Heat conduction in a ne scale mixture of two conductors is examined in the presence of a contact resistance between phases. The problem is studied rigorously in the context of periodic homogenization. Unlike the case of perfect heat transmission between phases, the temperature elds studied here may converge weakly in L to the homogenized temperature. The temperature gradients converge weakly as...

The recent popularity of 3D IC technology stems from its enhanced performance capabilities and reduced wiring length. However, wire congestion and thermal issues are exacerbated due to the compact nature of these layered technologies. In this paper, we develop techniques to reduce global the temperature gradient and local and global congestions of 3D circuit designs without compromising total i...

Motivated by recent experiments by Yuse and Sano (Nature, 362, 329 (1993)), we propose a discrete model of linear springs for studying fracture in thin and elastically isotropic brittle films. The method enables us to draw a map of the stresses in the material. Cracks generated by the model, imposing a moving thermal gradient in the material, can branch or wiggle depending on the driving parame...

Easy-to-use thermal cycling for performing rapid and small-volume DNA amplification on a single chip has attracted great interest in the area of rapid field detection of biological agents. For this purpose, as a more practical alternative to conventional continuous flow thermal cycling, liquid plug-flow thermal cycling utilizes a thermal gradient generated in a serpentine rectangular flow micro...

The direct conversion of solar energy to electricity can be broadly separated into two main categories: photovoltaics and thermal photovoltaics, where the former utilizes gradients in electrical potential and the latter thermal gradients. Conventional thermal photovoltaics has a high theoretical efficiency limit (84%) but in practice cannot be easily miniaturized and is limited by the engineeri...

This work employs the self-consistent method to investigate the effective thermal conductivity distribution in functionally graded materials (FGMs) considering the Kapitza interfacial thermal resistance. A heat conduction solution is first derived for one spherical particle embedded in a graded matrix with a prefect interface. The interfacial thermal resistance of a nanoparticle is simulated by...

For the emergence of early life, the formation of biopolymers such as RNA is essential. However, the addition of nucleotide monomers to existing oligonucleotides requires millimolar concentrations. Even in such optimistic settings, no polymerization of RNA longer than about 20 bases could be demonstrated. How then could self-replicating ribozymes appear, for which recent experiments suggest a m...