Sharif Digital Repository

Al-Mg aluminum alloy was lap joined to aluminum clad steel sheet using pulsed gas tungsten arc welding process and Al-Si filler metal. The effects of the welding heat-input were investigated on the joint microstructure and mechanical properties. Weld metal microstructure, formation of intermetallic compounds (IMCs) at the joint interface and the fracture locations were studied using stereo, optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The joint strength of the welds was evaluated by shear-tensile test. The results showed that presence of a thin aluminum clad layer with 350 μm thickness drastically decreased the Al-Fe intermetallic... 

Dielectric gratings (DGs) have recently been introduced as a new platform for guiding dielectric-based geometrically-induced surface plasmons (SPs) called spoof SPs (SSPs). In this paper, we report on the modal analysis of a metal-clad DG waveguide and compare its performance with other counterparts including the dielectric image guide (IG) and the metal grating (MG) waveguide. The proposed DG waveguide is made up of a periodic array of high-resistivity silicon (HR-Si) pillars on a metal plate with a metal cladding at a proper distance above the structure. By modal analysis of 2D and 3D structures, we show that the presence of the metal cladding enhances the modal field confinement without... 

A key direction toward enhancing the long term and outdoor stability of the perovskite solar cells is encapsulation. As a result, a suitable encapsulation package is required to prevent moisture and oxygen penetration toward the perovskite solar cells. In this work, a low-cost commercially available bilayer structure of poly (methyl methacrylate)/ room-temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber (RTV) encapsulation package for enhancing the long term stability of the perovskite solar cells has been investigated. Encapsulated cells retained more than 80% of the initial efficiency at the environmental condition of 50% moisture, and room temperature after 1000 h, however reference cell efficiency... 

Network-on-Chip combined with Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous paradigm is a promising architecture for easy IP integration and utilization with multiple voltage levels. For power reduction, multiple voltage-frequency levels are successfully applied to 2-D NoCs, but never with a generic approach to 3-D counterparts; in which low heat conductivity of insulator layers makes high dense temperature distribution at layers away from heat sink. In this paper, a thermal-aware methodology for regular 3-D NoCs based on multiple voltage levels is proposed. Given an application task graph, this methodology determines an efficient mapping of tasks onto network tiles, considering inherent... 

Network-on-Chip combined with Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous paradigm is a promising architecture for easy IP integration and utilization with multiple voltage levels. For power reduction, multiple voltage-frequency levels are successfully applied to 2-D NoCs, but never with a generic approach to 3-D counterparts; in which low heat conductivity of insulator layers makes high dense temperature distribution at layers away from heat sink. In this paper, a thermal-aware methodology for regular 3-D NoCs based on multiple voltage levels is proposed. Given an application task graph, this methodology determines an efficient mapping of tasks onto network tiles, considering inherent... 

One of the most popular constitutive rules that correlate the continuum and atomic properties in multi-scale models is the Cauchy–Born (CB) hypothesis. Based on this constitutive law of continuum media, it assumes that all atoms follow the deformation subjected to the boundary of crystal. In this paper, the validity and failure of CB hypothesis are investigated for the silicon nano-structure by comparison of the continuum and atomic properties. In the atomistic level, the stresses and position of atoms are calculated using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation based on the Tersoff inter-atomic potential. The stresses and strains are compared between the atomistic and continuous media to... 

One of the most popular constitutive rules that correlate the continuum and atomic properties in multi-scale models is the Cauchy-Born (CB) hypothesis. Based on this constitutive law of continuum media, it assumes that all atoms follow the deformation subjected to the boundary of crystal. In this paper, the validity and failure of CB hypothesis are investigated for the silicon nano-structure by comparison of the continuum and atomic properties. In the atomistic level, the stresses and position of atoms are calculated using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation based on the Tersoff inter-atomic potential. The stresses and strains are compared between the atomistic and continuous media to... 

Here, the UV photodetection of ZnO rods grown on porous silicon substrates are reported. Laterally interconnected ZnO rods have been synthesized by chemical vapor transport and condensation method on porous silicon substrates. As characterized by current-voltage measurements the I-V characteristics have linear behavior, indicating space charge effect. The device exhibits photocurrent response of 0.027 A/W for 325 nm UV light under -5 V bias. The rise and decay time constants under these conditions are 19 and 62 s, respectively  

A new level converter for use in dual voltage SOI digital circuits is presented. This technique uses the idea of keeper transistors, and consumes less power compared to the traditional methods. The effects of load capacitance on the circuit are studied by extensive simulations. © 2006 IEEE  

In this investigation a theoretical model based on artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) has been developed to optimize effective parameters on porosity formation in Al-Si casting alloys. The ANN theory was used to correlate the chemical composition and cooling rate to the amount of porosity. The GA and ANN were incorporated to find the optimal conditions for achieving the minimum porosity percent. By comparing the predicted values with the experimental data - earlier deduced by Dash et al. - it is demonstrated that the combined GA-ANN model is a useful and efficient method to find the optimal conditions for casting of Al-Si alloys associated with the minimum porosity... 

We study the thermal properties of ultra-narrow silicon nanowires (NW) with diameters from 3 nm to 12 nm. We use the modified valence-force-field method for computation of phononic dispersion and the Boltzmann transport equation for calculation of phonon transport. Phonon dispersion in ultra-narrow 1D structures differs from dispersion in the bulk and dispersion in thicker NWs, which leads to different thermal properties. We show that as the diameter of the NW is reduced the density of long-wavelength phonons per cross section area increases, which increases their relative importance in carrying heat compared with the rest of the phonon spectrum. This effect, together with the fact that... 

An ultra-low power amplitude shift keying (ASK) demodulator for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags is presented. On the basis of a fast averaging stage, the proposed ASK-demodulator uses a current domain switching envelope amplifier which yields low-power operation. More importantly, it removes the need for a conventional voltage comparator. Designed and fabricated in a 0.18 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process on about 3000 μm2 silicon area, the proposed demodulator consumes only 7.5 μA from a magnetically coupled induced power. Operating with a 13.56 MHz carrier frequency, the circuit supports modulation indices from 7 up to 100%. The demodulator may as well be used... 

In this paper, we propose a reversible Feynman gate utilizing the interference effect for optical communications and computing. The plasmonic waveguides are created by placing a suspended graphene sheet, held by two SiO2 ridges, 10 nm above the Si ribs. The Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to simulate the proposed gate in frequency and time domains. Simulation results show that high extinction ratios as much as (15.12 dB) and 13 dB are achievable at the wavelength of 10 μm for the output bits P and Q, respectively. The device is immune against ± 20% variations in the width of the Si ribs due to fabrication errors and its performance can be controlled by setting the... 

This letter discusses the surface-reconstruction-induced self-twisting behavior of Si100 nanobelts and nanowires (NWs) with rectangular cross section. Giving a thorough physical interpretation, we explain the reason behind this phenomenon and present a continuum-based model. It is revealed that these structures can self-assemble into both right- and left-handed helicoids depending on their crystal arrangements. More specifically, for NWs with the same number of layers in each of their cross sections directions, two distinct values of torsion angle are possible for each of right- and left-handed twisted morphologies. In conclusion, four modes of torsion can be observed in Si100 NWs.... 

Surfaces with special wettability have aroused lots of attention due to their broad applications in many fields. In this work, we systematically report selective and various fabrications of nanofluids based on readily available materials such as SiO2 nanoparticles and polydimethylsiloxane to create superhydrophobic, superoleophobic, superhydrophilic/superoleophobic, and underwater superoleophobic coatings. The efficiency of prepared coatings is investigated on mineral rock plates as porous substrates via the straightforward and cost-effective solution-immersion technique. The static water contact angle of 170°, effortless bouncing of water droplets, and self-cleaning property with a near... 

A specific structure of doped graphene with substituted silicon impurity is introduced and ab initio density-functional approach is applied for the energy band structure calculation of the proposed structure. Using the band structure calculation for different silicon sites in the host graphene, the effect of silicon concentration and unit cell geometry on the bandgap of the proposed structure is also investigated. Chemically, silicon-doped graphene results in an energy gap as large as 2eV according to density-functional theory calculations. As the authors will show, in contrast to previous bandgap engineering methods, such structure has significant advantages including wide gap tuning... 

In this paper characteristics of a linear, 6H-SiC photoconductive semiconductor switch are presented. The vanadium-doped semi-insulated 6H-SiC PCSS device is designed in a back-triggered, radial switch structure. For this purpose, three-dimensional (3D) device modeling tool was used to model and test the optically initiated 6H-SiC switch. Dark I-V characteristic results show that newly proposed rear-illuminated radial switch structure extends the blocking voltage by reducing the peak electric fields near electrodes. Also this radial structure has higher dark resistance as compared to the previous 6H-SiC PCSS experimental results. The ON-state characteristics of vanadium compensated 6H-SiC... 

Injection locked frequency dividers (ILFD) are used for frequency division to reduce the overall power consumption. By injecting a high frequency signal to an LC oscillator, injecting signal gets synchronous with oscillator output. All ILFDs analysis reports are based on steady state solution when locking is reached. At the same time, it is important to consider transient analysis too. In this paper a simple model is developed to study phase transient analysis when injecting signal is small in amplitude. This model can be used for large signal injection as a good approximation  

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a fast, solvent-free technique, which, since its introduction in the 1990s, has been increasingly applied to sample preparation in analytical chemistry. Conventional SPME fibers are fabricated by making a physical bond between the usual silica substrate and the polymeric coatings. However, some applications are limited, as the lifetime and the stability of conventional SPME fibers cannot meet the demands of analyzing relatively non-volatile compounds with more polar moieties. There have been attempts to analyze less volatile compounds by increasing the thermal, physical and chemical stability of the fibers. In this review, we present some new... 

While the transistor density continues to grow exponentially in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), the increased leakage current of CMOS transistors act as a power wall for the aggressive integration of transistors in a single die. One recently trend to alleviate the power wall in FPGAs is to turn off inactive regions of the silicon die, referred to as dark silicon. This paper presents a reconfigurable architecture to enable effective fine-grained power gating of unused Logic Blocks (LBs) in FPGAs. In the proposed architecture, the traditional soft logic is replaced with Mega Cells (MCs), each consists of a set of complementary Generic Reconfigurable Hard Logic (GRHL) and a conventional...