A flexible polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite prototype with high piezoelectricity and force sensitivity was constructed, and its huge potential for applications such as biomechanical energy harvesting, self-powered health monitoring system, and pressure sensors was proved. The crystallization, piezoelectric, and electrical properties of the composites were characterized using an X-ray diffraction (XRD) experiment and customized experimental setups. The composite can sustain up to 100% strain, which is a huge improvement over monolithic PVDF fibers and other PVDF-based composites in the literature. The Young's modulus is 1.64 MPa, which is closely matched with the flexibility of the human skin, and shows the possibility for integrating PVDF/PDMS composites into wearable devices and implantable medical devices. The 300 μm thick composite has a 14% volume fraction of PVDF fibers and produces high piezoelectricity with piezoelectric charge constants d31 = 19 pC/N and d33 = 34 pC/N, and piezoelectric voltage constants g31 = 33.9 mV/N and g33 = 61.2 mV/N. Under a 10 Hz actuation, the output voltage was measured at 190 mVpp, which is the largest output signal generated from a PVDF fiber-based prototype.

In this paper, we propose a finite memory filter (estimator) for discrete-time stochastic linear systems with delays in state and measurement. A novel filtering algorithm is designed based on finite memory strategies, to achieve high estimation accuracy and stability under parametric uncertainties. The new finite memory filter uses a set of recent observations with appropriately chosen initial horizon conditions. The key contribution is the derivation of Lyapunov-like equations for finite memory mean and covariance of system state with an arbitrary number of time delays. A numerical example demonstrates that the proposed algorithm is more robust and accurate than the Kalman filter against dynamic model uncertainties.

Based on the results of studies on acetone excretion in diabetic patients, a one - chip sensors array was fabricated by combining acetone-selective sensor materials and volatile-organic-compound sensitive sensor materials. An electonic-nose was implemented using a sensor array and confirmed selectivity for five gases. In this system, the excretion of diabetic patients and controls was sampled with solid phase microextraction fiber and transferred to the sensor array. Although the control and diabetic patients were distinct, several samples failed. In the control group, the results of blood tests were normal, but patients were highly obese. In addition, the gas chromatography mass spectrometry results for the subjects revealed chemicals that are external factors.

Au@TiO2 core-shell decorated rGO nanocomposite (NC) was prepared using a simple solvothermal method followed by heat treatment for gas sensor application. The crystal structure and morphology of the composites were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. The NO2 sensing response of the Au@TiO2/rGO NC was tested at operating temperatures from 250°C to 500°C, and was compared with those of the bare rGO and Au@TiO2 core-shell NPs. The Au@TiO2/rGO NCbased sensor showed a far higher response than the rGO or Au@TiO2 core-shell based sensors, with the maximum response detected when the operating temperature was 400°C. This improved response was due to the high rGO gas absorption capability for NO2 gas and the catalytic effect of Au@TiO2 core-shell NPs in oxidizing NO2 to NO3.

We investigated the facile and effective strategy for sensitive and selective C2H5OH sensors based on the In-decorated NiO nanoigloos. The In-decorated NiO nanoigloos is fabricated by RF sputtering using 750 nm-diameter polystyrene beads using a soft-template. The morphological evolution based on the Van der Drift model was generated through a heterojunction between In metal and NiO, resulting in a pyramidal rough surface. Upon decorating the In on the NiO surface, high sensitivity and selectivity to C2H5OH were observed, and gas sensing mechanism was demonstrated by a high surface-to-volume and double Schottky barrier. We are confident that the method presented in this study will have a significant impact on the fabrication of effective nanostructures and their application for the gas sensors.

In this work, we performed an optical simulation study on the performance of a PMDPP3T:PCBM based on an organic photovoltaic (PV) device. The virtual PV device was developed in Lumerical, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) solutions. Different layers of the PV cell have been defined through the incorporation of complex refractive index value of those layers' constituent materials. During the simulation study, the effect of the variation active layer thickness on an ideal short circuit current density (Jsc, ideal) of the PV cell has been, first, observed. Thereafter, we have investigated the impact of surface roughness of a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrode on Jsc,ideal of the PV cells. From this simulation, it has been observed that the Jsc,ideal value of the PV cell is strongly dependent on the thickness of its active layer and the photon absorption of the PV cell has gradually decreased with the increment of the TCO's surface roughness. As a result, the capability of the PV device has been reduced with the increment of the surface roughness of the TCO.

Phase interpolation is widely adopted in frequency synthesizers and clock-and-data recovery systems to produce an intermediate phase from two existing phases. The intermediate phase is typically generated by combining two input phases with different weights. Unfortunately, this results in non-uniform phase steps. Alternatively, the intermediate phase can be generated by successive approximation, where the interpolated phase at each approximation stage is obtained using the same weight for the two intermediate phases. As a proof of concept, this study presents a 2-GHz 8-bit successive approximation digital-to-phase converter that is designed using 65-nm CMOS technology. The converter receives an 8-phase clock signal as input, and the most significant bit (MSB) section selects four phases to create two sinusoidal waveforms using a harmonic rejection filter. The remaining least significant bit (LSB) section applies the successive approximation to generate the required intermediate phase. Monte-Carlo simulations show that the proposed converter exhibits 0.46-LSB integral nonlinearity and 0.31-LSB differential nonlinearity with a power consumption of 3.12 mW from a 1.2-V supply voltage.

In this study, in conjunction with a SIMULINK program based on system modeling of a voice-coil-actuator (VCA)-driven balancing scale, a proportional-integral-derivative control algorithm is implemented, and weighing characteristics are investigated through experiments and simulations. The extent to which the back electromotive force induced in the VCA-driven circuit and the magnetic damping induced by the coil wound bobbin of VCA affect the weighing speed is also investigated.

We propose a two-step lithography process to minimize edge-bead issues caused by thick photoresist (PR) coating. In the conventional PR process, the edge bead can be efficiently removed by applying an edge-bead removal (EBR) process while rotating the silicon wafer at a high speed. However, applying conventional EBR to the production of desired PR mold with unique negative patterns cannot be used because a lower rpm of spin coating and a lower temperature in the soft bake process are required. To overcome this problem, a two-step lithography process was developed in this study and applied to the fabrication of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film having super-hydrophobic characteristics. Following UV exposure with a first photomask, the exposed part of the silicon wafer was selectively removed by applying a PR developer while rotating at a low rpm. Then, unique PR mold structures were prepared by employing an additional under-exposure process with a second mask, and the mold patterns were transferred to the PDMS. Results showed that the fabricated PDMS film based on the two-step lithography process reduced the height difference from 23% to 5%. In addition, the water contact angle was greatly improved by spraying of hydrophobic nanosilica on the dual-scaled PDMS surface.

In this study, mid-infrared transparent zinc sulfide (ZnS) ceramics were fabricated through hydrothermal synthesis with different molar ratios of S/Zn (S/Zn = 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6). The ZnS ceramics were sintered at a relatively low temperature of 850 °C to prevent the occurrence of the hexagonal phase featuring optical anisotropy. The phase composition, microstructure, and optical properties of the ZnS ceramics were subsequently investigated by employing X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The results obtained indicate that the ZnS nanoparticles feature the cubic phase, without the hexagonal phase. Moreover, with increasing S, the crystallinity and particle size of the ZnS nanoparticles increased. The crystallinity and density of the ZnS ceramics improved when the molar ratio of S was higher than the molar ratio of Zn, thereby enhancing the transmittance. Furthermore, the ZnS ceramic with an S/Zn value of 1.2 was found to exhibit the highest transmittance of approximately 69% owing to the reduced occurrence of the hexagonal phase and a high density of 99.8%.