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Self-assembled nanoparticle monolayer formation via ultrasonic spray coating
Background
The self-assembly of nanoparticle monolayers is crucial in applications, such as optoelectronics, photovoltaics, and biomedical devices that require precise and reliable coatings. Traditionally, methods for forming monolayers rely on syringe dispensing needles or pipettes to introduce nanoparticle solutions to an air-water interface. These...
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Technology for fabricating dense sapphire nanostructures using near‑field focusing of ultrafast lasers
Background
Nanostructuring ultrahard materials like sapphire is challenging due to their inherent hardness and chemical stability, which complicate the precise modification and removal of material. Traditional approaches such as multilayer masking, low-power dry etching, and direct ultrafast laser processing have struggled to achieve the fine,...
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Rapid optical metrology of critical dimensions of large-area nanostructure arrays with complex patterns
Background
Scatterometry-based metrology has the capability to perform high-throughput inspection of geometric characteristics of large-area nanopatterned surfaces. It utilizes physics-based dependencies between reflectance of light scattered from nanopatterned surfaces for pre-defined set of wavelengths and Critical Dimensions (CDs) of such nanopatterns.
Current...
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Software for signal segmentation and extraction of informative time-domain features
Background
Industrial manufacturing equipment equipped with large numbers of sensors is commonplace in today’s modern manufacturing systems. From Smart Factories using AI and digital twins, along with the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve efficiency and productivity, one common challenge is what to do with the vast amounts...
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Fabrication of metal-insulator-semiconductor photoelectrodes
Background Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising technology for converting solar energy into clean and storable chemical energy. In PEC cells, semiconductors play a key role in absorbing photons from the light source to create mobile charge carriers. Various semiconductor materials have been studied for the high-performance PEC cells,...
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Variable gain amplifier utilizing positive feedback and time-domain calibration
BackgroundIn discrete-time systems, including ADCs, a voltage amplifier is necessary to increase the signal swing for further processing. Traditional precision amplification techniques, including closed-loop amplifiers, become less viable in nanometer-scale processes due to reduced transistor intrinsic gain. Additionally, these devices generally consume...
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Floating inverter pre-amplifier based dynamic comparator
Background Two technologies are touched upon. First is an energy-efficient comparator, followed by a time domain two-step capacitance-to-digital converter. Comparators bridge the analog and digital world. A low-power, low-noise comparator is critical for analog-to-digital converters. A comparator consists of a pre-amp followed by a latch. Dynamic comparators,...
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Continuous-time SAR ADC
Background The kT/C noise poses a fundamental signal to noise ratio (SNR) limit for discrete-time (DT) analog to digital converters (ADCs) with the front-end sampling operation. To achieve a high resolution, the sampling capacitor needs to be sufficiently large (e.g., 3pF for 80-dB SNR assuming 2Vpp swing) and it has to be quadrupled for every 1-bit...
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Time-domain capacitance-to-digital converter with zoom-in SAR
BackgroundTwo technologies are touched upon below—an energy-efficient comparator followed by a time domain two-step capacitance-to-digital converter. Comparators bridge the analog and digital world. A low-power, low-noise comparator is critical for analog-to-digital converters. A comparator consists of a pre-amp followed by a latch. Dynamic comparators,...
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Enhanced room-temperature mid-IR LEDs with integrated semiconductor ‘metals’
BackgroundThe mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelength range (~2-20 μm) is of vital importance for a range of sensing, security and defense, and fundamental science applications. Mid-infrared optical sources have historically fallen into two primary categories: simple thermal sources and coherent, laser sources of light. The former consist solely of a hot...
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