling magnetoresistance ratio (TMR) in magnetic tunnel junctions with different coupled free layers are discussed. We demonstrate that the magnetization behavior of the free layer is not only dominated by the interfacial barrier layer but also affected largely by the magnetic or non-magnetic coupled free layers. All these parameters are sensitively controlled by the magnetic nanostructure, which can be tuned also by the magnetic annealing process. The optimized sensors exhibit a large field sensitivity of up to 261%/mT in the region of the reversal synthetic ferrimagnet at the pinned layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the extension of a wave and finite element (WFE) method to the prediction of noise transmission through, and radiation from, infinite panels. The WFE method starts with a conventional finite element model of a small segment of the panel. For a given frequency, the mass and stiffness matrices of the segment are used to form the structural dynamic stiffness matrix. The acoustic responses of the fluids surrounding the structure are modelled analytically. The dynamic stiffness matrix of the segment is post-processed using periodic structure theory, and coupled with those of the fluids. The total dynamic stiffness matrix is used to obtain the response of the medium to an incident acoustic pressure. Excitation of the structure by oblique plane waves and a diffuse sound field are considered. The response to structural excitation and the consequent radiation are determined. Since the size of the WFE model is small, computational times are small. Various example applications are presented to illustrate the approach, including a thin isotropic panel, an antisymmetric, cross-ply sandwich panel and a symmetric panel with an orthotropic core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric load forecasting, as a crucial way to tackle the energy tasks, helps to provide correct guidance and reduce energy consumption for an electric system. This paper introduces a novel forecasting method that combines wavelet transform (WT) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) with an extreme learning machine, phase space reconstruction (PSR) and a least squares support vector machine. Because the electric data that are easily interfered by many factors are unstable, directly adopting the data containing noise will affect the forecasting performance. Prior to the electric forecasting conduct, WT is adopted to reduce the noise. Because only a single method is not able to suit for all kinds of data, three individual models with a strong nonlinear learning capability are applied to deal with the whole time series that have complex nonlinear characteristics. They are used to obtain intermediate forecasting results. Besides, the C-C method is utilized to acquire the optimal delay time and embedding dimension of the PSR. PSO is employed to attain the best proportion of each single method of the hybrid model. By multiplying the corresponding optimal weights by all the three forecasting results and then adding them up, the final result of the hybrid method can be attained. In order to assess the accuracy and applicability of the proposed hybrid method, half-hourly electric load data of New South Wales and Victoria of Australia are used as case studies. The experiment results show that the hybrid method outperforms the individual methods and is appropriate for different kinds of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) is a kind of enterococci, which shows resistance toward antibiotics. It may last for a long period of time and meanwhile transmit the vancomycin-resistant gene (vanA) to other bacteria. In the United States alone, the resistant rate of Enterococcus to vancomycin increased from a mere 0.3% to a whopping 40% in the past two decades. Therefore, timely diagnosis and control of VRE is of great need so that clinicians can prevent patients from becoming infected. Nowadays, VRE is diagnosed by antibiotic susceptibility test or molecular diagnosis assays such as matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry and polymerase chain reaction. However, the existing diagnostic methods have some drawbacks, for example, time-consumption, no genetic information, or high false-positive rate. This study reports an integrated microfluidic system, which can automatically identify the vancomycin resistant gene (vanA) from live bacteria in clinical samples. A new approach using ethidium monoazide, nucleic acid specific probes, low temperature chemical lysis, and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) has been presented. The experimental results showed that the developed system can detect the vanA gene from live Enterococcus in joint fluid samples with detection limit as low as 10 colony formation units/reaction within 1 h. This is the first time that an integrated microfluidic system has been demonstrated to detect vanA gene from live bacteria by using the LAMP approach. With its high sensitivity and accuracy, the proposed system may be useful to monitor antibiotic resistance genes from live bacteria in clinical samples in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A silicon junctionless (JL) trench gate-all-around (GAA) nanowire field-effect transistor with an atomically thin channel thickness of 0.65 nm and a very thin oxide with a thickness of 12.3 nm are demonstrated experimentally. Experimental results indicate that this device with a channel thickness of 0.65 nm achieves a sub-threshold slope (SS) of 43 mV/decade, which is the best yet achieved by any reported JLFET. Owing to the atomically thin channel, this device has an extremely high ION/IOFF current ratio of >108. Furthermore, the atomically thin channel GAA JLFET exhibits a low threshold voltage (VTH) variation and negligible drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL<0.4mV/V). The reported device with the thinnest channel has a very high band-toband tunneling generation rate of 1.2 × 1024/cm2 s when the channel is scaled down to <1 nm, as confirmed by using the 3D quantum transport simulation tool. This quantum tunneling provides a means of achieving an SS value much lower than its fundamental physical limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work demonstrates the generation of abnormal capacitance for amorphous indium-galliumzinc oxide (a-InGaZnO4) thin-film transistors after being subjected to negative bias stress under ultraviolet light illumination stress (NBIS). At various operation frequencies, there are two-step tendencies in their capacitance-voltage curves. When gate bias is smaller than threshold voltage, the measured capacitance is dominated by interface defects. Conversely, the measured capacitance is dominated by oxygen vacancies when gate bias is larger than threshold voltage. The impact of these interface defects and oxygen vacancies on capacitance-voltage curves is verified by TCAD simulation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one invigorated filed of spin caloritronics combining with spin, charge and heat current, the magneto-Seebeck effect has been experimentally and theoretically studied in spin tunneling thin films and nanostructures. Here we analyze the tunnel magneto-Seebeck effect in magnetic tunnel junctions with perpendicular anisotropy (p-MTJs) under various measurement temperatures. The large tunnel magneto-Seebeck (TMS) ratio up to −838.8% for p-MTJs at 200 K is achieved, with Seebeck coefficient S in parallel and antiparallel states of 6.7 mV/K and 62.9 mV/K, respectively. The temperature dependence of the tunnel magneto-Seebeck can be attributed to the contributing transmission function and electron states at the interface between CoFeB electrode and MgO barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to excellent photoelectric property of single layer molybdenum disulphide (SL MoS2), different kinds of photodetectors based on SL MoS2 have been reported. Although high photosensitivity was obtained, the rising and decay time of photocurrent were relatively large (>300 ms) when the current reached up to lA order. In this paper, we demonstrate a high sensitive and fast barrier type photodetector based on Pd-SL MoS2 Schottky junction. The photosensitivity can reach up to 0.88 A/W at 425 nm laser. Compared with SL MoS2 photodetectors based on ohmic contact, our device shows much shorter rising and a decay time of 24.7 ms and 24.5 ms, respectively, exhibiting the merit of barrier type photodetector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of epitaxial yttrium iron garnet (YIG) thin film on high frequency on-chip spiral inductors is investigated. The YIG thin film with the thickness of 3.6 µm was grown on GGG(111) substrate using the liquid phase method, which exhibits relatively high saturation magnetization 4πMs of 1615 Oe close to the bulk value of 1750 Oe and low initial coercivity Hc of 0.5 Oe that minimizes the hysteretic losses. Subsequently, the spiral inductors were directly fabricated on the YIG/GGG(111) substrate. The results show substantial improvement in the optimum operating frequency and self-resonance frequency of the on-chip spiral inductor with the YIG thin film with an increase of 50% up to ~7.5 GHz and 14.2 GHz, respectively, implying that on-chip spiral inductors with the YIG thin film can be applied to much higher frequency RF circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a flexible heater based on anisotropic laser-reduced graphene oxide (LRGO) is established. Attributing to precision and shape design of laser processing and excellent adhesion of graphene oxide, the LRGO-based heater can be microminiaturized with custom patterns and integrated on various substrates, which is what the existing film heaters cannot do and can be widely used for wearable heating devices, flexural warming systems in medical science, and light deicing equipment and heaters for aero vehicles. The electrothermal performance of the anisotropic LRGO is investigated systematically through a series of experiments including Raman spectra, SEM, white-light interferograms, IV testing, and infrared thermography. The electrothermal performance of the LRGO with the parallel aligned direction is better than the LRGO with the vertical aligned direction. The electrothermal performance can be improved greatly through radiating repeatedly. The saturated temperature and heating rate of the LRGO radiated twice are almost double that of the LRGO radiated once. Radiating thrice damages the material and structure, reducing electrothermal performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-resolution and high-linearity surface acoustic wave (SAW) temperature sensor, consisting of a SAW resonator device fabricated on novel X-cut LiNbO3/SiO2/Si piezoelectric substrate and a resonance frequency readout chip using standard 180 nm CMOS technology, is presented for the first time. High temperature performance substrate LiNbO3/SiO2/Si is prepared mainly by ion implantation and wafer bonding at first. RF SAW device with resonance frequency near 900 MHz is designed and fabricated on the substrate. Traditional probe method using network analyzer and the readout chip method are both implemented to characterize the fabricated SAW device. Further measurement of temperature using resonance frequency shift of SAW device demonstrates the feasibility of the combined system as a portable SAW temperature sensor. The obtained frequency-temperature relation of the fabricated device is almost linear. The frequency resolution of the readout chip is 733 Hz and the corresponding temperature accuracy is 0.016 °C. Resolution of the sensor in this work is superior to most of the commercial temperature measurement sensors. Theory analysis and finite element simulation are also presented to prove the mechanism and validity of using SAW device for temperature detection applications. We conclude that the high-linearity frequency-temperature relation is achieved by the offset between high-order coefficients of LiNbO3 and SiO2 with opposite signs. This work offers the possibility of temperature measuring in ultra-high precision sensing and control applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molybdenum disulfide is a promising channel material for field effect transistors (FETs). In this paper, monolayer MoS2 grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) was used to fabricate top-gate FETs through standard optical lithography. During the fabrication process, charged impurities and interface states are introduced, and the photoresist is not removed cleanly, which both limit the carrier mobility and the source-drain current. We apply a SiO2 protective layer, which is deposited on the surface of MoS2, in order to avoid the MoS2 directly contacting with the photoresist and the ambient environment. Therefore, the contact property between the MoS2 and the electrodes is improved, and the Coulomb scattering caused by the charged impurities and the interface states is reduced. Comparing MoS2 FETs with and without a SiO2 protective layer, the SiO2 protective layer is found to enhance the characteristics of the MoS2 FETs, including transfer and output characteristics. A high mobility of ~42.3 cm2/V s is achieved, which is very large among the top-gate CVD-grown monolayer MoS2 FETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Superlattice [Co90Fe10(0.21)/Pt(0.23)]n (unit in nm) with the repeat cycles n ranging from 3 to 30 were studied. Both effective anisotropy (Keff) and PMA constant (KU) reached a maximum at n=8. When the 3 nm Pt underlayer was deposited at low energy condition, the Keff and KU of (CoFe/Pt)8 are 4.0 and 6.1 Merg/cc, respectively. On the other hand, the Keff and KU increased to 6.8 and 9.7 Merg/cc, respectively, when the Pt underlayer deposited at high energy condition. As the n increases, the surface roughness monotonously increases and d111 inside the superlattice layers increase and relax from bottom to top part. The interface roughness and relaxation in superlattice reduce the PMA considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy, especially oil, plays a special and irreplaceable role in the economic development, modern civilization, and social progress. With the rapid growth over the past few decades, China has gradually become a big power in oil consumption. In order to solve the contradiction between supply and demand as well as minimize social costs, it is necessary and useful to forecast the trend of China's oil consumption. In addition, reasonable and effective oil production and scheduling through forecasting progress also makes an important impact on the health economic development, social stability, and sustainable development. However, it is a challenging task to carry out such a forecasting because oil consumption is influenced by a number of factors, such as technology development, economic level, government policy, natural disaster, unexpected politic events, and so on. Therefore, it is difficult to forecast such a complex system with a single traditional model. This paper proposes an improved hybrid method known as GGNN, which combined the grey models, the back propagation (BP) neural network, and the genetic algorithm (GA) to take the advantages of linear model, nonlinear model, and swarm intelligence optimization, respectively. GM (1, 1) and improved grey models including an unbiased GM (1, 1), initial correction GM (1, 1), p value GM (1, 1), and background value GM (1, 1)are applied to capture the linear information. BP is widely used due to its nonlinear mapping capability; in this paper, it is used to capture the nonlinear information. Moreover, the GA is also applied to obtain the optimum weights and thresholds of the GGNN which is made up of all grey models and BP neural model. The superiority of this proposed method is examined by using the historical data of China's oil consumption. Assessment results demonstrate that the proposed method GGNN can improve the forecasting accuracy compared with some other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, four delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformers formulated in the modal domain and the space domain for open and solid spherical apertures are examined through numerical simulations. The resulting beampatterns reveal that the mainlobe of the solid spherical DAS array is only slightly narrower than that of the open array, whereas the sidelobes of the modal domain array are more significant than those of the space domain array due to the discrete approximation of continuous spherical Fourier transformation. To verify the theory experimentally, a three-dimensionally printed spherical array on which 32 micro-electro-mechanical system microphones are mounted is utilized for localization and separation of sound sources. To overcome the basis mismatch problem in signal separation, source localization is first carried out using minimum variance distortionless response beamformer. Next, Tikhonov regularization (TIKR) and compressive sensing (CS) are employed to extract the source signal amplitudes. Simulations and experiments are conducted to validate the proposed spherical array system. Objective perceptual evaluation of speech quality test and a subjective listening test are undertaken in performance evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate better separation quality achieved by the CS approach than by the TIKR approach at the cost of computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the thermodynamic stability and magnetic property of zigzag triangular holes (ZTHs) in graphene based on the results of first-principles density functional theory calculations. We find that ZTHs with hydrogen-passivated edges in mixed sp²/sp³ configurations (z211) could be readily available at experimental thermodynamic conditions, but ZTHs with 100% sp² hydrogen-passivation (z1) could be limitedly available at high temperature and ultra-high vacuum conditions. Graphene magnetization near the ZTHs strongly depends on the type and the size of the triangles. While metallic z1 ZTHs exhibit characteristic edge magnetism due to the same-sublattice engineering, semiconducting z211 ZTHs do show characteristic corner magnetism when the size is small < 2 nm. Our findings could be useful for experimentally tailoring metal-free carbon magnetism by simply fabricating triangular holes in graphene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An indium oxynitride (InON) quantum dot (QD) layer was inserted between the indium nitride (InN) and p-type gallium nitride (GaN) films for improving the conversion efficiency of the heterostructure solar cells. The InN/InON QD/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells exhibited a high open-circuit voltage of 2.29 V, short-circuit current density of 1.64 mA/cm2, and conversion efficiency of 1.12% under AM 1.5G illumination. Compared with samples without InON QDs, the power conversion efficiency of sample with InON QDs increased twofold; this increase was attributed to the increase in short-current density. The external quantum efficiency of 250-nm-thick InN/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells has a highest value of 6.5% in the wavelength range of 700-1100 nm. The photogenerated holes separated in the depletion region of InN thin films is difficult to transport across the energy barrier between the InN and p-GaN layers. The oxygen vacancy assisted carrier transport in the InN/InON QD/p-GaN sample, which was evidenced in its current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics. The dark I-V characteristic curves in the bias range of -2 to 2V exhibited ohmic behavior, which indicated the absence of a transport barrier between the InN and p-GaN layers. In addition, a shoulder peak at -0.08V was observed in the high-frequency (60-100 kHz) C-V characteristic curves corresponding to carrier capture and emission in the shallow defect state of oxygen vacancy in the InON QDs. The oxygen vacancy exists inside the InON QDs and generates the interface states in the InON QD/p-GaN interface to form a carrier transport path. Thus, more photogenerated holes can transport via the InON QDs into the p-GaN layer, contributing to the photocurrent and resulting in high conversion efficiency for the InN/InON QD/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an evolutionary exposition is given in regard to the enhancing strategies for acoustic echo cancellers (AECs). A fixed beamformer (FBF) is utilized to focus on the near-end speaker while suppressing the echo from the far end. In reality, the array steering vector could differ considerably from the ideal freefield plane wave model. Therefore, an experimental procedure is developed to interpolate a practical array model from the measured frequency responses. Subband (SB) filtering with polyphase implementation is exploited to accelerate the cancellation process. Generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) composed of an FBF and an adaptive blocking module is combined with AEC to maximize cancellation performance. Another enhancement is an internal iteration (IIT) procedure that enables efficient convergence in the adaptive SB filters within a sample time. Objective tests in terms of echo return loss enhancement (ERLE), perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ), word recognition rate for automatic speech recognition (ASR), and subjective listening tests are conducted to validate the proposed AEC approaches. The results show that the GSC-SB-AEC-IIT approach has attained the highest ERLE without speech quality degradation, even in double-talk scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Van der Waals epitaxialgrowth had been thought to have trivial contribution on inducing substantial epitaxial strain in thin films due to its weak nature of van der Waals interfacial energy. Due to this, electrical and optical structure engineering via van der Waals epitaxial strain has been rarely studied. In this report, we show that significant band structure engineering could be achieved in a soft thin film material PbI2 via van der Waals epitaxy. The thickness dependent photoluminescence of single crystal PbI2 flakes was studied and attributed to the substrate-film coupling effect via incommensurate van der Waals epitaxy. It is proposed that the van der Waals strain is resulted from the soft nature of PbI2 and large van der Waals interaction due to the involvement of heavy elements. Such strain plays vital roles in modifying the band gap of PbI2. The deformation potential theory is used to quantitatively unveil the correlation between thickness, strain, and band gap change. Our hypothesis is confirmed by the subsequent mechanical bending test and Raman characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]