This review, dedicated to the memory of B. K. Sadashiva, concerns electrically driven patterns and defects in bent core nematics (BCNs) made hard-core, soft-core or bent-rod type molecules. It covers (a) spatially periodic associated with electroconvection flexoelectric deformation, (b) dislocations these patterned states (c) various types induced essentially homogeneous, unpatterned BCNs. Whil...

Humans and animals show a remarkable level of proficiency in their ways of locomotion. They exploit the dynamics of the whole body to perform a variety of motions such as jumping and running. The nature of legged robots raises big challenges for controlling these systems. High degrees of freedom (DOF) and highly nonlinear non-smooth dynamics (due to interaction with the environment) count among...

Electrically driven organic lasers are among the best lasing devices due to their rich variety of emission colors as well as other advantages, including printability, flexibility, and stretchability. However, electrically driven lasing in organic materials has not yet been demonstrated because of serious luminescent efficiency roll-off under high current density. Recently, we found that the org...

A multivariable discontinuous feedback linearization approach is proposed to position control of an electrically driven fast robot manipulator. A desired performance is achieved by selecting a useful controller and suitable sampling rate and considering saturation for actuators. There is a high flexibility to apply the proposed control approach on different electrically driven manipulators. The...

Introduction: The realisation of Si-based, electrically driven light emitters is a key requirement for the implementation of low-cost Si-based optoelectronics [1]. Realising Si-based light sources in a process technology compatible with mainstream microelectronics technology is one of the big challenges of semiconductor technology. Because of its indirect bandgap Si has a low radiative recombin...

A vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) growth of microwhiskers was developed by Wagner et al. in the 1960s. The recent re-examination of this method by the groups of Lieber, Yang, Samuelson, Wang, and others has resulted in the flourishing research into nanowires (NWs). Nearly all the IV, II– VI, III–V, and IV–VI semiconductor NWs can be synthesized. Ternary compound semiconductors have also been demonstra...

Cerium oxides have attracted much attention because of their uses in three-way catalysts and other catalyst applications. The redox reaction of cerium oxides, as the basis of their use as catalysts, usually takes place at high temperature (>600 K) and/or low oxygen partial pressure. There have been continuous efforts to lower the operating temperatures of cerium oxide further to improve the per...