Subject to a compressive membrane force, a solid film on a liquid layer may form wrinkles. When the solid film is very thin, surface stresses contribute to the membrane force. When the liquid layer is very thin, the two interfaces bounding the liquid interact with each other through forces of various physical origins. We formulate the free energy of the solid-on-liquid structure, and carry out ...

The microelectronics industry owes its considerable success largely to the existence of the thermal oxide of silicon. However, recently there is concern that the reliability of ultra-thin dielectrics will limit further scaling to slightly thinner than 2nm. I will review the physics and statistics of dielectric wearout and breakdown in ultra thin SiO2-based gate dielectrics and discuss the impli...

In recent years, the demand for thin film coatings on large area substrates has been rapidly increasing. Coating is some times required to make an object harder, or to provide the surface with particular electrical and optical properties. Hence, research on thin film science has received much attention due to its tremendous applications in modern technology. The importance of coatings and the s...

Large-area and aligned copper oxide nanowires have been synthesized by thermal annealing of copper thin films deposited onto silicon substrate. The effects of the film deposition method, annealing temperature, film thickness, annealing gas, and patterning by photolithography are systematically investigated. Long and aligned nanowires can only be formed within a narrow temperature range from 400...

Telocyte (TC) is a newly identified type of cell in the cardiac interstitium (www.telocytes.com). TCs are described by classical transmission electron microscopy as cells with very thin and long telopodes (Tps; cellular prolongations) having podoms (dilations) and podomers (very thin segments). TCs' three-dimensional (3D) morphology is still unknown. Cardiac TCs seem to be particularly involved...

The electrical conductance of epitaxial Bi thin films grown on BaF(2)(111) by molecular beam epitaxy has been systematically investigated as a function of both film thickness (4-540 nm) and temperature (5-300 K). Unlike bulk Bi as a prototypical semimetal, the Bi thin films up to 90 nm are found to be insulating in the interior but metallic on the surface. This finding not only has unambiguousl...

     Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanorods and titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructures thin films were prepared onto glass substrates by the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The ZnO was structured as nanorods (NRs) while TiO2 was formed as nanoflowers plate as confirmed by Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) images. The ZnO/Fe3O4 and TiO2/Fe3O4 nanostructures thin films were prepared v...

As variations in kernel uniformity can affect rice milling performance, limited thickness-grading to remove thin kernels was evaluated for effects on milling yields. Along with unfractioned (UNF) rice of four long-grain cultivars, rough rice was mechanically sieved, resulting in two thickness fractions, Thick (>0.079 inch) and Thin (<0.079 inch). Milled rice yield (MRY) and head rice yield (HRY...

Partial shadowing is one of the problems that are always faced in terrestrial applications of solar photovoltaic (PV). The effects of partial shadow on the energy yield of conventional mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline PV modules have been researched for a long time. With deployment of new thin-film solar PV modules in the market, it is important to understand the performance of new PV mod...

By combining two kinds of solution-processable two-dimensional materials, a flexible transistor array is fabricated in which MoS(2) thin film is used as the active channel and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) film is used as the drain and source electrodes. The simple device configuration and the 1.5 mm-long MoS(2) channel ensure highly reproducible device fabrication and operation. This flexible...