Many open questions in Theoretical Physics pertain to strongly interacting quantum systems such as the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in heavy-ion collisions or the strange-metal phase observed in many high-temperature superconductors. These systems are notoriously difficult to study using traditional methods such as perturbation theory, but the gauge/gravity duality offers a successful alternative approach, which maps strongly interacting quantum gauge theories to computationally tractable, classical gravity theories. This book begins with a pedagogical introduction to how the duality can be used to extract transport properties of quantum systems from their gravity dual. It then presents new results on hydrodynamic transport in strongly interacting quantum fluids, providing strong evidence that the Haack-Yarom identity between second-order transport coefficients holds for all fluids with a classical gravity dual and may be a universal feature of all strongly coupled quantum fluids such as the QGP. Newly derived Kubo formulae, expressing transport coefficients in terms of quantum correlators, hold independently of the duality. Lastly, the book discusses new results on magnetic impurities in strongly correlated metals, including the first dual gravity description of an inter-impurity coupling, crucial for the quantum criticality underlying the strange-metal phase.

This thesis devotes three introductory chapters to outlining basic recipes for constructing the quantum Hamiltonian of an arbitrary superconducting circuit, starting from classical circuit design. Since a superconducting circuit is one of the most promising platforms for realizing a practical quantum computer, anyone who is starting out in the field will benefit greatly from this introduction. The second focus of the introduction is the ultrastrong light-matter interaction (USC), where the latest developments are described. This is followed by three main research works comprising quantum memory in USC; scaling up the 1D circuit to a 2D lattice configuration; creation of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum era quantum error correction codes and polariton-mediated qubit-qubit interaction. The research work detailed in this thesis will make a major contribution to the development of quantum random access memory, a prerequisite for various quantum machine learning algorithms and applications.

The book deals with applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence to strongly coupled condensed matter systems. In particular, it concerns with the study of thermo-electric transport properties of holographic models exhibiting momentum dissipation and their possible applications to the transport properties of strange metals. The present volume constitutes one of the few examples in the literature in which the topic is carefully reviewed both from the experimental and theoretical point of view, including not only holographic results but also standard condensed matter achievements developed in the past decades. This work might be extremely useful both for scientific and pedagogical purposes.

The CMOS Cookbook contains all you need to know to understand and successfully use CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) integrated circuits. Written in a "cookbook" format that requires little math, this practical, user-oriented book covers all the basics for working with digital logic and many of its end appilations.
Whether you're a newcomver to logic and electronics or a senior design engineer, you'll find CMOS Cookbook and its examples helpful as a self-learning guide, a reference handbook, a project-idea book, or a text for teaching others digital logic at the high school through university levels.
In the pages of this revised edition, you'll discover:
*What CMOS is, who makes it, and how the basic transistors, inverters, and logic and transmission gates work
*CMOS usage rules, power-suppy examples, and information on breadboards, state testing, tools, and interfacing
*Discussions of the latest CMOS devices and sub-families, including the 74C, 74HC, and 74HCT series that streamline TTL and CMOS interfacing
*An in-depth look at multivibrators - including astable, monostable, and bistable - and linear techniques
*Clocked-logic designs and the extensive applications of JK and D-type flip-flops
*A helpful appendix featuring a TTL-to-CMOS conversion chart

This critical volume examines the different methods used for the synthesis of a great number of photocatalysts, including TiO2, ZnO and other modified semiconductors, as well as characterization techniques used for determining the optical, structural and morphological properties of the semiconducting materials. Additionally, the authors discuss photoelectrochemical methods for determining the light activity of the photocatalytic semiconductors by means of measurement of properties such as band gap energy, flat band potential and kinetics of hole and electron transfer. Photocatalytic Semiconductors: Synthesis, Characterization and Environmental Applications provide an overview of the semiconductor materials from first- to third-generation photocatalysts and their applications in wastewater treatment and water disinfection. The book further presents economic and toxicological aspects in the production and application of photocatalytic materials.

A new experimental method - the "Stiffnessometer", is developed to measure elementary properties of a superconductor, including the superconducting stiffness and the critical current. This technique has many advantages over existing methods, such as: the ability to measure these properties while minimally disturbing the system; the ability to measure large penetration depths (comparable to sample size), as necessary when approaching the critical temperature; and the ability to measure critical currents without attaching contacts and heating the sample. The power of this method is demonstrated in a study of the penetration depth of LSCO, where striking evidence is found for two separate critical temperatures for the in-plane and out-of-plane directions. The results in the thesis are novel, important and currently have no theoretical explanation. The stiffnessometer in a tool with great potential to explore new grounds in condensed matter physics.

This book puts the spotlight on how a real-time kernel works using Micrium s C/OS-III as a reference. The book consists of two complete parts. The first describes real-time kernels in generic terms. Part II provide examples for the reader, using Texas Instruments EVM-EVALBOT, a small, robotic evaluation board. The board is based on the Stellaris LM3S9B92 which combines the popular ARM Cortex-M3(r) architecture with Ethernet MAC+PHY, USB OTG (On-The-Go), and I2S. Together with the IAR Systems Embedded Workbench for ARM development tools, the evaluation board provides everything necessary to enable the reader to be up and running quickly, as well as a fun and educational experience, resulting in a high-level of proficiency in a short time.

This book is written for serious embedded systems programmers, consultants, hobbyists, and students interested in understanding the inner workings of a real-time kernel. C/OS-III is not just a great learning platform, but also a full commercial-grade software package, ready to be part of a wide range of products.

C/OS-III is a highly portable, ROMable, scalable, preemptive real-time, multitasking kernel designed specifically to address the demanding requirements of today s embedded systems. C/OS-III is the successor to the highly popular C/OS-II real-time kernel but can use most of C/OS-II s ports with minor modifications. Some of the features of C/OS-III are:

Preemptive multitasking with round-robin scheduling of tasks at the same priority
Supports and unlimited number of tasks and other kernel objects
Rich set of services: semaphores, mutual exclusion semaphores with full priority inheritance, event flags, message queues, timers, fixed-size memory block management, and more. Built-in performance measurements

This book offers a theoretical description of topological matter in terms of effective field theories, and in particular topological field theories, focusing on two main topics: topological superconductors and topological insulators.Even though there is vast literature on these subjects, the book fills an important gap by providing a concise introduction to both topological order and symmetry-protected phases using a modern mathematical language, and developing the theoretical concepts by highlighting the physics and the physical properties of the systems. Further, it discusses in detail the topological interactions for topologically ordered matter, and the response to smooth external fields for symmetry protected matter. The book also covers more specialized topics that cannot be found elsewhere. Specifically, the response of superconductors to geometry, including the newly discovered geo-Meissner effect; and a correction to the usual Meissner effect, only present in the topologically interesting chiral superconductors.

This thesis reports on the use of scanning tunnelling microscopy to elucidate the atomic-scale electronic structure of a charge density wave, revealing that it has a d-symmetry form factor, hitherto unobserved in nature. It then details the development of an entirely new class of scanned probe: the scanning Josephson tunnelling microscope. This scans the Josephson junction formed between a cuprate superconducting microscope tip and the surface of a cuprate sample, thereby imaging the superfluid density of the sample with nanometer resolution. This novel method is used to establish the existence of a spatially modulated superconducting condensate, something postulated theoretically over half a century ago but never previously observed.

This book presents the first experiment revealing several unexplored non-equilibrium properties of quantum many-body states, and addresses the interplay between the Kondo effect and superconductivity by probing shot noise. In addition, it describes in detail nano-fabrication techniques for carbon nanotube quantum dots, and a measurement protocol and principle that probes both equilibrium and non-equilibrium quantum states of electrons. The book offers various reviews of topics in mesoscopic systems: shot noise measurement, carbon nanotube quantum dots, the Kondo effect in quantum dots, and quantum dots with superconducting leads, which are relevant to probing non-equilibrium physics. These reviews offer particularly valuable resources for readers interested in non-equilibrium physics in mesoscopic systems. Further, the cutting-edge experimental results presented will allow reader to catch up on a vital new trend in the field.

In the past four years we have witnessed rapid development in technology and significant market penetration in many applications for LED systems. New processes and new materials have been introduced; new standards and new testing methods have been developed; new driver, control and sensing technologies have been integrated; and new and unknown failure modes have also been presented. In this book, Solid State Lighting Reliability Part 2, we invited the experts from industry and academia to present the latest developments and findings in the LED system reliability arena. Topics in this book cover the early failures and critical steps in LED manufacturing; advances in reliability testing and standards; quality of colour and colour stability; degradation of optical materials and the associated chromaticity maintenance; characterization of thermal interfaces; LED solder joint testing and prediction; common failure modes in LED drivers; root causes for lumen depreciation; corrosion sensitivity of LED packages; reliability management for automotive LEDs, and lightning effects on LEDs. This book is a continuation of Solid State Lighting Reliability: Components to Systems (published in 2013), which covers reliability aspects ranging from the LED to the total luminaire or system of luminaires. Together, these two books are a full set of reference books for Solid State Lighting reliability from the performance of the (sub-) components to the total system, regardless its complexity.

The 3rd International Congress on Energy Efficiency and Energy Related Materials (ENEFM2015) was held from 19-23 October 2015. This congress focused on the latest developments of sustainable energy technologies, materials for sustainable energy applications and environmental and economic perspectives of energy. These proceedings included 40 peer-reviewed technical papers, submitted by leading academic and research institutions from over 23 countries and represented some of the most cutting-edge researches available. The sections included in the 40 papers are listed as follows: Solar Energy, Fuel cells, Hydrogen productions, Hydrogen storage, Energy storage, Energy saving, Biofuels and Bioenergy, Wind Energy, Nuclear Energy, Fossil Energy, Hydropower, Carbon capture and storage, Materials for renewable energy storage and conversion, Photovoltaics and solar cells, Fuel generation from renewables (catalysis), Carbon dioxide sequestration and conversion, Materials for energy saving, Thermoelectrics, Energy saving in buildings, Bio-Assessment and Toxicology, Air pollution from mobile and stationary sources, Transport of Air Pollutants, Environment-Friendly Construction and Development, Energy Management Systems.

This work studies the magnetic behavior of ZnO nanoparticles capped with different organic molecules and showing room-temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM). Of particular significance is the combination of element-specific X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) techniques, which demonstrates the intrinsic occurrence of RTFM in these systems and indicates that it is not related to the 3-D states of the metallic cation but is relayed along the conduction band of the semiconductor. The discovery of room-temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) in semiconductors holds great promise in future spintronics technologies. Further results presented here include O K-edge XMCD studies, which demonstrate that the oxygen ions have a ferromagnetic response in these ZnO-based systems, providing the first direct support for claims regarding the appearance of oxygen ferromagnetism in oxide semiconductors at the nanoscale.

This book is a must-have reference to dry etching technology for semiconductors, which will enable engineers to develop new etching processes for further miniaturization and integration of semiconductor integrated circuits. The author describes the device manufacturing flow, and explains in which part of the flow dry etching is actually used. The content is designed as a practical guide for engineers working at chip makers, equipment suppliers and materials suppliers, and university students studying plasma, focusing on the topics they need most, such as detailed etching processes for each material (Si, SiO2, Metal etc) used in semiconductor devices, etching equipment used in manufacturing fabs, explanation of why a particular plasma source and gas chemistry are used for the etching of each material, and how to develop etching processes. The latest, key technologies are also described, such as 3D IC Etching, Dual Damascene Etching, Low-k Etching, Hi-k/Metal Gate Etching, FinFET Etching, Double Patterning etc.

"Eco- and Renewable Energy Materials" provides a survey of the current topics and the major developmental trends in the rapidly growing research area of clean energy materials. This book covers, but is not limited to, photochemical materials (fuels from light), fuel cells (electricity from fuels), batteries (electricity storage), and hydrogen production and storage. This book is intended as a vehicle for the dissemination of research results on energy-based material science in the form of commissioned reviews and commentaries. This book is for scientists and engineers interested in energy-related materials, compounds and electronic devices. Prof. Yong Zhou is currently serving as a full professor at the Eco-Materials and Renewable Energy Research Center (ERERC), Nanjing University, China.

This book introduces a variety of basic sciences and applications of the nanocomposites and heterostructures of functional oxides. The presence of a high density of interfaces and the differences in their natures are described by the authors. Both nanocomposites and heterostructures are detailed in depth by researchers from each of the research areas in order to compare their similarities and differences. A new interfacial material of heterostructure of strongly correlated electron systems is introduced.

This thesis presents various characteristics of 122-type iron pnictide (FeSC) such as crystal and electronic structure, carrier-doping effect, and impurity-scattering effect, using transport, magnetization, specific heat, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and optical spectral measurements. Most notably the measurement on the magnetic fluctuation in the material successfully explains already known unusual electronic properties, i.e., superconducting gap symmetry, anisotropy of in-plane resistivity in layered structure, and charge dynamics; and comparing them with those of normal phase, the controversial problems in FeSCs are eventually settled. The thesis provides broad coverage of the physics of FeSCs both in the normal and superconducting phase, and readers therefore benefit from the efficient up-to-date study of FeSCs in this thesis. An additional attraction is the detailed description of the experimental result critical for the controversial problems remaining since the discovery of FeSC in 2008, which helps readers follow up recent developments in superconductor research.

A comprehensive device model considering both spatial distributions of the terahertz field and the field-effect self-mixing factor has been constructed for the first time in the thesis. The author has found that it is the strongly localized terahertz field induced in a small fraction of the gated electron channel that plays an important role in the high responsivity. An AlGaN/GaN-based high-electron-mobility transistor with a 2-micron-sized gate and integrated dipole antennas has been developed and can offer a noise-equivalent power as low as 40 pW/Hz1/2 at 900 GHz. By further reducing the gate length down to 0.2 micron, a noise-equivalent power of 6 pW/Hz1/2 has been achieved. This thesis provides detailed experimental techniques and device simulation for revealing the self-mixing mechanism including a scanning probe technique for evaluating the effectiveness of terahertz antennas. As such, the thesis could be served as a valuable introduction towards further development of high-sensitivity field-effect terahertz detectors for practical applications.

This thesis examines the unique properties of gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers for optical communication networks, introducing readers to their fundamentals, basic parameters and manifold applications. The static and dynamic properties of these amplifiers are discussed extensively in comparison to conventional, non quantum-dot based amplifiers, and their unique advantages are elaborated on, such as the fast carrier dynamics and the decoupling of gain and phase dynamics. In addition to diverse amplification scenarios involving single and multiple high symbol rate amplitude and phase-coded data signals, wide-range wavelength conversion as a key functionality for optical signal processing is investigated and discussed in detail. Furthermore, two novel device concepts are developed and demonstrated that have the potential to significantly simplify network architectures, reducing the investment and maintenance costs as well as the energy consumption of future networks.

This thesis sheds important new light on the puzzling properties of Strontium Ruthenate. Using a sophisticated weak-coupling approach, exact within certain limits, it shows that proper treatment of spin-orbit and multi-band effects is crucial to the physics. Based on the results of these calculations, it resolves a crucial, long-standing puzzle in the field: It demonstrates why the experimentally observed time-reversal breaking is not incompatible with the observed lack of measurable edge currents. Lastly, the thesis makes predictions for the properties of the material under uniaxial strain, which are in good agreement with recent experiments -resolving the mystery of the so-called 3K phase, and suggesting the intriguing possibility that under strain the superconductor may become conventional.