Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD) is one of the main plasma processes which induce charging damage to gate oxides during the VLSI processes. All the previous studies, however, describe the charging phenomena only at the beginning of PECVD process, when a very thin oxide layer covers the metal lines. We present and analyze in this paper, a new strong charging phenomenon in the e...

[1] Mineral dust plays an important role in ocean biogeochemistry as a source of Fe which in some regions is a limiting micronutrient. Ocean models often use the output of dust transport models to estimate dust‐Fe deposition. However, models have not been adequately tested, because of the dearth of long‐term dust deposition measurements. Here we present the results of a 3 year deposition study ...

A laboratory-scale membrane filtration cell was constructed to enable direct microscopic observation of microbial cell deposition and release in cross-flow microfiltration. Initial deposition rates determined from microscopic images were interpreted through an interaction force model. Experimentally derived deposition rates and model calculations confirmed that initial cell and particle deposit...

Introduction: Microbe-mineral interactions and biosignature preservation in oxidized sulfidic ore bodies (gossans) are prime candidates for astrobiological study. Such oxidized iron systems have been proposed as analogs for some Martian environments [1]. Recent studies identified microbial fossils preserved as mineral-coated filaments [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. This study documents microbially-mediated...

Decades of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition in the northeastern USA have enhanced this globally important forest carbon (C) sink by relieving N limitation. While many fertilization experiments found increased C storage, mechanisms driving response at ecosystem scale remain uncertain. Following optimal allocation theory, augmented availability may reduce belowground investment trees to roots ...

The suitability of three vapor deposition techniques for pore size modification was evaluated using polycarbonate track etched membranes as model supports. A feature scale model was employed to predict the pore geometry after modification and the resulting pure water flux. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) and pulsed plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), naturally, form asymmetric na...

Single crystalline tin oxide (SnO2) nanowires have been synthesized by carbothermal reduction of SnO2 nanopowder followed by thermal evaporation of the reduced precursor and growth via the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mechanism. The nanowires are deposited on single crystalline TiO2 substrates of orientations of (100) and (110) that are coated with a thin film and colloids of gold (Au) catal...