This book introduces the physics and chemistry of plastic scintillators (fluorescent polymers) that are able to emit light when exposed to ionizing radiation, discussing their chemical modification in the early 1950s and 1960s, as well as the renewed upsurge in interest in the 21st century. The book presents contributions from various researchers on broad aspects of plastic scintillators, from physics, chemistry, materials science and applications, covering topics such as the chemical nature of the polymer and/or the fluorophores, modification of the photophysical properties (decay time, emission wavelength) and loading of additives to make the material more sensitive to, e.g., fast neutrons, thermal neutrons or gamma rays. It also describes the benefits of recent technological advances for plastic scintillators, such as nanomaterials and quantum dots, which allow features that were previously not achievable with regular organic molecules or organometallics.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of vibration and technology of machinery, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the XV International Conference on Vibration Engineering and Technology of Machinery (VETOMAC), held in Curitiba, Brazil on November 10-15, 2019. Topics include concepts and methods in dynamics, dynamics of mechanical and structural systems, dynamics and control, condition monitoring, machinery and structural dynamics, rotor dynamics, experimental techniques, finite element model updating, industrial case studies, vibration control and energy harvesting, and MEMS. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous international peer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

The contrasting examples of microwave plasmas given in this volume demonstrate their capability of not only covering the totality of expressed needs in that particular field, but in many others. For example the ions and reactive neutral species, indispensable for the synergetic effects in etching and deposition processes can be used in metallurgical treatment, and for materials processing in general. They also have the ability to dissociate molecules and excite atoms as required in analytical chemistry where the information on the constituent concentrations is obtained through optical spectroscopy or mass spectrometry. Finally, microwave plasmas can supply the photons for laser and lighting applications. It is noteworthy that microwave plasmas cover an impressive pressure range of eight orders of magnitude from 10-3 Pa (10-5 torr) to above atmospheric pressure. The versatility of microwave plasmas, their moderate cost, and their ease of implementation particularly appeal to the industrial entrepreneur.

As well as providing a review of current developments, the work proposes a synthesis on microwave discharges, laying out the corresponding physical references without developing too much plasma theory. It will be of interest both to the user, who may not be overly concerned about plasma science, and to the plasma expert, who may wish to redirect his interest towards plasma applications, such as materials processing.

This book describes most recent progress in the properties, synthesis, characterization, modelling, and applications of nanomaterials and nanodevices. It begins with the review of the modelling of the structural, electronic and optical properties of low dimensional and nanoscale semiconductors, methodology of synthesis, and characterization of quantum dots and nanowires, with special attention towards Dirac materials, whose electrical conduction and sensing properties far exceed those of silicon-based materials, making them strong competitors. The contributed reviews presented in this book touch on broader issues associated with the environment, as well as energy production and storage, while highlighting important achievements in materials pertinent to the fields of biology and medicine, exhibiting an outstanding confluence of basic physical science with vital human endeavor. The subjects treated in this book are attractive to the broader readership of graduate and advanced undergraduate students in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, as well as in electrical, chemical, biological, and mechanical engineering. Seasoned researchers and experts from the semiconductor/device industry also greatly benefit from the book's treatment of cutting-edge application studies.

Highly Sensitive Optical Receivers primarily treats the circuit design of optical receivers with external photodiodes. Continuous-mode and burst-mode receivers are compared. The monograph first summarizes the basics of III/V photodetectors, transistor and noise models, bit-error rate, sensitivity and analog circuit design, thus enabling readers to understand the circuits described in the main part of the book. In order to cover the topic comprehensively, detailed descriptions of receivers for optical data communication in general and, in particular, optical burst-mode receivers in deep-sub-um CMOS are presented. Numerous detailed and elaborate illustrations facilitate better understanding. "

Designed for engineers from the fields of mechanical, electrical and civil disciplines, this book presents the reader with a solved problem that utilizes the RF Module. This model is based on RF multiphysics modeling and employs the use of physics first principles for the solution of this difficult problem. It introduces the user to the advanced numerical analysis modeling techniques employed in the COMSOL Multiphysics software Version 4.x. Includes a DVD with models and code.

Hands-on guide for scientists and engineers on how to use SQUID technology This practical book covers SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) readout electronics and magnetometric systems. It illustrates their many practical applications in measuring extremely subtle magnetic fields and shows how the technique is developing into an enabling technology for many applications, such as biomagnetic imaging and geophysical prospecting. Clear and comprehensive, the book builds a bridge for scientists and engineers to fill in potential know-how gaps for all who work on SQUID systems and their practical applications. It helps make key words like readout electronics, flux quantization, Josephson effects, and noise contributions completely understandable to all who design and use simple and robust SQUID systems. Beginning with an introduction to the subject, SQUID Readout Electronics and Magnetometric Systems for Practical Applications offers in-depth chapter coverage of: Josephson junctions; dc SQUID's I-V characteristics and its bias modes; functions of the SQUID's readout electronics; direct readout scheme (DRS); SQUID magnetometry system and SQUID parameters; flux modulation scheme (FMS); and flux feedback concepts and parallel feedback circuit. Other sections examine: analyses of the "series feedback coil (circuit)" (SFC); weakly damped SQUID; two-stage and double relaxation oscillation readout schemes; and radio-frequency (rf) SQUID. - Provides a unique view of how simplicity and robustness are crucial for practical SQUID systems in applications - Focuses on the readout electronics of SQUID systems, particularly the advantages and disadvantages of the various systems - Helps materials scientists, physicists, and engineers overcome various major know-how barriers in order to understand the important challenges and to design practical SQUID systems - Largely documents the joint achievements accomplished in the cooperation between SIMIT and FZJ in the field of superconducting electronics SQUID Readout Electronics and Magnetometric Systems for Practical Applications is an excellent book for all materials scientists, electrical engineers, and physicists who can benefit from SQUID systems and their applications. It will also be of great benefit to analytical laboratories in industry, manufacturers of laboratory equipment, and systems engineers.

This book addresses the development, properties, and applications of atomic-layered boron, or, borophene. The authors explain how borophene was predicted and created before investigating the properties that make it a desirable and useful material. The material is extremely thin and possesses exotic quantum states of new Dirac physics. Applications in superconductivity, plasmonics, and industrial chemical catalysis are examined, along with an examination of the material's unique hydrogen boride and boron nitride forms. Given the varied potential uses for the new-developed borophene, this timely book will be useful to researchers in academia and industry.

Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Modeling, Materials and Device Technology provides a comprehensive overview of materials for application in thin film solar cells. It is the first book that compares experimental and computer-modeling methods, combining the state of the art in technology with the latest insights in device modeling. A wide range of experimental issues are explored, from materials and basic device physics of thin film solar cells to potential mass production facilities for solar panels. The modeling section presents an approach to integrated optical and electrical modeling of complete devices, including optical light trapping, and describes the physical materials parameters related to amorphous silicon that are crucial for successful modeling. The increasing importance of multijunction cells with different bandgap components for thin film silicon cells is reflected in a description of the latest breakthroughs acquired experimentally and by modeling. Concluding chapters describe what can be learned from combined modeling and device fabrication, indicating potential future methods of amorphous silicon solar cell optimization. This book will prove invaluable to researchers in the amorphous and microcrystalline silicon field and the physical and experimental approaches will be of interest to researchers investigating solar cells or other film devices for large area applications.

This book provides an overview of the current state of the art in novel piezo-composites based on ferroelectrics. Covering aspects ranging from theoretical materials simulation and manufacturing and characterization methods, to the application and performance of these materials, it focuses on the optimization of the material parameters. Presenting the latest findings on modern composites and highlighting the applications of piezoelectric materials for sensors, transducers and hydro-acoustics, the book addresses an important gap in the physics of active dielectrics and materials science and describes new trends in the research on ferroelectric composites.

What kind of information on the electrons' organisation in solids is yielded by measuring their thermoelectric response? Fundamentals of Thermoelectricity gives an account of our current understanding of thermoelectric phenomena in solids by presenting basic theoretical concepts and numerous experimental results. Many readers will be surprised to learn that even in the case of simple metals (considered to be domesticated long ago by the quantum theory of solids) our understanding lags far behind known experimental facts. The two theories of phonon drag, the positive Seebeck coefficient of noble metals, and the three-orders-of-magnitude gap between theory and experiment regarding the thermoelectric response of Bogoliubov quasi-particles of a superconductor are among the forgotten puzzles discussed in this book. Among other novelties, it contains an original discussion of the role of the de Broglie thermal wave-length in setting the magnitude of the thermoelectric response in Fermi liquids.

This book reviews the experimental measurements of density, thermal conductivity, viscosity, and electrical conductivity on the binary, pseudo-binary melts of the most advanced IR-detector material systems of HgCdTe and HgZnTe as well as the theoretical analyses of these results. The time-dependent measurements on the relaxation behavior of the thermophysical properties during rapid cooling of the melts were also performed to elucidate the characteristics of the structural fluctuation and transition of the melts. The author shows his research results which extend understanding of the solidification process in order to interpret and improve the experimental results of crystal growth and enhances the fundamental knowledge of heterophase fluctuations phenomena in the melts so as to improve the melt growth processes of all the semiconductor systems. An in-depth study on the thermophysical properties and their time-dependent structural dynamic processes taking place in the vicinity of the solid-liquid phase transition of the narrow homogeneity range HgTe-based ternary semiconductors as well as the structural analysis of the alloy homogenization process in the melt is needed to understand and to improve the crystal growth processes. This book is intended for graduate students and professionals in materials science as well as engineers preparing and developing optical devices with semiconductors. The theory of heterophase fluctuations of liquids is applicable to any many-body systems including condensed-matter physics and field theory.

This book is devoted to the theoretical and experimental investigation of the optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with direct and external modulation of laser emission. Such devices, sources of precision radio frequency oscillations using laser excitation, are novel and technologically relevant, with manifold possible applications. The book includes a review of the present state of the theory and generation techniques in microwave and mm-wave ranges for traditional and optoelectronic oscillators, description of OEO construction and operation principles, theoretical oscillation analysis and mathematical description of the relevant semi-classical laser physics, and investigation of the power spectral density of noises. Technical features and advantages of OEOs with external and direct modulation of laser emission are discussed together with functional diagrams. The characteristics of OEOs are compared with other traditional RF oscillators, such as quartz, surface acoustic waves, and oscillators with electromagnetic wave cavities. Special attention is paid to Q-factors and phase noises of RF carriers at small offsets. The authors discuss the technical characteristics of modern optoelectronic methods for precision RF oscillation formation, such as commercial large-dimension and compact quantum frequency standards with optical pumping on cesium and rubidium cells. This book is aimed at scientists and engineers in academia and industry who work with sources of microwave and mm-wave signals.

This book presents the emerging regime of zero refractive index photonics, involving metamaterials that exhibit effectively zero refractive index. Metamaterials are artificial structures whose optical properties can be tailored at will. With metamaterials, intriguing and spellbinding phenomena like negative refraction and electromagnetic cloaking could be realized, which otherwise seem unnatural or straight out of science fiction. Zero index metamaterials are also seen as a means of boosting nonlinear properties and are believed to have strong prospects for being useful in nonlinear optical applications. In summary, this book highlights almost everything currently available on zero index metamaterials and is useful for professionally interested and motivated readers.

The quantum Hall effects remains one of the most important subjects to have emerged in condensed matter physics over the past 20 years. The fractional quantum Hall effect, in particular, has opened up a new paradigm in the study of strongly correlated electrons, and it has been shown that new concepts, such as fractional statistics, anyon, chiral Luttinger liquid and composite particles, are realized in two-dimensional electron systems. This book explains the quantum Hall effects together with these new concepts starting from elementary quantum mechanics. Thus, graduate students can use this book to gain an overall understanding of these phenomena.

This book presents a variety of techniques using high-frequency (RF) and time-domain measurements to understand the electrical performance of novel, modern transistors made of materials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, and silicon-on-insulator, and using new transistor structures. The author explains how to use conventional RF and time- domain measurements to characterize the performance of the transistors. In addition, he explains how novel transistors may be subject to effects such as self-heating, period-dependent output, non-linearity, susceptibility to short-term degradation, DC-invisible structural defects, and a different response to DC and transient inputs. Readers will understand that in order to fully understand and characterize the behavior of a novel transistor, there is an arsenal of dynamic techniques available. In addition to abstract concepts, the reader will learn of practical tips required to achieve meaningful measurements, and will understand the relationship between these measurements and traditional, conventional DC characteristics.

Since the 1980s, scientists have been researching adaptive structures for materials, for multifunctional elements or even for complete systems. Adaptronics (smart materials, smart structures, smart systems) is a field of distinct interdisciplinarity. The book therefore offers an interdisciplinary view of adaptronic systems, materials and functional elements and their applications. The subject matter integrates various engineering disciplines, from electrical engineering and information technology to manufacturing and control engineering, materials engineering and structural mechanics - to name but a few of the relevant subject areas. Starting from the basic principles and variants of adaptronic systems and functional materials, the textbook explains the different construction methods of functional elements. Building on this, readers learn how to apply this knowledge to active shape control, active vibration control and active vibroacoustics. For each of these topics the author presents current examples from research, discusses research results and future research questions. Each of the nine chapters closes with references to further literature. An index of the mathematical symbols used and a keyword index facilitate learning for readers.The book is aimed at Master's students in engineering courses such as mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechatronics, automotive engineering and related courses. The book provides a comprehensive overview for industrial practitioners who want to familiarize themselves with the field of adaptronics and also serves as a reliable reference book.

This book offers essential information on China's human spacecraft technologies, reviewing their evolution from theoretical and engineering perspectives. It discusses topics such as the design of manned spaceships, cargo spacecraft, space laboratories, space stations and manned lunar and Mars detection spacecraft. It also addresses various key technologies, e.g. for manned rendezvous, docking and reentry. The book is chiefly intended for researchers, graduate students and professionals in the fields of aerospace engineering, control, electronics & electrical engineering, and related areas.

This classroom-tested textbook provides a self-contained one-semester course in semiconductor physics and devices that is ideal preparation for students to enter burgeoning quantum industries. Unlike other textbooks on semiconductor device physics, it provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to quantum physics and statistical physics, with derivations and explanations of the key facts that are suitable for second-year undergraduates, rather than simply postulating the main results. The book is structured into three parts, each of which can be covered in around ten lectures. The first part covers fundamental background material such as quantum and statistical physics, and elements of crystallography and band theory of solids. Since this provides a vital foundation for the rest of the text, concepts are explained and derived in more detail than in comparable texts. For example, the concepts of measurement and collapse of the wave function, which are typically omitted, are presented in this text in language accessible to second-year students. The second part covers semiconductors in and out of equilibrium, and gives details which are not commonly presented, such as a derivation of the density of states using dimensional analysis, and calculation of the concentration of ionized impurities from the grand canonical distribution. Special attention is paid to the solution of Poisson's equation, a topic that is feared by many undergraduates but is brought back down to earth by techniques and analogies from first-year physics. Finally, in the third part, the material in parts 2 and 3 is applied to describe simple semiconductor devices, including the MOSFET, the Schottky and PN-junction diodes, and optoelectronic devices. With a wide range of exercises, this textbook is readily adoptable for an undergraduate course on semiconductor physics devices, and with its emphasis on consolidating and applying knowledge of fundamental physics, it will leave students in engineering and the physical sciences well prepared for a future where quantum industries proliferate.

This book highlights the properties of advanced materials suitable for realizing THz devices, circuits and systems, and processing and fabrication technologies associated with those. It also discusses some measurement techniques exclusively effective for THz regime, newly explored materials and recently developed solid-state devices for efficient generation and detection of THz waves, potentiality of metamaterials for implementing THz passive circuits and bio-sensors, and finally the future of silicon as the base material of THz devices. The book especially focuses on the recent advancements and several research issues related to THz materials and devices; it also discusses theoretical, experimental, established, and validated empirical works on these topics.

Exploring such topics as materials, metals, bonding techniques, etching procedures and fabrication techniques, this book gives examples which should be comprehended by both technical and non-technical readers.

This book presents a theoretical study of the generation and conversion of phonon angular momentum in crystals. Recently, rotational motions of lattice vibrations, i.e., phonons, in crystals attract considerable attentions. As such, the book theoretically demonstrate generations of phonons with rotational motions, based on model calculations and first-principle calculations. In systems without inversion symmetry, the phonon angular momentum is shown to be caused by the temperature gradient, which is demonstrated in crystals such as wurtzite gallium nitride, tellurium, and selenium using the first-principle calculations. In systems with neither time-reversal nor inversion symmetries, the phonon angular momentum is shown to be generated by an electric field. Secondly, the book presents the microscopic mechanisms developed by the author and his collaborator on how these microscopic rotations of nuclei are coupled with electron spins. These predictions serve as building blocks for spintronics with phonons or mechanical motions.

This thesis presents the first ever measurement of the noise emitted by magnetic monopoles and the development of an exquisitely sensitive magnetic-field-noise spectrometer based on a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) that enabled it. Magnetic monopoles are highly elusive elementary particles exhibiting quantized magnetic charge. The prospects for studying them brightened recently with the theoretical discovery that the thermally excited states in certain classes of magnetic insulators exhibit all the characteristics of magnetic monopoles. Furthermore, in 2018, it was predicted that the random motion of magnetic monopoles inside would generate a very specific kind of magnetization noise. In this thesis, the author describes a new experimental technique, so-called spin noise spectroscopy, and the subsequent discovery of virtually all of the predicted features of the magnetic noise expected from a dense fluid of magnetic monopoles in crystals of Dy2Ti2O7. Remarkably, because this magnetic monopole noise occurs in the frequency range below 20kHz, when amplified by the SQUID it is actually audible to humans.

This book focuses on crystalline silicon solar cell science and technology. It is written from the perspective of an experimentalist with extensive hands-on experience in modeling, fabrication, and characterization. A practical approach to solar cell fabrication is presented in terms of its three components: materials, electrical, and optical. The materials section describes wafer processing methods including saw damage removal, texturing, diffusion, and surface passivation. The electrical section focuses on formation of ohmic contacts on n and p-doped surfaces. The optical section illustrates light interaction with textured silicon surfaces in terms of geometrical, diffractive and physical optics, transmission, and surface photovoltage (SPV) spectroscopy. A final chapter analyzes performance of solar cells, fabricated with a wide range of process parameters. A brief economic analysis on the merits of crystalline silicon-based photovoltaic technology as a cottage industry is also included. This professional reference will be an important resource for practicing engineers and technicians working with solar cell and PV manufacturing and renewable energy technologies, as well as upper-level engineering and material science students. Presents a practical approach to solar cell fabrication, and characterization; Offers modular methodology with detailed equipment and process parameters supported by experimental results; Includes processing diagrams and tables for 16% efficient solar cell fabrication.

This book looks at advanced nanocomposites, introducing long-awaited concepts towards bridging the gap between nanostructured optical materials and next-generation imaging systems. It investigates nanocomposites as bulk optical materials and highlights the immense potential they hold for real-world optical elements and systems, such as smartphone cameras. It covers the full spectrum of nanocomposite optical materials from their fundamental properties to analytical modeling and detailed application examples. This book also provides an in-depth discussion of the role these new materials play in the development of broadband flat optics - diffractive optical elements used for enhancing high-end broadband imaging systems. Written by an industry expert, this book seamlessly connects fundamental research and real-world applications. It is the ideal guide both for optical engineers working towards integrating new technologies, and researchers involved with fundamental research on optical materials.