By means of normal-incidence, high-flux and high-energy X-rays, total scattering data for pair distribution function (PDF) analysis have been obtained from thin films (tf), suitable for local structure analysis. By using amorphous substrates as support for the films, the standard Rapid Acquisition PDF setup can be applied and the scattering signal from the film can be isolated from the total sc...

A model of the electro-diffusion of ions in porous electrodes is applied to analyze the dynamics of capacitive-mixing extraction of energy from salinity gradients with carbon porous electrodes. The complex time-evolution of the cell voltage observed in experiments is satisfactorily described. The asymmetry on the duration of the solution-change steps performed in open circuit is found to be due...

Charge transport in organic thin film transistors takes place in the first few molecular layers in contact with the gate dielectric. Here we demonstrate that the charge transport pathways in these devices are extremely sensitive to the orientational defects of the first monolayers, which arise from specific growth conditions. Although these defects partially heal during the growth, they cause d...

Three equilibrium-air numerical solutions are presented for the Reentry-F ight-test vehicle at Mach 20, 80,000 ft. conditions, including turbulent t o w predictions. The three solutions are from a thin-layer Navier-Stokes code, coupled thin-layer and parabolized Navier-Stokes codes, and an approximate viscous shock-layer code. Boundary-layer and shock-layer prooles are presented and compared be...

Recently, a set of generalized gradient-based optical proximity correction (OPC) optimization methods have been developed to solve for the forward and inverse lithography problems under the thin-mask assumption, where the mask is considered a thin 2D object. However, as the critical dimension printed on the wafer shrinks into the subwavelength regime, thick-mask effects become prevalent, and th...

The electronic structure of few-layer graphene (FLG) samples with crystalline order was investigated experimentally by infrared absorption spectroscopy for photon energies ranging from 0.2-1 eV. Distinct optical conductivity spectra were observed for different samples having precisely the same number of layers. The different spectra arise from the existence of two stable polytypes of FLG, namel...

A stacked double-layer (SDL) thermopile-based infrared sensor, which comprised of 96 thermocouples on a suspended membrane, has been designed and fabricated with a CMOS-compatible process. The thermoelectric properties were characterized, and responsivity (Rs) of 202.8 V W−1 and detectivity (D∗) of 2.85∗108 cm Hz1/2 W−1 for a SDL thermopile were derived. (Some figures may appear in colour only ...

Article history: Received 26 January 2009 Available online 17 July 2009 Submitted by P. Broadbridge

When a shear ultrasonic wave is incident on a solid and liquid boundary, the proportion that is reflected depends on the liquid viscosity. This is the basis for some instruments for on-line measurement of bulk liquid viscosity. In machine elements, the lubricant is usually present in a thin layer between two rubbing solid surfaces. The thin film has a different response to an ultrasonic shear w...

High-quality thin films of conjugated molecules with smooth interfaces are important to assist the advent of organic electronics. Here, we report on the layer-by-layer growth of the organic semiconductor molecule p-sexiphenyl (6P) on the transparent electrode material graphene. Low energy electron microscopy and micro low energy electron diffraction reveal the morphological and structural evolu...