Sharif Digital Repository

Different methods have been utilized to improve ultra-thin-film silicon solar cells, one of which is the proposed plasmonic structure. The output efficiency of this structure compared to smaller thicknesses needs to be studied and researched. In this paper, an ultra-thin structure of a silicon cell with two nanoparticles in the neighborhood tangential to the beginning and end of the cell has been made by considering a very small radius for these two nanoparticles in two inner surfaces, which causes a significant increase in current due to the plasmonic surface effects of the nanoparticles. The results indicate that, compared to the smaller volume of metal in the proposed structure, it causes... 

In this study, dynamic pull-in instability and snap-through buckling of initially curved microbeams are investigated. The microbeams are actuated by suddenly applied electrostatic force. A finite element model is developed to discretize the governing equations, and Newmark time discretization is employed to solve the discretized equations. The static pull-in behavior is investigated to validate the model. The results of the finite element model are compared with finite difference solutions and their convergence is examined. In addition, the influence of different parameters on dynamic pull-in instability and snap-through buckling is explored  

A pair of copper vapor lasers in an oscillator-amplifier configuration were used to investigate the temperature dependence of the small-signal gain and saturation intensity and output power of the laser at the 510.6 and 578.2 nm transitions individually. An optimum working temperature of 1520°C was determined, and a maximum output power equivalent to 33 W/l was extracted  

The design of a copper chloride laser is described, and the laser is optimised by studying the dependence of its output power on the buffer gas type. The voltage and current of the laser discharge at the optimum buffer gas pressure are measured. The influence of the diaphragm diameter on the specific output power is studied after optimisation of switch parameters. When an diaphragm producing the optimal temperature gradient in the laser gas-discharge tube, the record specific output power of 123 W L-1 is obtained without any admixtures. ©2007 Kvantovaya Elektronika and Turpion Ltd  

In this work, after construction of a copper chloride laser, the effect of using different buffer gases on the output power has been examined. The voltage, current, laser pulses and the far field pattern of laser intensity were measured at the optimum buffer gas pressure. At these favorable conditions, the effect of using diaphragms in different diameters on the specific output power has been studied. By finding the desirable diaphragm size which creates the best temperature gradient in the laser tube the specific output record power of 123 (Watt/Lit) was obtained  

Many actions have been taken by researchers to design an appropriate controller for a quadruped robot. These efforts can be divided into two main categories: analytical and intelligent methods. The analytical method is based on the motion equations of the robot which are mostly complicated. These complication leads to difficulty in implementation. In contrast, there exists intelligent method which is based on the learning algorithms. Despite lots of improvements in the controlling of the quadruped robots, their ability of walking is still far less from the four legged animals' capability. Many researchers believe that four legged animals owe this priority to the learning attribute. Therefore... 

Background/Purpose: To prevent falling, a common incident with debilitating health consequences among stroke survivors, it is important to identify significant fall risk factors (FRFs) towards developing and implementing predictive and preventive strategies and guidelines. This review provides a systematic approach for identifying the relevant FRFs and shedding light on future directions of research. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in 5 popular research databases. Studies investigating the FRFs in the stroke community were evaluated to identify the commonality and trend of FRFs in the relevant literature. Results: twenty-seven relevant articles were reviewed and analyzed spanning... 

In this study, influences of intermolecular forces on dynamic pull-in instability of electrostatically actuated beams are investigated. Effects of midplane stretching, electrostatic actuation, fringing fields and intermolecular forces are considered. The boundary conditions of the beams are clamped-free and clamped-clamped. A finite element model is developed to discretize the governing equations and Newmark time discretization is then employed to solve the discretized equations. The results indicate that by increasing the Casimir and van der Waals effects, the effect of inertia on pull-in values considerably increases  

In this study, homotopy analysis method is used to derive analytic solutions to predict dynamic pull-in instability of electrostatically-actuated microsystems. The model considers midplane stretching, initial stress, distributed electrostatic force and fringing fields effect. Influences of different parameters on dynamic pull-in instability are investigated. Results are in good agreement with numerical and experimental findings. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

In addition to perfectly steering the output concentration of a process network to an exogenous set-point, a desired synthetically implemented biological controller should be able to robustly maintain this regulated output in the face of the extrinsic disturbances and inherent uncertainties due to an evervarying environment besides the imprecise modeling. Such an ability, which is called robust perfect adaptation (RPA), can be achieved by integral feedback control (IFC). Answering how IFC is (biochemically) constructible in generally unknown synthetic networks has been a research focus in the community. One of these answers, which has been well investigated previously, is to utilize a simple... 

Vibrations of electrostatically-Actuated microbeams are investigated. Effects of electrostatic actuation, axial stress and midplane stretching are considered in the model. Galerkin's decomposition method is utilized to convert the governing nonlinear partial differential equation to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. Homotopy perturbation method (i.e. a special and simpler case of homotopy analysis method) is utilized to find analytic expressions for natural frequencies of predeformed microbeam. Effects of increasing the voltage, midplane stretching, axial force and higher modes contribution on natural frequency are also studied. The anayltical results are in good agreement with the... 

In this paper, primary resonance of a double-clamped microbeam has been investigated. The Microbeam is predeformed by a DC electrostatic force and then driven to vibrate by an AC harmonic electrostatic force. Effects of midplane stretching, axial loads and damping are considered in modeling. Galerkin's approximation is utilized to convert the nonlinear partial differential equation of motion to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. Afterward, a combination of homotopy perturbation method and the method of multiple scales are utilized to find analytic solutions to the steady-state motion of the microbeam, far from pull-in. The effects of different design parameters on dynamic behavior... 

In this study, static pull-in instability of electrostatically-actuated microbridges and microcantilevers is investigated considering different nonlinear effects. Galerkin's decomposition method is utilized to convert the nonlinear differential equations of motion to nonlinear integro-algebraic equations. Afterward, analytic solutions to static deflections of the microbeams are obtained using the homotopy perturbation method. Results are in excellent agreement with those presented in the literature  

In this paper, primary resonance of a double-clamped microbeam has been investigated. The Microbeam is predeformed by a DC electrostatic force and then driven to vibrate by an AC harmonic electrostatic force. Effects of midplane stretching, axial loads and damping are considered in modeling. Galerkin's approximation is utilized to convert the nonlinear partial differential equation of motion to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. Afterward, a combination of homotopy perturbation method and the method of multiple scales are utilized to find analytic solutions to the steady-state motion of the microbeam, far from pull-in. The effects of different design parameters on dynamic behavior... 

In this paper, dynamic behavior and pull-in phenomenon of electrically actuated rectangular micro plates under the effect of squeeze-film damping and nonlinear electrostatic force is studied. Finite element method is implemented in order to drive weak formulations of linear and nonlinear micro plate equations of motion based on classical plate theory (CPT) (for thin microplates with moderate nonlinearity) and squeeze-film damping based on Reynolds nonlinear equation. Finally, an efficient reduced-order model contingent on singular value decomposition method (SVD) is used to study dynamic pull-in phenomenon. This model is constructed by the global basis functions achieved from a few runs of... 

Developing a transient fully-meshed model of coupled-domain microsystems is of paramount importance not only for accurate simulation and design but also for creating more accurate low-order or macro dynamic models. So in this paper, a complete nonlinear finite element model for coupled-domain MEMS devices considering electrostatic and squeeze film effects is presented. For this purpose, we use the Galerkin weighted-residual technique for developing the finite element model that capture the original microsystem's nonlinear behaviors, such as the structural dynamics, the squeeze-film damping, the electrostatic actuation and the geometric nonlinearity caused by inherent residual stresses. In... 

This paper presents a model to analyze pull-in phenomenon and dynamics of multi layer microplates using coupled finite element and finite difference methods. Firstorder shear deformation theory is used to model dynamical system using finite element method, while Finite difference method is applied to solve the nonlinear Reynolds equation of squeeze film damping. Using this model, Pull-in analysis of single layer and multi layer microplates are studied. The results of pull-in analysis are in good agreement with literature. Validating our model by pull-in results, an algorithm is presented to study dynamics of microplates. These simulations have many applications in designing multi layer... 

This paper presents a compact and cost effective method for on-chip separation of silica-coated magnetic nanoparticles (SMNPs) with different hydrodynamic size. Three types of SMNPs (Fe3O4@SiO2) with the same magnetic core but with different thickness of silica shells were successfully separated using the developed microfluidic platform. The innovative aspect of the presented separation method is that the induced velocity on the three different types of SMNPs while imposed to the same magnetic field gradient in a static fluid is inversely proportional to their overall, non-magnetic volume. This is due to the enhanced Stokes’ drag force exerted on the nanoparticles (NPs) resulting from their... 

The local electric field distorsion induced by a dielectric particle leads to particle–particle interactions and assembly which is very interesting for their useful applications on microfluidic devices. Particles behavior becomes more complicated if several particles interact at the same time. This paper presents a comprehensive numerical analysis of the assembly and particle–particle interactions for two similar and dissimilar dielectric particles immersed in a dielectric fluid using the immersed interface method based on two-dimensional direct-current dielectrophoresis. The immersed interface method is a finite-difference (or finite element) based numerical method which its key advantage... 

When cells exposed to an electric field, localized changes in the distribution of the electric field will be induced and these changes in turn lead to electrical stresses on cell surface. The electrical stresses play a key role in the cell membrane structural changes which leads to important phenomena like hydrophilic pores formation on the cell membrane resulting in the cell permeability. In this work, protoplast cell interaction with direct current (DC) electric field is investigated. The electrical stresses acted on the cell membrane in the presence of electric field are investigated numerically by a modified finite difference method, fast Immersed Interface Method (IIM). Exact solution...