A single mode waveguide grating coupler based on multiple Si-SiO₂ pairs onto Si substrate has been designed. Numerical analysis has been carried out to calculate optimum thickness of the layers of Si-SiO₂ that ensures the constructive interference between reflected waves and actual guided wave for high coupling efficiency. Based on the results, an optimal design is developed and modeled by using a 2-D finite difference time domain (2-D FDTD) simulator that dictates a coupling efficiency of as much as 78% (-1.07 dB) at the wavelength of 1550 nm, and a 1-dB bandwidth of 77 nm. The numerical method will be useful to calculate the optimum thicknesses of the layers for any reflector based grating coupler of different materials.

During the last decades the quantitative description of electrical and magnetotransport properties of solid-state materials has been a remarkable challenge in materials science. Recently, the discovery of a novel class of materials, the topological semimetals, has led to a growing interest for the full understanding of their magnetotransport properties. In this review, the strong interplay among topology, band structure and carrier mobility in recently discovered high carriers mobility topological semimetals is discussed and their effect on their magnetotransport properties is outlined. The huge magnetoresistance effect, especially in the Hall transverse configuration, and a new version of a three-dimensional quantum Hall effect observed in high-mobility Weyl and Dirac semimetals are reviewed. The design of novel quantum sensors based on solid-state semimetals is also encouraged.

Thermal simulations are an important part in the design of electronic systems, especially as systems with high power density become common. In simulation-based design approaches, a considerable amount of time is spent by repeated simulations. In this work, we present a proof-of-concept study of the application of convolutional neural networks to accelerate those thermal simulations. The goal is not to replace standard simulation tools but to provide a method to quickly select promising samples for more detailed investigations. Based on a training set of randomly generated circuits with corresponding Finite Element solutions, the full 3D steady-state temperature field is estimated using a fully convolutional neural network. A custom network architecture is proposed which captures the long-range correlations present in heat conduction problems. We test the network on a separate dataset and find that the mean relative error is around 2 % and the typical evaluation time is 35 ms per sample ( 2 ms for evaluation, 33 ms for data transfer). The benefit of this neural-network-based approach is that, once training is completed, the network can be applied to any system within the design space spanned by the randomised training dataset (which includes different components, material properties, different positioning of components on a PCB, etc.).

This study focuses on the analyses of nano-twinned Copper (Cu) films deposited through magnetron sputtering on Silicon Carbide (SiC) chips. The investigation encompasses the utilization of Chromium (Cr) adhesive layer coupled with varying voltage bias conditions. The goal is to comprehensively examine the influence of adhesive layer and negative bias voltages, contributing to an enhanced understanding of materials engineering and bonding technologies for advanced applications. The formation of a nanotwinned structure and (111) surface orientation can be properly controlled by applied substrate bias. High density nanotwinned structures were introduced into Cu films sputtered on SiC substrates with 82.3% of (111)-orientation proportion at -150 V much higher than the Cu film sputtered with another substrate bias. It is concluded that the sputtered Cu nanotwinned film formed with -150 V bias voltage has the potential to be employed as the interlayer for low temperature direct bonding.

In order to improve the charge collection efficiency, we simulated and experimentally tested the doping structure of the electron multiplication layer in EBCMOS. In this paper, we simulate the charge collection efficiency of EBCMOS under different doping methods by modeling the collisional scattering of electrons with solid atoms in semiconductor materials and combining the transport trajectories of electrons in the electron multiplication layer, the simulation results indicate that using a layered doping structure to reduce the thickness of the index heavily doped layer can effectively optimize the electric field distribution in the electron multiplier layer and reduce the recombination rate of electrons. The optimized doping structure has a significant effect on improving charge collection efficiency. Based on the simulation results, doped samples were prepared and tested. The test results showed that the charge collection efficiency obtained under the condition of a P-type silicon substrate thickness of 7μm and an index heavily doped layer thickness of 1μm was 72.65%, reducing the thickness of the index heavily doped layer to 0.1μm, the charge collection efficiency obtained can reach 86.27%, which proves that reducing the thickness of the index heavily doped layer can effectively improve the charge collection efficiency of EBCMOS devices.

The key question for the understanding of corrosion phenomena of Si3N4-SiC material in Al reduction cell – whether corrosion by gases (and oxidation in particular) opens way for the corrosion by molten cryolite, or corrosion of Si3N4-SiC by cryolite plays its own role in degradation of the material in service. More probably the reactions of silicon carbide and silicon nitride with molten cryolite go after the stage of pre oxidation to silicon dioxide. The corrosion of Si3N4-SiC material in the reduction cell may take place by “gas-solid” reaction and by “liquid-solid” reaction. There are several variants of lab corrosion test for the evaluation of corrosion resistance of Si3N4-SiC material to cryolite. The results of investigation of Si3N4-SiC lab corrosion test give no direct evidence of selective dissolution of specific phase (Si3N4 or SiC, α-Si3N4 or β-Si3N4) in cryolite. The existing variants of lab corrosion testing require clarification.

Compressive residual stresses in thin films can inhibit crack propagation under normal or sliding contact loading, with associated enhancement of the coating apparent toughness, load bearing capacity and wear resistance. This study investigates the influence of residual stress distributions on the thin film/substrate adhesion using a nanoindenter coupled with scanning electron microscope (SEM) investigations of indentation induced failure modes. Reactive and un-reactive magnetron sputtering with ion plating was used to coat a (100) silicon substrate with aluminum nitride (AlN) with and without an aluminum (Al) adhesion layer. The presence of an Al bond layer gives additional interfacial tensile stress because of the difference in thermal expansion coefficient. Additionally, a different magnitude of residual stresses in the AlN coating was achieved by changing the applied bias voltage onto the substrate. Wafer curvature method and incremental focused ion beam (FIB) milling, combined with high-resolution in situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging and full field strain analysis by digital image correlation (DIC), were used to measure the average and in-depth stress residual stress distribution in the produced coatings. The adhesion energy was then quantified by using a nanoindentation based model. Results demonstrate that the additional tensile residual stress in the aluminum adhesion layer decrease significantly the coating adhesion, even in presence of a higher compressive stress state in the AlN top-layer. Therefore, the coatings without Al-layer showed better adhesion because of a more homogeneous compressive residual stress in comparison with the coating having Al layer, even though both groups of coatings are produced under same bias voltage. Results are discussed, and some general suggestions are made on the correlation between coating/substrate property combination and the adhesion energy of multilayer stacks. The results suggested that Al bond-layer and inhomogeneous residual stresses affected the adhesion of AlN negatively to a substrate like silicon.

The synthesis of enantiomeric forms of D-amino acids can be achieved by a two-step "hydantoinase process" based on the sequential catalysis of substrates by specific enzymes, D-carbamoylase and D-hydantoinase. In addition to our previously studied D-hydantoinase, we describe here the structural features of D-carbamoylase from Pseudomonas, the encoded gene of which was chemically synthesized and cloned into Escherichia coli. A significant fraction of the overexpressed recombinant protein forms insoluble inclusion bodies, which are partially converted to a soluble state upon treatment with N-lauroylsarcosine or upon incubation of the cells at low temperatures. Analysis of the substrate specificity of the purified His-tag protein showed that D-carbamoylase exhibits the highest activity toward N-carbamoyl-D-alanine and N-carbamoyl-D-tryptophan. Molecular docking analysis revealed the location of the substrate binding site in the three-dimensional structure of D-carbamoylase. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that the binding pocket of the enzyme in complex with N-carbamoyl-D-tryptophan is stabilized within 100 ns. The free energy of binding indicated a possible role of residues Arg176 and Asn173 in the formation of hydrogen bonds between the enzyme and N-carbamoyl-D-tryptophan. The properties of the studied D-carbamoylase and D-hydantoinase support further development of a combined biotechnological process for the production of new drugs and peptide hormones.

Prompt removal of misfolded membrane proteins and misassembled membrane protein complexes is essential for membrane homeostasis. However, the elimination of these toxic proteins from the hydrophobic membrane environment has high energetic barriers. Transmembrane FtsH is the only known ATP-dependent protease responsible for this task, unlike other well-studied soluble ATP-dependent proteases. The mechanisms by which FtsH recognizes, unfolds, translocates, and proteolyzes its substrates remain unclear. Here, we report the crystal structures of the Thermotoga maritima FtsH periplasmic domain (PD) in an associative trimeric state at a 1.5-1.95 Å resolution. We also describe the pH-dependent oligomerization states of the isolated PD using dynamic light scattering. These observations help us understand how FtsH recognizes membrane-anchored misfolded proteins.

Silicon carbide single crystal (SiC) has been widely used in the field of power devices, while it is difficult to fabricate ultra-flat surface by traditional manufacturing technologies due to its difficult-to-machine property. This paper investigates the interaction process during femtosecond laser ablation of crystalline silicon carbide based on the two-temperature model simulation and experimental study. The findings reveal that parameters such as laser pulse energy, scanning interval, and defocus amount exert significant influence on ablation depth, roughness, and surface morphology. The femtosecond laser proves effective in removing surface defects from cut SiC substrates, albeit resulting in increased surface roughness. However, subsequent polishing treatment of the laser-ablated silicon carbide surface can mitigate this roughness, underscoring the feasibility of laser surface ablation for silicon carbide single crystals.

Milk serves as a crucial source of natural bioactive compounds essential for human nutrition and health. The gastrointestinal digestion of milk proteins releases various biologically active peptides that positively impact human health and enhance physiological performance. With the growing production of cheese, Greek yogurt, and other dairy products, the volume of unutilized acid whey is significantly increasing. Acid whey, containing almost all whey proteins and approximately one-quarter of casein, presents a valuable raw material for generating peptides with potential health benefits. These peptides exhibit properties such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic, antihypertensive, antithrombotic, opioid, mineral-binding, and growth-stimulating activities, contributing to improved human immunity and the treatment of chronic diseases. Enzymatic hydrolysis of milk proteins has been developed as a method to produce these peptides, facilitating their use in food fortification. To incorporate whey into functional beverages, it undergoes fermentation by lactic acid bacteria with proteolytic activity. To specifically enrich these beverages with peptides exhibiting targeted bioactivities, it is essential to select lactic acid bacteria strains possessing the requisite protease profiles. Additionally, the sensory properties of the final product can be enhanced using starter cultures with diverse metabolic capabilities, even in the absence of added flavoring agents. Given the imperative to develop waste-free technologies and enhance the profitability of the dairy industry, there is a growing need to efficiently utilize and transform acid whey into a broad spectrum of valuable products and food additives. This approach is justified not only by the nutritional benefits of the bioactive components in whey but also by the commercial potential of safe and health-enhancing products.

The reflection and transmission spectra of a metamaterial formed by omega-shaped elements with pre-calculated optimal parameters on a silicon substrate have been recorded in the terahertz range at oblique incidence for the s- and p- polarizations of the incident wave. The spectra were interpreted within the dipole radiation theory of electromagnetic waves. Both measurement results and analysis provide evidence sup-porting the presence of a pronounced polarization anisotropy impact in the reflection and transmission of the metamaterial. The potential of these materials to be utilized in the development of devices that control the polarization properties of THz radiation across a wide spectral range is examined.

In this work, the analytical Lagrange-Kirchhoff model for the deformation for a taiko plate silicon is proposed. Under the conditions of validity of the linear theory of thin plates, the model is in agreement with the experimental data.

A major problem of the technological production process of the metallurgical-grade silicon is formation of a large amount of microsilica. However, this material can be a significant source of raw materials for its own production. Hence, this study is aimed to solve the problem of micro-silica utilization, i.e. the technogenic dust-like waste generated during the melting of the technical-grade silicon. Within this study, the technology of the joint briquetting of microsilica was investigated with the carbonaceous reducing agents, i.e. by obtaining of mono-charge and by melting of the technical-grade silicon from the obtained mono-charge in the 200kVA ore-thermal furnace. Results of the study show that the briquettes in the melting process of the technical-grade silicon can be used in the range from 0 to 50%. The using of briquettes may significantly improve the technological parameters. When briquetted charge is applied only, the technological parameters will deteriorate significantly. The material balance of silicon melting showed the recovery rates of the main elements (Si, Al, Ca and Fe). It recorded a decrease in content of aluminum from 1.9-2.1% to 0.5-0.7%, calcium from 0.2-0.3% to 0.07-0.1% and titanium from 0.2-0.23% to 0.11-0.13% during the transition to briquetted monocharge. Phosphorus content increased from 0.004-0.005 to 0.011-0.013%.

The microstructure of the substrate plays a crucial role in the anodizing process. Anodizing cast aluminum alloys is quite challenging due to the higher levels of alloying elements present compared to pure aluminum. Elements such as silicon, iron, and copper significantly impact the growth and quality of the anodic layer. Additionally, anodizing parameters such as electrolyte composition, current density, and temperature are critical in determining the morphology and thickness of the anodic film. The casting process, surface condition, and post-treatment also affect the properties of the anodic layer. Optimizing these parameters is essential to achieve a durable and high-quality anodic layer. This work aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the various factors affecting the anodizing of cast aluminum alloys and the properties of the anodic layer, including its thickness, corrosion resistance, and wear resistance.

Nanocrystalline silicon oxide (nc-SiOx:H) is a multipurpose material with its varied application in solar cells as a transparent front contact, intermediate reflector, back reflector layer and even tunnel layer for passivating contacts, owing to easy tailoring of its optical properties. In this work, we systematically investigate the influence of gas mixture (SiH4, CO2, PH3 and H2), RF power and process pressure on the optical, structural and passivation properties of thin n-type nc-SiOx:H films prepared in an industrial, high throughput, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reactor. We provide a detailed description of the n-type nc-SiOx:H material develop-ment using various characterization techniques (SEM, EDX, Raman spectroscopy, and spectro-scopic ellipsometry) with a focus on the relationship between the material properties and the pas-sivation they provide to n-type c-Si wafers characterized by their effective carrier lifetime (τeff). Further, we also outline the parameters to be kept in mind while developing different n-type nc-SiOx:H layers for different solar cell applications. We report a tunable optical gap (1.8 – 2.3 eV) for our n-type nc-SiOx:H films as well as excellent passivation properties with τeff up to 3.5 ms (iVoc ~ 715 mV) before annealing. Oxygen content plays an important role in determining the crystallinity and hence passivation quality of the deposited nanocrystalline silicon oxide films.

Increasing population size and income growth are causing and increasing demand for food and protein of animal origin. Insects are an interesting alternative to conventional animal source proteins as they can convert by-products from the agricultural industry to biomass for commercial feed for livestock and potentially as a food source for human consumption. Microorganisms have been found to affect insects and can be accumulated via horizontal and vertical transmission. This study aimed to identify if the removal of egg- and substrate-associated microorganisms impact larval performance through the following parameters: development of biomass, final biomass, and the survival rate of house fly (Musca domestica) larvae. Four treatments were tested on substrate consisting of 10.81% alfalfa (Medicago sativa), 21.62% wheat bran (Triticum aestivum), and 67.57% water: (A) disinfected eggs and non-autoclaved substrate, (B) non-disinfected eggs and autoclaved substrate, (C) disinfected eggs and autoclaved substrate, and (D) a control without any removal of microbiota. The results showed a significant decrease in final biomass for the treatments with only disinfected eggs, only autoclaved substrate and both when comparing to the control, and a significant decrease in survival rate for B and D. Moreover, the development of biomass showed a significant difference between days within all treatments. Together this suggest that microorganisms of housefly eggs and the growth substrate plays an important role for growth, which is critical in commercial insect production. Further studies must be performed to examine these parameters in more commercially relevant substrates.

Extensive green roofs provide for many ecosystem services in urban environments. The efficacy of these services is influenced by the substrate characteristics and vegetational composition. Despite their key role in plant performance and productivity, or their contribution to nitrogen fixation or carbon sequestration, green roof microbial communities have received little attention so far. Here, we investigated whether microbial communities in extensive green roof substrates contain a core community, as well as whether they are affected by green roof plant diversity. Eleven green roofs, planted either with a mixture of grasses, wildflowers and succulents (Sedum spp.), or solely species of Sedum, were seasonally sampled to investigate prokaryotic and fungal communities via metabarcoding. Although Sedum-herbs-grasses roofs contained more plant species, we observed no discriminant microbial communities between both roof types, likely due to sharing the same substrate textures and the vegetational layers that became more similar throughout time. Examining key microbial taxa revealed that most taxa are also dominant phylotypes in soils across different biomes. Many bacterial core taxa are capable of nitrogen fixation and most fungal key taxa are stress-tolerant saprotrophs, endophytes, or both. Microbial community composition further revealed high similarities with aerial samples taken in urban environments. Considering the extreme edaphic conditions that periodically arise in green roof substrates, further investigation is warranted to determine the extent to which the dynamic and intriguing microbial communities are influenced by the aeromicrobiome.

Salidroside, a valuable phenylethanoid glycoside, is obtained from plants belonging to the Rhodiola genus, known for its diverse biological properties. At present, salidroside is still far from large-scale industrial production due to the lower titer and higher process cost. In this study, we constructed a biosynthetic pathway from L-tyrosine to salidroside in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To increase sali-droside production, we for the first time constructed an in vivo UDP-glucose regeneration system that sucrose synthase GmSUS worked in conjunction with UDP-glucose transferase RrUGT33 to improve the UDP-glucose availability with inexpensive sucrose as the consumed substrate. Finally, the molar conversion rate of L-tyrosine could reach 95%. To further reduce the cost, co-culture with E. coli that synthesized L-tyrosine de novo resulted in an 81% reduction in the final substrate cost per 1 kg of salidroside compared to the initial cost. The final titer of salidroside obtained 3.8 g/L and was the highest titer achieved at the Shake-Flask-Level in the existing reports. And this marked the first successful synthesis of salidroside in an in situ enhanced UDP-glucose system using sucrose. This accomplishment laid a robust groundwork for further investigations into the synthesis of other notable glycosides and natural compounds.

The efficient preparation of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) rings, as a macromolecular construction approach with topological features, has aroused much interest due to their numerous applications in biotechnology and DNA nanotechnology. However, an extra splint is essential for enzymatic circularization, and by-products of multimers are usually present at high concentrations. Here, we proposed a simple and robust strategy of using permuted precursor (linear ssDNA) for circularization by forming an intramolecular dynamic nick using a part of the linear ssDNA substrate itself as the template. After the simulation of the secondary structure for desired circular ssDNA, the linear ssDNA substrate is designed to have its ends on the duplex part (≥5 bp). By using this permuted substrate with 5'-phosphate, the splint-free circularization is simply carried out by T4 DNA ligase. Very interestingly, formation of only several base pairs (2–4) flanking the nick is enough for ligation, although they form only instantaneously under ligation conditions. More significantly, the 5 bp intramolecular duplex part commonly exists in genomes or functional DNA, demonstrating the high generality of our approach. Our findings are helpful for understanding the mechanism of enzymatic DNA ligation from the viewpoint of substrate binding.

Integrated ultra-low-loss waveguides are highly desired for integrated photonics to enable applications that require long delay lines, high-Q resonators, narrow filters, etc. Here we present an ultra-low-loss silicon waveguide on 500 nm thick SOI platform. Meter-scale delay lines, million-Q resonators and tens of picometer bandwidth grating filters are experimentally demonstrated. We design a low-loss low-reflection taper to seamlessly integrate the ultra-low-loss waveguide with standard heterogeneous Si/III-V integrated photonics platform to allow realization of high-performance photonic devices such as ultra-low-noise lasers and optical gyroscopes.

Based on PVDF (piezoelectric sensing techniques), this paper attempts to study the propagation law of shock waves in brittle materials during the process of three-wavelength laser irradiation of polysilicon, and discusses the formation mechanism of thermal shock failure. The experimental results show that the vapor pressure effect and the plasma pressure effect in the process of pulsed laser irradiation lead to the splashing of high temperature and high density melt. With the decrease of the laser wavelength, the laser breakdown threshold decreases and the shock wave is weakened. Because of pressure effect of the laser shock, the brittle fracture zone is at the edge of the irradiated area. The surface tension gradient and surface shear wave caused by the surface wave are the result of coherent coupling between optical and thermodynamics. The average propagation velocity of laser shock wave in polysilicon is 8.47×103m/s, and the experiment has reached the conclusion that the laser shock wave pressure peak exponentially distributes attenuation in the polysilicon.

A compact Mach-zehnder interferometer with a novel design of directional couplers and a phase shifter has been presented as a thermo-optical sensor. With the aim of reducing device size to micro and nano dimension silicon-on-insulator technology was employed. That allowed miniaturization of device size through the reduction of its cross sectional area to 0.066 µm² and the radius of curvature of both the arms of the directional coupler and S-bends of the phase shifter to 5 µm and C-bends to 3 µm. These nano size device dimensions made it possible to reduce the coupling gap to 0.2 µm, which resulted in a significant reduction in the coupling length. The device geometry and its performance characteristics were analyzed and optimized using coupled mode analysis and finite difference time domain simulation tools, respectively. The wavelength dependent transmission loss of the device was measured at different temperature to verify and validate its performance characteristics. Tested devices showed a remarkable temperature dependent transmission characteristic offering significant changes in transmission loss band – with as low as 0.45 ⁰C change in substrate temperature. The extinction ratio and the free spectral range of the device were 26 dB and 0.26 nm respectively in the wavelength range of 1549.5 nm – 1550.5 nm. These results imply that the devices presented here can be used as compact and highly sensitive thermal sensors and optical switches.

In this study, a novel flexible ethanol gas sensor was created by the deposition of CoFe2O4 (CFO) thin film was on a thin mica substrate using pulsed laser deposition. Transition electron microscopy (TEM) investigations clearly demonstrated the successful growth of CFO on the mica, where a well-defined interface was observed. Ethanol gas-sensing studies showed optimal performance at 200 °C, with the highest response, 19.2, to 100 ppm ethanol. Operating the sensor in self-heating mode under 7 V applied voltage, which was corresponds to a temperature of approximately 200 °C, produced a maximal response to ethanol of 19.2. This aligned with the highest responses observed during testing at 200 °C, confirming the sensor’s accuracy and sensitivity to ethanol under self-heating conditions. In addition, the sensor exhibited good selectivity to ethanol and excellent flexibility; maintaining its high performance after bending and tilting up to 5000 times. As this is the first report on flexible self-heated CFO gas sensors, we believe that this research holds great promise for the future development of high-quality sensors based on this approach.

Hymenaea courbaril is an endangered species, promising to reforestation programs and mainly explored as a wood source. The available information concerning long-term storage methods, seed recalcitrance, parental, and substrate influence is scarce. This study focused on the seed behavior according to population origin and during one-year storage, also testing the efficiency of the low-temperature conservation. Variations between the uncertainty indexes were found to the studied populations after long-term storage. There was no significant loss of the germination potential in consequence of the prolonged storage period. Although, older seeds promoted gradually greater delayed germination. Germination speed, synchrony, and uncertainty indexes were substantially different between the -20° conservation and control. H. courbaril seeds are capable of long-term storage without losing their germination potential, indicating an orthodox behavior.

GaN ultraviolet photodetector with metal-semiconductor-metal structure is achieved by growing on a periodic trapezoid column-shape patterned sapphire substrate using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Under 5-V reverse bias, the photodetector fabricated on such patterned sapphire substrate exhibits a lower dark current, a higher photocurrent, and a 476 % enhancement in the maximum responsivity as compare with those of the photodetector fabricated on conventional flat sapphire substrate. It is also found that the much larger UV-to-visible rejection ratio and the fact that responsivity drops in a smaller cut-off region are observed from photodetector fabricated by using a periodic trapezoid column-shape patterned sapphire substrate. These phenomena may all be attributed to the reduction of threading dislocation density and the improved quality of GaN film, as well as the internal reflection and/or scattering effect on the interface between GaN film and the periodic trapezoid column-shape pattern of the substrate.

The research presented in the article is devoted to the study of the influence of phase compounds on the friability of the Fe-Si-Mn-Al complex alloy. The urgency of the problem lies in the development of technology for producing a non-scatterable alloy from manganese-containing ores and high-ash coals. The main goal of the work is to determine the range of alloy compositions and the resulting phases that affect the dispersibility of the alloy, which is critically important for its industrial implementation. Research methods include thermodynamic diagram analysis (TDA) using data on the standard enthalpy of formation of intermetallic compounds, as well as experimental tests in an ore-thermal electric furnace with a capacity of 200 kV*A. The results show that Fe-Si-Mn-Al complex alloys form a variety of silicide and aluminide phases, including intermetallic compounds and ternary systems, which is critical for understanding and controlling their physicochemical properties. When smelting a complex alloy, the content of leboite (Fe3Si7) in the Fe-Si-Mn-Al system plays a significant role. The development of smelting technology will be aimed at avoiding the FeSi2-Fe3Si7-F2(FeAl3Si2)-Mn11Si19 tetrahedron area. This approach to controlling the composition of a complex alloy is critical to ensuring its consistent friability properties in industrial applications. Thus, this work represents an important step in understanding the physical properties and stability of Fe-Si-Mn-Al complex alloys, which have potential for widespread use in metallurgical and other industrial applications.

Crystalline silver thin layers were obtained by high-energy pulsed laser ablation without heating of the deposition substrate. The fluid Plateau-Rayleigh (PRI), Rayleigh – Taylor (RTI) and Richtmyer – Meshkov (RMI) instabilities, as well as crown splash induced during pulsed laser deposition (PLD) in high energy regime, resulting in ring and pearl shaped structures, offer the benefit of increased sorption surface. These morphological structures obtained for the silver thin layers make them of interest for catalytic applications. The study presented with this work addresses both the fundamental and applied issues on the morphological structures obtained for the silver thin layer and their catalytic function in organic processes. In this sense, the catalytic action of the thin silver layer was highlighted by modifications of the Reactive Blue 21 dye (C.I.) in aqueous solution with sodium bicarbonate. Specific investigations and analyzes were carried out by electron microscopy and elemental analysis (SEM-EDX), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and profilometry, mass spectrometry, ablation plasma diagnosis, diffractograms (XRD), as well as IR spectroscopy (FTIR). In addition to the experimental investigation and analyzes, simulation of the ionization energy threshold was conducted in COMSOL for complementary evaluation on the involved processes and phenomena.

The inositol triphosphate associated proteins IRAG1 and IRAG2 are cGMP kinase substrate proteins, which regulate intracellular Ca2+. Previously, IRAG1 was discovered as a 125 kDa membrane protein at the endoplasmic reticulum, that is associated with the intracellular Ca2+ channel IP3R-I and the PKGIβ and inhibits IP3R-I upon PKGIβ-mediated phosphorylation. IRAG2 is a 75 kDa membrane protein homologue of IRAG1 and was recently also determined as a PKGI substrate protein. Several (patho-)physiological functions of IRAG1 and IRAG2 were meanwhile and recently elucidated in a variety of human and murine tissues, e.g. of IRAG1 in various smooth muscles, heart, platelets and other blood cells, of IRAG2 in pancreas, heart, platelets and taste cells. Hence, lack of IRAG1 or IRAG2 leads to diverse phenotypes in these organs, e.g. smooth muscle and platelet disorders or secretory deficiency, respectively. This review aims to highlight the recent research regarding these both regulatory proteins to envision its molecular and (patho-)physiological tasks and to unravel its functional interplay as possible (patho-)physiological counterparts.

Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) can use food by-products or residues as a growth substrate, and their use is considered a strategic solution to improve the sustainability and efficiency of animal production. BSFL need to be reared under controlled environmental conditions, as temperature can affect the welfare of the larvae and the efficiency of their bioconversion. The goal of this experiment was to test different diets: control, vegetable, carnivorous, omnivorous and to assess their effect on larval growth performance, chemical composition, and substrate temperature. BSFL (6-days-old) were randomly selected and allocated to one of the four diets for the entire experiment (8 days). The temperature in each container was measured twice daily using a thermal imaging camera. The vegetable diet led to significantly lower growth performance (p

The properties of coatings obtained using two surface preparation methods were compared: heating and etching by ion bombardment with plasma generation by arc evaporators and heating and etching by a glow discharge. A Ti-TiN-(Ti,Cr,Al)N coating was deposited. The use of a glow discharge provides better resistance of the coating to destruction during the scratch test and wear resistance of metal-cutting tools when turning steel. As the cutting speed increases, the advantage in wear resistance of the coating deposited using a glow discharge increases. During the process of heating and etching by ion bombardment with metal ions, a nanolayer rich in cobalt and tooling elements (iron, molybdenum) is formed in the area of the interface of the coating and the carbide substrate. When heated and etched by a glow discharge, such a layer does not form. When using both methods, there is identical diffusion of tungsten into the coating and diffusion of chromium and possibly titanium into the substrate. Thus, the glow discharge heating and etching method can be effectively used in the process of PVD coating deposition.

Silicon (Si) is the major material of semiconductor element. For semiconductor element producing, Si need to refined into high-purity silicon crystals, which has the approximate characteristics of intrinsic semiconductor, then doping 13th group or 15th group trace element. Producing the high-purity silicon crystals with well-lattice structure need a lot of energy and highly cost. Besides, the high-purity silicon is very hard and fragile which limits the scope of application. For this reason, this study added low-grade non-complete lattice silicon in the elastic polymer, and then doped with high concentrations of fine carbon powder. This material can be conductive by physisorption;therefore, it can be used to making semiconductors. Using this material to produce electronic components can significantly reduce the cost of purification and crystallization, saving energy at the same time. Moreover, because this elastic polymer materials containing silicon, which has soft, warm, and durable physical properties. With those properties, the design of the device could be more flex, full scalability and close to the skin.

This computational research study will compare the specific charge capacity (SCC) between lithium ions inserted into crystallize silicon (c-Si) nanowires versus sodium ions inserted into amorphous silicon (a-Si) nanowires. It will be demonstrated that the potential energy V(r) within the lithium-silicon nanowire supports a coherent energy state model with discrete electron particles while the sodium-silicon nanowire potential energy will be discovered to be essentially zero and thus the electron current that travels through the sodiated silicon nanowire will be modeled as free electron with wave-like characteristics. This is due to the vast differences in the electric fields of the lithiated and sodiated silicon nanowires where the electric fields are of the order of 1e10 V/m and 1e-15 V/m respectively. The main reason for the great disparity in electric fields are due to the present of optical amplification within lithium ions and the absence of this process within sodium ions. It will be shown that optical amplification develops coherent optical interactions which is the primary reason for the surge of specific charge capacity in the lithiated silicon nanowire. Conversely, the lack of optical amplification is the reason for the incoherent optical interactions within sodium ions which is the reason for the low presence of SCC in sodiated silicon nanowires.

We present the results on photothermal (PT) and heat conductive properties of nanogranular silicon (Si) films synthesized by evaporation of colloidal droplets (drop-casting) of 100 ± 50 nm sized crystalline Si nanoparticles (NP) deposited on glass substrates. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) and finite element mesh (FEM) modeling of absorbed light intensity and photo-induced spatial temperature distribution across the Si NP films were well correlated with the local temperatures measured by micro-Raman spectroscopy and used for determination of heat conductivities in the films of various thicknesses. Cubic-to-hexagonal phase transition in these films caused by laser heating was found to be heavily influenced by the film thickness and heat conductive properties of glass substrate, on which the films were deposited. Heat conductivities across the drop-casted Si nanogranular films were found to be in the range of lowest heat conductivities of other types of nanostructurely voided Si films due to enhanced phonon scattering across inherently voided topology, weak NP-NP and NP-substrate interface bonding within nanogranular Si films.

The effects of soluble silicon fertilization on monocots and dicots have been widely studied. However, little is known regarding its effects on protecting epiphytes against insect and fungal pests. The efficacy of silicon fertilizer to reduce damage by thrip pest complexes, namely: Thrips palmi Karny, Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande, Chaetanaphothrips orchidii Moulton, and Chaetanaphothrips signipennis Bagnall (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), and fungal pathogens: Botrytis cinerea Persoon (Helotiales: Sclerotiniaceae) and Fusarium spp. Link (Hypocreales: Nectriaceae) was examined during a nine-month greenhouse trial in Hawaii. The trial assessed yield, quality, and pest damage across three common varieties of dendrobiums. All replicates received additional soluble silicon fertilizer applications alternating weekly between soil drench and foliar (50 mg Si/plant) applications. Yield, quality, and spray length, pest damage, plant vigor, SPAD, and leaf temperature were measured. Data were analyzed using a generalized linear model (glm) with repeated measures followed by post-hoc pair-wise comparisons in R, version 4.3.1. Treatment effects were significant at P

Sr4Al6O12SO4 samples were obtained from the compound mixture formed by a solid–state reaction of Al2O3, SrSO4, and SrCO3. Samples were compacted at 100MPa to form pellets of 1 and 4cm in diameter and were sintered at 1400°C for 4 hours. The compound was analyzed by X–ray diffraction. Static immersion and wettability tests were performed to evaluate corrosion resistance in contact with Al–Si. Corrosion tests were carried out by immersion at 800, 900, and 1000°C for 24, 50, and 100 hours, while wettability was carried out at 900, 1000, and 1100°C for 2 hours. Subsequently, the samples were prepared metallographically. Samples were analyzed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and image analysis. In general, reaction products consisting of alumina, spinel, oxides, and sulfates were found. The contact angles obtained were 124° to 135°. It is concluded that ceramic substrate Sr4Al6O12SO4 is resistant to corrosion by Al–Si alloy, since the slight thickness of the reaction products found in the samples (100μm) considering the severe conditions of the experiment: 1000°C and 100 hours of isothermal temperature. Furthermore, it can be said that Sr4Al6O12SO4 is not wettable by Al–Si alloys.

Four decades of proteasome research have yielded extensive information on ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis. The archetype of proteasomes is a 20S barrel-shaped complex that does not rely on ubiquitin as a degradation signal but can degrade substrates with a considerable unstructured stretch. Since roughly half of all proteasomes in most eukaryotic cells are free 20S complexes, ubiquitin-independent protein degradation may coexist with ubiquitin-dependent degradation by the highly regulated 26S proteasome. This article reviews recent advances in our understanding of the biochemical and structural features that underlie the proteolytic mechanism of 20S proteasomes. The two outer α-rings of 20S proteasomes provide a number of potential docking sites for loosely folded polypeptides. The binding of a substrate can induce asymmetric conformational changes, trigger gate opening, and initiate its own degradation through a protease-driven translocation mechanism. Consequently, the substrate translocates through two additional narrow apertures augmented by the β-catalytic active sites. The overall pulling force through the two annuli results in a protease-like unfolding of the substrate and subsequent proteolysis in the catalytic chamber. Although both proteasomes contain identical β-catalytic active sites, the differential translocation mechanisms yield distinct peptide products. Non-overlapping substrate repertoires and product outcomes rationalize cohabitation of both proteasome complexes in cells.

Aluminium matrix composite’s overall quality is impacted by the friction stir process parameters, which have a major impact on the microstructure, soundness, and particle dispersion inside the stir zone. Although it requires a lot of experimentation, optimizing these factors is vital. For the purpose of optimizing the ultimate tensile strength and microhardness of the AA5083/Silicon carbide and AA5083/Coal composites fabricated by FSP, this work used the Taguchi L9 design of experiments. Three process parameters were investigated at three levels each. For the AA5083/Silicon carbide composite, the results of the ANOVA analysis showed rotational speed has a larger impact on ultimate tensile strength while forAA5083/coal tilt angle has a larger impact on ultimate tensile strength. On the other hand, rotating speed had a greater effect on microhardness and percentage elongation of the AA5083/Coal and AA5083/Silicon carbide composite joints, according to ANOVA analysis. The need for specific process optimization for each composite was highlighted by the fact that different combinations of parameters were best for obtaining the necessary attributes in the AA5083/Silicon carbide and AA5083/Coal composites.

tructural and superconducting properties of high quality Niobium nanofilms with different thicknesses are investigated on silicon oxide and sapphire substrates. The role played by the different substrates and the superconducting properties of the Nb films are discussed based on the defectivity of the films and on the presence of an interfacial oxide layer between the Nb film and the substrate. The X-ray absorption spectroscopy is employed to uncover the structure of the interfacial layer. We show that this interfacial layer leads to a strong proximity effect, specially in films deposited on a SiO2 substrate, altering the superconducting properties of the Nb films. Our results establish that the critical temperature is determined by an interplay between quantum-size effects, due to the reduction of the Nb film thicknesses, and proximity effects.

This paper presents an alternative process to fabricate flexible bandpass filters by using embroidered yarn conductor on electronic-textile. The novelty of the proposed miniaturized filter is its complete integration on the outfit, with benefits in terms of compressibility, stretch ability and high geometrical accuracy, opening the way to develop textile filters in sport and medicine wearable applications. The proposed design consists of a fully embroidered microstrip topology with a length equal to quarter wavelength (λ/4) to develop a bandpass filter frequency response. A drastic reduction in size of the filter was achieved by taking advantage of a simplified architecture based on meandered-line stepped impedance resonator. The e-textile microstrip filter has been designed, simulated, fabricated and measured, with experimental validation at a 7.58 GHz frequency. The insertion loss obtained by simulation of the filter is substantially small. The return loss is greater than 20 dB for bands. To explore the relations between physical parameters and filter performance characteristics, theoretical equivalent circuit model of the filter constituent components were studied. The effect of bending of the e-textile filter is also studied. The results show that by changing the radius of bending up to 40 mm, the resonance frequency is shifted up 4.25 MHz/mm.

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors like Transitional Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have attracted strong research interest in the last decade. Unlike the more celebrated 2D material graphene, TMDCs like molybdenum disulfide(MoS₂) possess bandgap. The number of layers critically depends on the band structure of MoS₂. For example, it is indirect for bulk MoS₂. However, it becomes direct bandgap material for a monolayer MoS₂. Monolayer MoS₂, therefore, becomes an important material for photoelectronic devices. An essential aspect of such devices is the metal-semiconductor junction. Metal-TMDC junction is, therefore, a well-studied interface due to its importance for 2D materials-based photoelectronic devices. Most importantly, it can be flexible, stretchable to it’s length, and bent to a large angle. We used metals like Au and Al to interface with TMDs like MoS₂. We used silicon and PDMS as substrates. So, we have to focus on investigating the relative properties of various TMDCs. We see change in band energy and vibrational modes via Photoluminiscence and Raman spectroscopy as shown in the article. However, certain aspects are yet to be explored, for example, how this interface behaves in the presence of strain.

Perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells represent a significant advancement in photovoltaic technology, aiming to overcome the efficiency limitations of traditional silicon-based solar cells. This paper explores recent developments in the fabrication and optimization of these tandem cells, focusing on improving both efficiency and long-term stability. The combination of perovskite materials with silicon allows for broader spectrum absorption, which enhances the overall power conversion efficiency. Key strategies include optimizing the perovskite layer's composition, improving the interface between layers to reduce recombination losses, and incorporating advanced encapsulation techniques to mitigate degradation from environmental factors such as moisture and UV exposure. The review also highlights the challenges faced in scaling up production while maintaining high performance and stability. Emerging trends in material engineering and device architecture are discussed, providing insights into future directions for making perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells a viable commercial technology. This study underscores the potential of these hybrid systems to significantly boost the efficiency of photovoltaic systems, offering a promising pathway towards more sustainable and costeffective solar energy solutions.

In the paper the experimental methodology for the single-crystal circular plate deformation measurement and subsequent procedure for mechanical properties quantitation are developed. The procedure is based on a new numerical-analytical solution of nonlinear boundary-value problem for finite deformations of a circular anisotropic plate. Using the developed method, a study of the deformation of single-crystal circular plates formed on the basis of a silicon-on-insulator structure was carried out. The values of residual stresses are determined and it is shown that the presence of these stresses increases the flexural rigidity of the plate in several times.

Silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) are highly promising for biological and biomedical applications, including bioimaging, due to their unique opltical properties (i.e. strong fluorescence and very high photostability). Their low or negligible in vitro toxicity has been reported, but in vivo toxicity and biological effects of SiNPs are still uncertain. Uncoated SiNPs were dispersed in distilled water via sonication, and their rapid aggregation was observed (319.0 ± 2.4 nm particle size). In vivo toxicity was studied using Danio rerio embryos and larvae. Rapid aggregation in their incubation medium was observed; besides that, SiNPs at 25 mg/L or higher concentration induced swim bladder malformation and/or death of the fish. The estimated LC50 value for 7-day larvae was 180 mg/L. This is the first in vivo toxicity study of uncoated and unfunctionalized SiNPs. To achieve better stability in biological media and lower toxicity, SiNPs should be covered with hydrophilic layers, but their absorption by cellular membranes may be weaker in this case.

Metallic masters can be used as a metallic mold to replicate polymeric pieces with high resolution. Metallic masters with high resolution were created by photolithography technique and nickel electrodeposition technique. AZ 9260 photoresists and SPR 220-7.0 photoresists were used to coat metallic substrates and to compare results. Steel substrate and nickel substrate were used as the metallic substrate to compare results. Two different nickel electrodeposition protocols were used to compare results. In the conclusion section, was determined the best photoresist, metallic substrate, and nickel electrodeposition protocol to fabricate metallic masters.

Bio-surfactants are surface-active molecules which are produced by the wide range of microbes including bacteria, fungi, and yeast. This study was conducted to identify bio-surfactants by Bacillus subtilis combined with use of cheap substrates and industrial wastes (Mustard cake, Whey and Soya cake) which are found locally in Nepal. Bacillus subtilis, one of the most potential bio-surfactants producer; was isolated from soil sample of hydrocarbon contaminated site. Isolates were grown in a Minimal Salt Media (MSM) with 10% (v/v) mustard oil cake, whey and soya cake separately. The presence and potential of surfactant was determined by the oil spreading technique, emulsification index (%E24) and surface tension measurement. It was revealed that the surface tensions of cell free extract were 54.41, 60.02 and 56.64 mN/m for from mustard cake, whey and soya cake respectively as compared to distilled water (72.09) at 25oC. The emulsification index values are was found to be highest in engine oil from the bio-surfactant extracted from mustard cake, soya cake and whey respectively. Similarly, mustard oil showed the lowest value of emulsification index. The highest emulsification activity was shown in mustard oil i.e. 1.13 from the cell free extract from mustard oil and lowest in engine oil i.e., 0.07, by the extract from soya cake medium, when measured in spectrophotometer at 540 nm. In conclusion, strain of Bacillus subtilis was found to be the potential surface active agent producers on the mustard oil cake, which can be useful medium for various environmental, food and industrial processes.

Some contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are known to survive conventional wastewater treatment plants, which introduce them back to the environment and can potentially cycle up in drinking water supplies. This is especially concerning because of the inherent ability of some CECs to induce physiological effects in humans at very low doses. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as TiO2 based photocatalysis are of prominent interest for addressing CECs in aqueous environments. Natural water resources often contain dissolved metal cations concentrations in excess of targeted CEC concentrations. These cations may significantly, adversely impact degradation of CECs by scavenging TiO2 surface generated electrons. Consequently, simple pseudo first order or Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics are not sufficient for reactor design and process analysis in some scenarios. Rhodamine B dye and dissolved copper cations were studied as reaction surrogates to demonstrate that TiO₂ catalyzed degradation for very dilute solutions is very nearly completely due to homogeneous reaction with hydroxyl radicals and that in this scenario the hole trapping pathway has negligible impact. Chemical reaction kinetic studies were then carried out to develop a robust model for RB/metal reactions that is exact in the electron pathways for hydroxyl radical production and metal scavenging.

Sars-CoV-2 outbreak represents a public health emergency, affecting different regions of the world. Lung is the organ more damaged due to the high presence of Sars-CoV-2 binding receptor ACE2 on epithelial alveolar cells. Severity of infection vary from absence of symptomatology to be more severe, characterized by acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multiorgan failure and sepsis requiring treatment in Intensive Care Unit (ICU).It is not still clear why in a small percentage of patients immune system is not able to efficiently suppress viral replication. It has been documented as predictive factors for severity and susceptibility affections of cardiovascular system such as heart failure (HF), coronary heart disease (CHD) and risk factors for atherosclerotic progression, hypertension and diabetes among others.Atherosclerotic progression, as chronic inflammation process, is characterized by immune system dysregulation leading to pro-inflammatory pattern, including (Interleukin 6) IL-6, Tumor Necrosis Factor α (TNF-α) and IL-1β raise. Reviewing immune system and inflammation profiles in atherosclerosis and laboratory results report in severe Sars-CoV-2 infection we have supposed a pathogenetic correlation. Atherosclerosis may be a pathogenetic ideal substrate to high viral replication ability leading to adverse outcomes, how reported in patients with cardiovascular factors. Moreover, level of atherosclerotic progression may impact on a different degree of severe infection and in a vicious circle feeding itself Sars-CoV-2 may exacerbate atherosclerotic progression due to excessive and aberrant plasmatic concentration of cytokines.

In this work, we will study at a basic level, a series of possible new three-dimensional monoclinic allotropes of silicon, with sp3 hybridization, of the bct type; where hexahedrons and octahedrons are combined, with other cluster shapes, with basic silicon geometries such as: triangles ( Si3 ), squares ( Si4 ), pentagons ( Si5 ) and hexagons ( Si6 ); similar to two-dimensional, sp2 hybridized graphene allotropes. Calculating its electron density, bandgap energy and electronic mobility.

Semiconductors play a very important role in modern society. The improvement in performance of semiconductors is what has enabled the world to grow at such a fast pace. For decades scaling has been done through Moore’s law i.e performance improvements have been obtained due to transistor scaling where the number of transistors per unit area increase is what has contributed to the increase in performance. However, with transistor scaling reaching its limitations we need to find alternate methods to enhance silicon design to suit the computational need of modern society. To address this problem we will be looking into a few methods that enable performance scaling with a focus on analysing the most popular implementation of each in the industry.

Light trapping in single nanowires (NWs) are of vital importance for photovoltaic applications. However, circular NWs (CNWs) can limit its light-trapping ability due to high geometrical symmetry. In this work, we present a detailed study of light trapping in single NWs with an elliptical cross-section (ENWs). We demonstrate that the ENWs exhibit significantly enhanced light trapping compared with the CNWs, which can be ascribed to the symmetry-broken structure that can orthogonalize the direction of light illumination and the leaky mode resonances (LMRs). That is, the elliptical cross-section can simultaneously increase the light path length by increasing the vertical axis and reshape the LMR modes by decreasing the horizontal axis. We found that the light absorption can be engineered via tuning the horizontal and vertical axes, the photocurrent is significantly enhanced by 374.0% (150.3%, 74.1%) or 146.1% (61.0%, 35.3%) in comparison with that of the CNWs with the same diameter as the horizontal axis of 100 (200, 400) nm or the vertical axis of 1000 nm, respectively. This work advances our understanding of how to improve light trapping based on the symmetry breaking from the CNWs to ENWs and provides a rational way for designing high-efficiency single or self-assembled NW photovoltaic devices.

Thanks to advanced semiconductor microfabrication technology, chip-scale integration and miniaturization of lab-on-a-chip components, silicon-based optical biosensors have made significant progress for the purpose of point-of-care diagnosis. In this review, we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in evanescent field biosensing technologies including interferometer, microcavity, photonic crystal, and Bragg grating waveguide-based sensors. Their sensing mechanisms and sensor performances, as well as real biomarkers for label-free detection, are exhibited and compared. We also review the development of chip-level integration for lab-on-a-chip photonic sensing platforms, which consist of the optical sensing device, flow delivery system, optical input and readout equipment. At last, some advanced system-level CMOS-chip packaging examples are presented, indicating the commercialization potential for the low cost, high yield, portable biosensing platform leveraging CMOS processes.

Silicon light funnels are three-dimensional subwavelength structures in the shape of inverted cones with respect to the incoming illumination. Light funnel arrays can serve as an efficient absorbing layers on account of their light trapping capabilities associated with the presence of high density complex Mie modes. Specifically, light funnel arrays exhibit broadband absorption enhancement of the of the solar spectrum. In the current study, we numerically explore the optical coupling between surface light funnel arrays and underlying substrates. We show that the absorption in LF array-substrate complex is higher than the absorption in LF arrays of the same height (~10% increase). This, we suggest, imply that a LF array serves as an efficient surface element that imparts additional momentum components to the impinging illumination, and hence optically excites the substrate by near-field light concentration, excitation of traveling guided modes in the substrate and mode hybridization.

Aeroponics is a relatively new soilless culture technology, which may produce food in space limited cities or non-arable land with high water use efficiency. The shoot and root growth, root characteristics, mineral contents of two lettuce cultivars were measured in aeroponics, as compared with hydroponics and substrate culture. The results showed that aeroponics remarkably improved the root growth with a significant greater root biomass, root/shoot ratio, and several times higher total root length, root area and root volume. However, the greater root growth did not lead to a better shoot growth compared with hydroponics, due to the limited availability of nutrients and water. It can be concluded that aeroponics systems may be better for high value true root crops production. Further research is necessary to figure out the suitable pressure, droplet size, and misting interval in order to improve the continuously availability of nutrients and water in aeroponics, if it is used to grow crops like lettuce for harvesting above-ground parts.

A switchable and tunable terahertz (THz) metamaterial based on photosensitive silicon and Vanadium dioxide (VO2) was proposed. By using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, the transmission and reflective properties of the metamaterial were investigated theoretically. The results imply that, the metamaterial can realize a dual electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) or two narrow-band absorption depending on the temperature of the VO2. Additionally, the magnitude of the EIT and two narrow-band absorption can be tuned by varying the conductivity of photosensitive silicon (PSi) via pumping light. Correspondingly, the slow light effect accompanying the EIT can also be adjusted.

Cells are influenced by several biomechanical aspects of their microenvironment, such as substrate geometry. According to the literature, substrate geometry influences the behavior of muscle cells; in particular, the curvature feature improves cell proliferation. However, the effect of the substrate geometry on the myogenic differentiation process is not clear and needs to be further investigated. Here, we show that the 3D co-printing technique allows the realization of substrates. To test the influence of the co-printing technique on cellular behavior we realized linear polycaprolactone substrates with channels in which a fibrinogen-based hydrogel loaded with C2C12 cells was deposited. Cell viability and differentiation were investigated up to 21 days in culture. The results suggest that this technology significantly improves the differentiation at 14 days. Therefore, we investigate the substrate geometry influence by comparing three different co-printed geometries – linear, circular, and hybrid structures (linear and circular features combined). Based on our results, all structures exhibit optimal cell viability (> 94%) but the linear pattern allows to increase the in-vitro cell differentiation, in particular after 14 days of culture. This study proposes an endorsed approach for creating artificial muscles for future skeletal muscle tissue engineering applications.

Metal powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) builds metal parts layer by layer upon a substrate material. The strength of this interface between substrate and printed material is important to characterize, especially in applications where the substrate is retained and included in the finished part. This paper studied the tensile and torsional strengths of wrought and additively manufactured (through PBF) SS316L and compared them to specimens composed of half wrought material and half PBF material. The PBF specimens consistently exhibited higher strength and lower ductility than the wrought specimens. The hybrid PBF/wrought specimens performed similarly to the wrought material. In no specimens did any failure appear to occur at or near the interface between wrought substrate and PBF material. In addition, most of the deformation in the PBF/wrought specimens appeared to be limited to the wrought portion of the specimens. These results are consistent with microscopy showing smaller grain size in the PBF material, which often leads to increased strength in SS316L due to the Hall-Petch relationship.

The evolution of photovoltaic cells is intrinsically linked to advancements in the materials from which they are fabricated. This review paper provides an in-depth analysis of the latest developments in silicon-based, organic, and perovskite solar cells, which are at the forefront of photovoltaic research. We scrutinize the unique characteristics, advantages, and limitations of each material class, emphasizing their contributions to efficiency, stability, and commercial viability. Silicon-based cells are explored for their enduring relevance and recent innovations in crystalline structures. Organic photovoltaic cells are examined for their flexibility and potential for low-cost production, while perovskites are highlighted for their remarkable efficiency gains and ease of fabrication. The paper also addresses the challenges of material stability, scalability, and environmental impact, offering a balanced perspective on the current state and future potential of these material technologies.

This research will examine the computational methods to calculate the nonlinear optical process of second harmonic generation (SHG) that will be hypothesized to be present during lithium ion insertion into silicon nanowires. First it will be determined whether the medium in which SHG is conveyed is non-centrosymmetric or whether the medium is inversion symmetric where SHG as a part of the second-order nonlinear optical phenomenon does not exist. It will be demonstrated that the main interaction that determines SHG is multiphoton absorption on lithium ions. The quantum harmonic oscillator (QHO) is used as the background that generates coherent states for electrons and photons that transverse the length of the silicon nanowire. The matrix elements of the Hamiltonian which represents the energy of the system will be used to calculate the probability density of second-order nonlinear optical interactions which includes collectively SHG, sum-frequency generation (SFG) and difference-frequency generation (DFG). As a result it will be seen that at varies concentrations of lithium ions (Li+) within the crystallized silicon (c-Si) matrix the second-order nonlinear optical process has probabilities substantial enough to create second harmonic generation that could possibly be used for such applications as second harmonic imaging microscopy.

The microorganisms able of accumulating lipids in high percentages, known as oleaginous microorganisms, have been widely studied as an alternative for producing oleochemicals and biofuels. Microbial lipid, so called Single Cell Oil (SCO), production depends on several growth parameters, including the nature of the carbon substrate, which must be efficiently taken up and converted into storage lipid. Οn the other hand, substrates considered for large scale applications must be abundant and of low acquisition cost. Among others, lignocellulosic biomass is a promising renewable substrate containing high percentages of assimilable sugars (hexoses and pentoses). However, it is also highly recalcitrant and therefore it requires specific pretreatments in order to release its assimilable components. The main drawback of lignocellulose pretreatment is the generation of several by-products that can inhibit the microbial metabolism. In this review, we discuss the main aspects related to the cultivation of oleaginous microorganisms using lignocellulosic biomass as substrate, hoping to contribute to the development of a sustainable process for SCO production in the near future.

The main consequence of radiation damage on a Silicon-Photomultiplier (SiPM) is a significant increase in the dark current. If the SiPM is not adequately cooled, the power dissipation causes it to heat up, which in turn affects its performance based on the temperature. In order to investigate this heating effect, experiments were carried out using a KETEK SiPM glued on an Al2O3 substrate, as well as HPK SiPMs that were either glued onto an Al2O3 substrate or a flexible PCB. The assemblies were connected either directly to a temperature-controlled chuck on a probe station or through layers of materials with well-defined thermal resistance. A DC-mode LED was used to illuminate the SiPM, and the resulting SiPM current was measured to determine the steady-state temperature. This temperature depended on the power dissipated in the multiplication region of the SiPM and the thermal resistance. This information can be utilized to adjust the SiPMs working point, taking into account the effects of self-heating. Similarly, this approach can be applied to packaged SiPMs that have an unknown thermal contact to a heat sink.

The tandem Solar cell has high power conversion efficiency (PCE), so they are taken as the next step in photovoltaic evolution. The tandem solar cell also overcome the limitations of Single-junction solar cells by reducing thermalization losses and also reduce the fabrication cost. The fabrication of tandem solar cells is highly efficient after the origination of halide perovskite absorber material, this material will shape the future of tandem solar cells. Researchers have already shown that this material can convert light more efficiently than standalone sub cell. Today, researchers around the world are keeping the configuration of a tandem solar cell as their agenda. A Tandem solar cell is a stacking of multiple layers having different bandgaps with specific maximum absorption and width. We reviewed perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells with different sub-module configurations. Move forward, we discuss the tandem module technology, sub cell of a tandem can be wired in several ways two terminals 2T monolithic and mechanically stacked, a four-terminal 4T mechanically stacked, and three-terminal 3T monolithic stack devices. This review paper provides a side-by-side comparison of theoretical efficiencies of multijunction solar cells. The highest efficiency has been evaluated at 39.4% for a three-level structure.

Stainless steel grade AISI 304 is one of the most widespread modern structural material, alas its sliding wear and cavitation wear resistance are limited. Thus, AlTiN and TiAlN coatings can be deposited for increasing the resistance to wear of stainless steel components. The aim of the work was to investigate the cavitation erosion and sliding wear mechanisms of magnetron sputtered AlTiN and TiAlN coatings deposited on SS304 stainless steel. Films surface morphology and structure were examined using a profilometer, light optical microscope (LOM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The mechanical properties (hardness, elastic modulus) were tested by nanoindentation tester. The adhesion of deposited coatings was determined by means of the scratch test and Rockwell test. Cavitation erosion tests were performed according to ASTM G32 (vibratory apparatus) with stationary specimen procedure. Sliding wear tests were conducted using a nano-tribo testes i.e. ball-on-disc apparatus. Wear mechanisms are strongly contingent upon the structure and morphology of the tested materials. In relation to stainless steel substrate, the PVD films present a superior resistance to sliding wear and cavitation erosion. Higher resistance was noticed for AlTiN than for TiAlN film, mainly due to its superior hardness and elastic modulus. Cavitation erosion mechanism of both, AlTiN and AlTiN coatings is prone to embrittlement, imputable to fatigue processes that result in coating rupture and spallation that consist in coating fragmentation, formation of pits and finally detachment from the substrate. Additionally, films nanoindentation results measured before and after cavitation testing indicate changes in coatings structure, that acknowledged wear mechanism that starts with coating internal delamination in flake spallation mode. In contrary to PVD coatings, steel substrate is characterized by developed cavitation erosion wear with roughened surface and plastically deformed, semi-brittle, eroded surface. Sliding wear of thin films is based on micro-ploughing mechanism. For stainless steel adhesive sliding wear mode and plastic deformation with smearing, material transfer and grooving were observed. It was confirmed that various fluid machinery components made from austenitic stainless steel that undergo cavitation erosion, can be prevented by deposition of AlTiN and TiAlN films.

In light of the hazardous effects of global warming brought on by climate change, bioethanol production is one of the key alternatives in which the world has expressed a great deal of interest. Two factors—indigenous production and price—are crucial for bioethanol to be appealing in Africa and, for that matter, Ghana. The objective of this research is to produce bioethanol from cheap lignocellulosic materials using onsite enzymes produced from cassava peels degrading fungi. Due to Ghana's prominent position as one of the leading cassava producers in the world, the study focused on utilizing cassava peels, which are underutilized in the country. The research was conducted in multiple stages. In the first stage, the peels were prepared by washing, drying, and manually crushing them using mortar and pestle. The second stage involved analyzing the chemical composition of the peels, including starch and insoluble fibre, which were determined as Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF), Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF), and Acid Detergent Lignin (ADL). The results showed significant levels of cellulose (39.78%) and starch (31.21%), indicating that cassava peels are valuable raw materials for bioethanol production. The content of hemicellulose (21.11%) and lignin (3.84%) were also determined. In the third stage, using a Petri dish, three fungi (ICPF1, ICPF2, and ICPF3) were isolated from two different cassava peels. ICPF1 was only identified from fresh cassava peels (FCP), while all three fungi were identified from decayed cassava peels (DCP). Morphologically, these fungi were identified as Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, and Rhizopus stolonifer. The fourth stage focused on optimizing the enzyme activity of the three isolates for potential applications, with A. niger demonstrating the highest enzyme activity with a diameter of zone of clearance of 16 mm. Stage five involved optimizing the production of the onsite enzyme in a 50ml flask using A. niger, basal salt medium (BSM), and cassava peels as a substrate. The DNSA method was used to measure the absorbance of maltose and glucose at 540 nm for various substrate concentrations (1%, 3%, 5%, 8%, and 10%) at specific intervals of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 days with a spore concentration of 2.1 x 105 cells/ml. The maltose and glucose concentrations were calculated as 7.138mg/ml and 6.398 mg/ml, respectively, and the corresponding enzyme activity was determined as 4.759U/ml and 4.265U/ml. The optimal conditions of Day 4 and a substrate concentration of 10%, along with a fixed temperature of 30°C and a pH of 5.5, were used to prepare the onsite enzymes in a 500 ml flask for the fermentation process. The onsite enzymes were used for saccharification and Saccharomyces cerevisiae for fermentation under simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process. A mixture of 20 ml of onsite enzymes and 1.5 g of S. cerevisiae were added to substrate concentrations of 5%, 10%, and 20%, and the ethanol concentration was analyzed daily for 7 days using Gas Chromatography (GC). The highest ethanol concentration (1.316%) was observed on Day 5 with a substrate concentration of 20%, while the lowest concentration (0.123%) was recorded on Day 1 with a substrate concentration of 5%.

In this work we explored how solvents can affect olefin oxidation reactions catalyzed by MCM-bpy-Mo catalysts and whether their control can be made with those players. The results of this study evidenced that polar and apolar aprotic solvents modulated the reactions in different ways. Experimental data showed that acetonitrile (aprotic polar) could hinder largely the reaction rate whereas toluene (aprotic apolar) did not. In both cases product selectivity at isoconversion was not affected. Further insights were obtained by means of neutron diffraction experiments, which confirmed the kinetic data allowing to propose a model based on substrate-solvent crosstalk by means of hydrogen bonding. In addition, the model was also validated in the ring-opening reaction (overoxidation) of styrene oxide towards benzaldehyde, which progressed when toluene was the solvent (reaching 31% styrene oxide conversion) but was strongly hindered when acetonitrile was used instead (reaching only 7% conversion), due to the establishment of H-bonds in the latter. Although this model was confirmed and validated for olefin oxidation reactions, it can be envisaged that it may also be applied to other catalytic reaction systems where reaction control is critical, while widening its use.

The experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different substrate on the survival, growth and total number of moulting in juvenile red claw, Cherax quadricarinatus for aquaculture purposes. In the present study, there is a problem in culturing juvenile stage of C. quadricarinatus especially for survival and growth. Thus, a substrate was used to improve the survival and growth of C. quadricarinatus especially for the intensive system due C. quadricarinatus need a large space to survive. C. quadricarinatus with initial body weight from 1.10 to 2.90 g, total length 2.82 to 4.36 cm were placed in tanks (80 L in volume capacity) with 55L in water and there are eight juveniles in each tank. Treatment tanks were introduced with coral as treatment 2 and pipe as treatment 3. While, tank without shelters was set as control (treatment 1). Black nets were installed on top of each for circumventing foreign objects enter the tank and protect from direct sunlight. Besides, C. quadricarinatus were acclimatized for seven days before started the experiment. The experiment was done in duplicate and conducted for 60 days and C. quadricarinatus were fed twice daily (morning and evening) based on 5% of body weight. From the total of two replications, C. quadricarinatus for treatment 2 (coral) were significantly in survival (81.25±8.84%), weight gain (347.36 ±6.04%), specific growth rate (2.50±0.02%), carapace length (32.93 ± 0.93 %) and total number of moulting (55.00±2.93%) compared to other treatments. Besides, the control treatment (treatment 1) has a lower percentage in survival (37.50±8.84%) weight gain (122.60±20.51%) specific growth rate (1.33±0.15%), carapace length (25.84±0.33 %) and total number of molting (29.00±0.71%). As a conclusion, usage of coral as the substrate in the rearing tank showed improvement in survival, weight gain, specific growth rate, carapace length and total number of molting in C. quadricarinatus. The coral can use in rearing tank for increase the growth and survival for a small scale and not for commercial. In addition, in the environmental aspect, the present study showed the benefit of replacing the use of PVC pipes with the natural structure of dead coral.

Organic compounds that contain poly-triazole are very important intermediates in pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Click chemistry is one of essential reactions that can form C-N bond with high atom economy. The research progress in metals catalyzed Click chemistry of azides and alkynes from the perspective of reaction mechanism is categorized and summarized.

We propose a probabilistic graphical model for discriminative substrate characterization, to support geological and biological habitat mapping in aquatic environments. The model, called a fully connected conditional random field (CRF), is demonstrated using multispectral and monospectral acoustic backscatter from heterogeneous seafloors in Patricia Bay, British Columbia, and Bedford Basin, Nova Scotia. Unlike previously proposed discriminative machine learning algorithms, the CRF model considers both the relative backscatter magnitudes of different substrates and their relative proximities. The model therefore combines the statistical flexibility of a machine learning algorithm with an inherently spatial treatment of the substrate. The CRF model predicts substrates such that nearby locations with similar backscattering characteristics are likely to be in the same substrate class. The degree of proximity and allowable backscatter similarity are controlled by parameters that are learned from the data. CRF model results were evaluated against a popular generative model known as a Gaussian Mixture model that doesn't include spatial dependencies, only covariance between substrate backscattering response over different frequencies. Both models are used in conjunction with sparse bed observations/samples in a supervised classification. A detailed accuracy assessment, including a leave-one-out cross-validation analysis, was performed using both models. Using multispectral backscatter, the GMM model trained on 50% of the bed observations resulted in a 75% and 89% average accuracies in Patricia Bay and Bedford Basin, respectively. The same metrics for the CRF model were 78% and 95%. Further, the CRF model resulted in a 91% mean cross-validation accuracy across four substrate classes at Patricia Bay, and a 99.5% mean accuracy across three substrate classes at Bedford Basin, which suggest that the CRF model generalizes extremely well to new data. This analysis also showed that the CRF model was much less sensitive to the specific number and locations of bed observations than the generative model, owing to its ability to incorporate spatial autocorrelation in substrates. The CRF approach therefore may prove to be a powerful `spatially aware' alternative to other discriminative classifiers.

The processes of hydrogen reduction of silicon and germanium chlorides under the conditions of high-frequency (40.68 MHz) counteracted arc discharge stabilized between two rod electrodes are investigated. The main gas-phase and solid products of plasma-chemical transformations are determined. Thermodynamic analysis of SiCl4 + H2 and GeCl4 + H2 systems for optimal process parameters was carried out. Using the example of hydrogen reduction of SiCl4 by the method of numerical modeling, gas-dynamic and thermal processes for this type of discharge are investigated. The impurity composition of gas-phase and solid reaction products is investigated. The possibility of single-stage production of high-purity Si and Ge mainly in the form of compact ingots, as well as high-purity chlorosilanes and trichlorogermane, is shown.

Tamm Plasmon Polariton (TPP) is a nanophotonic phenomenon that has attracted much attention due to its spatial strong field confinement, ease of mode excitation and polarization independence. TPP has applications in sensing, storage, lasing, perfect absorber, solar cell, nonlinear optics, and many others. In this work, we demonstrate a biosensing platform based on TPP resonant mode. Both theoretical analyses based on Transfer Matrix Method and experimental validation through nonspecific detection of liquids of different refractive indices and specific detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N-protein) are presented. Results show that TPP biosensor has high sensitivity and good specificity. For N-protein detection, the sensitivity is 1.5 nm/(µg/ml) and the limit of detection can reach down to below 7 ng/ml with spectrometer of 0.01 nm resolution of wavelength shift. This work paves the way for design, optimization, fabrication, characterization, and performance analysis of TPP based biosensors

Electro-optic modulator (EOM) is one of the key devices of high-speed optical fiber communication system and ultra-wideband microwave photonic system. Silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) integration platform combines the advantages of silicon photonics and organic materials, providing a high electro-optic effect and compact structure for photonic integrated devices. In this paper we present a SOH integrated EOM with comprehensive investigation of EOM structure design, silicon waveguide fabrication with Slot structure, on-chip poling of organic electro-optic material, and characterization of EO modulation response. The SOH integrated EOM is measured with 3dB-bandwidth of over 50 GHz and half-wave voltage length product of 0.26 V·cm. Furthermore, we demonstrate a microwave photonics phase shifter by using the fabricated SOH integrated dual parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator. The phase shift range of 410 degree is completed from 8 GHz to 26 GHz with a power consumption of less than 38 mW.

This work aimed to carry out a bioremediation study to evaluate the resistance of Penicillium sp. isolated from kefir grains for the treatment of copper. The fungal culture medium was prepared using a 2% malt-agar medium at pH 7.0 in which Penicillium sp. was inoculated. Penicillium sp. growing in a liquid medium showed a decrease in biomass in presence of Cu(NO3)2 (800 mg.L-1), suggesting that the metal impacts the growth rate of the fungus. Moreover, the combined factors of pH and the presence of the inorganic contaminant impacted the radial growth of the fungus, causing inhibition of 73% at pH 4.0, 75% at pH 7.0, and 77% at pH 9.0 in liquid medium compared to control. However, images obtained with scanning electron microscopy showed the integrity of the fungus cell, even at high doses of copper in the medium. Therefore, it can be concluded that Penicillium sp. isolated from kefir grain can bioremediate the environment and that the harmful effects of heavy metals can be minimized as a result biosorption. Although the growth of Penicillium sp. is inhibited, such retardation requires high doses of copper nitrate, thus ensuring the use of this microorganism for protection against the harmful effects of non-essential copper in the environment.

Substrate integrated waveguides reduce the losses and increase the quality factor of resonators in communication filters when compared with traditional planar technologies, while maintaining their low cost and low profile characteristics. Empty substrate integrated waveguides go one step further, removing the dielectric of the substrate. One of these transmission lines is the empty substrate integrated coaxial line (ESICL), which adds the advantage of being a two conductor structure. Thus, it propagates a TEM mode, which reduces the dispersion and the bandwith limitation of other one conductor empty substrate integrated waveguides. Continuous profile filters, at the cost of being long structures, are very easy to manufacture and design (usually no optimization is needed), and they are highly insensitive to manufacturing tolerances. In this work a simple continuous profile filter, with a stop band response, is designed for the first time in the novel ESICL technology. The influence of the design parameters on the insertion losses and fractional bandwidth is discussed. A prototype has been successfully manufactured and measured. A sensitivity analysis shows the high tolerance of the proposed stop band filter to manufacturing errors.

Silicon has been proved to be one of the most promising anode materials for the next generation of lithium-ion battery. For the application in batteries, Si anode should have high capacity and must be industrially scalable. In this study, we have designed and synthesised a hollow structure to meet these requirements. All the processes are carried out without special equipment. The Si nanoparticles that are commercially available are used as the core sealed inside TiO₂ shell, with rationally designed void space between the particles and shell. The Si@TiO₂ are characterised using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The optimised hollow structured silicon nanoparticles, when used as anode in lithium-ion battery, exhibit a high reversible specific capacity over 600 mAhg-1. This excellent electrochemical property of the nanoparticles can be attributed to their optimised phase and unique hollow nanostructure.

We successfully created a composite photonic structure out of porous silicon (PSi) microcavities doped by the photochromic protein, photoactive yellow protein (PYP). Massive incorporation of the protein molecules into the pores was substantiated by a 30-nm shift of the resonance dip upon functionalization, and light-induced reflectance changes of the device due to the protein photocycle were recorded. Model calculations for the photonic properties of the device were consistent with earlier results on the nonlinear optical properties of the protein, whose degree of incorporation into the PSi structure was also estimated. The successful proof-of-concept results are discussed in light of possible practical applications in the future.

In this paper, we review devices used in silicon photonic switches. Devices in switches are divided into active and passive devices. Active devices consist of microring resonator, contra directional couplers, mach zhender switches. Passive devices consist of waveguide crossings and arrayed waveguide gratings. We also list the state of the art in devices in a comparison table.

The purpose of this scoping review was to identify gaps in the literature and summarize findings from studies examining the use of silicon-, silica-, and silicate-based toothpastes for the remineralization and repair of mineralized tooth tissues. A 10-year literature search was conducted using PubMed and Scopus, adhering to PRISMA 2020 guidelines. A total of 331 studies were initially identified, with 56 full-text review articles. After selecting the manuscripts, 27 studies were qualitatively analyzed by four reviewers, focusing on the results of both in vivo and in vitro methods. The findings suggest that toothpastes containing silicon, silica, and silicate demonstrate promising results for remineralization and enamel repair, with evidence of mineral layer formation and/or deep enamel surface remineralization under various conditions. Additionally, the use of these toothpastes can lead to the obliteration of dentinal tubules within a few days. The results collectively support the efficacy of these toothpastes in enamel repair. Most of the clinical studies focused on dentine hypersensitivity, followed by white spot lesions. In conclusion, silicon-, silica-, and silicate-based toothpastes (bioactive-Si-toothpastes) can be considered effective based mostly on laboratory studies. There remains a need for more in vivo research studies on enamel and dentin mineral repair. Existing studies provide strong evidence that these technologies can reduce dentin hypersensitivity and promote enamel-dentin repair.

This study investigates the influence of pyrolysis temperature on the main properties of BSG (brewer's spent grain) biochar and evaluates its suitability as an energy vector and as a substrate component. Pyrolysis tests were carried out at 673, 773, and 873 K. Bioenergy indexes were calculated for BSG and its biochar, and germination tests were carried out to obtain lentil sprouts. The results showed that the BSG biochar obtained at the lowest temperature biochar presented the best performance for use as biofuel. Regarding the germination tests, the different biochars were applied at 4 doses, and the evaluated parameters such as germination percentage, germination rate, mean germination time, and seed vigor were strongly influenced by the biochar addition. The biochar at 773 K added at a dose of 5% doubled the values of mean germination time, seed vigor, and time for 50% of the seeds to emerge compared to the control, constituted only with distilled water. The sustainable BSG valorization through pyrolysis reduces waste and contributes to circular economy practices by transforming industrial by-products into valuable resources for energy and agriculture. This approach highlights the importance of sustainability in reducing the environmental impact of industrial waste and promoting renewable energy sources.

Meiosis is a specialized cell division that produces haploid gametes from diploid germ cells, and the phosphorylation activity of cyclin-CDK complexes and Polo-like kinase is required for synaptonemal complex (SC) disassembly and metaphase I exit. Here, we identified a novel protein MSCDK (meiotic substrate of cyclin dependent kinase) that functions as a substrate of CDK1 in initiating SC disassembly and metaphase I transition during meiosis prophase I in mice. Deletion of MSCDK caused germ cell death and infertility in males but not females. Mechanistically, we show that MSCDK is sparsely localized as discrete foci along synaptic homologous chromosomes from the early zygotene to the early diplotene, and we confirm that MSCDK can be phosphorylated by CDK1 and dephosphorylated by the cell cycle exit regulator phosphatase PP1α. We also provide evidence that MSCDK is essential for SC disassembly based on its dephosphorylation-related function, which apparently promotes HSPA2 nuclear recruitment.

Lichens are traditionally divided into short “crustose”, intermediate “foliose” and tall “fruticose” types, a practice that hides a growth continuum. Substrate, temperature and water are thought to affect vertical growth, but such factors are difficult to measure, because, for example, the water actually available to lichens does not match rainfall patterns or even ground water levels. To reliably assess the effect of those factors, I recorded temperature, moisture, and substrate in and under individual terricolous lichen colonies in 60 fixed quadrats on April, August, October, and December of 2015 (Cerro de la Muerte, Costa Rica, 9°33′N; 83°45′W). The measurements were taken inside the colonies themselves (rather than on the general environment), covering an annual cycle of the relatively simple páramo habitat, where animals and vegetation have less impact than in lower ecosystems. The hypotheses were that lichens would grow taller on softer, warmer, and moister ground; on the Caribbean versant; and on the rainy season. Results matched the hypotheses, with one exception: lichens on soft ground were not taller than those on rock. Caribbean colonies were, on the average, 7 cm taller than those on the drier Pacific versant. Physiologically available water seems to be the main determinant of lichen vertical growth: more water means taller lichens and greater protection from climatic change for both the lichens and their microcommunities.

This study investigated whether biogas reactor performance, including microbial community development, in response to a change in substrate composition is influenced by initial inoculum source. Test reactors were first started with two different inocula and operated with the same grass-manure mixture for more than 120 days. These reactors initially showed great differences depending on inoculum source, but eventually showed similar performance and overall microbial community structure. At the start of the present experiment, the substrate was complemented with milled feed wheat, added all at once or divided into two portions. The starting hypothesis was that process performance depends on initial inoculum source and microbial diversity, and thus that reactor performance is influenced by the feeding regime. In response to the substrate change, all reactors showed increases and decreases in volumetric and specific methane production, respectively. However, specific methane yield and development of the microbial community showed differences related to initial inoculum source, confirming the hypothesis. The different feeding strategies had however only minor effects on process performance and overall community structure, but still induced differences in the cellulose-degrading community and in cellulose degradation.

In this study, Silicon Carbide (SiC) nano-particle based serigraphic printing inks were formulated to fabricate highly sensitive and wide temperature range SiC printed thermistors. Initially, commercial silver ink was screen printed to fabricate inter-digitated electrodes (IDE’s) onto flexible Kapton® substrate via screen printing. Thermistor inks with different weight ratios of SiC nano- particles dispersed in polyimide resin matrix were fabricated. The SiC-polyimide temperature sensing inks were screen printed atop the IDE structures to form fully printed thermistors and encapsulated with a adhesive backed polyimide film for humidity inhibition. The high temperature tolerance of the Kapton® allowed the the sensors to be tested over a wide temperature range form 25◦C to 170◦C. The printed SiC thermistors exhibit excellent repeatability and stability over 15 hours of continuous operation. Optimal device performance was achieved with 30 wt.% SiC-polyimide ink. We report highly sensitive devices with a temperature coefficient of Resistance (TCR) of -0.556 %/◦C, a thermal coefficient of 502 K (β-index) and an activation energy of 0.08 eV which are comparable with printed thermistors previous reported. Further, the thermistor demonstrates an accuracy of ±1.35◦C which is well within the range offered by commercially available high sensitivity thermistors. SiC thermistors exhibit a small 6.5% drift due to changes in relative humidity between 10-90 %RH and a 4.2 % drift in baseline resistance after 100 cycles of aggressive bend testing at a 40°angle. The use of commercially available low cost materials, simplicity of design and fabrication techniques coupled with the chemical inertness of the Kapton® substrate and SiC nanoparticles paves the way to use all-printed SiC thermistors towards a wide range of applications where temperature monitoring is vital for optimal system performance.

Keywords: Amorphous-precipitate, Nitride, Morphological stability, Diffusion, Internal stresses, Modelling, Simulation

The microstructure of the coating during hot-dip galvanizing under industrial conditions of two structural steels, a low-silicon ASTM A36 steel and a high-silicon Q345B steel, both of commercial quality, have been characterized for industrial-relevant times. For both cases it is noted that the formation of the Fe-Zn phases begins in early stages during the heating of the steel, a situation in which all the phases are in the solid state. The characterization was carried out through traditional metallographic techniques including SEM-EDS and DRX equipment. The evolution in time of the microstructure of both steels is examined, being able to observe that the mechanism by which silicon accelerates the formation of Fe-Zn phases in galvanizing is related to the change in the energy of the interfaces caused by a silicon accumulation in the liquid phase in contact with the ζ layer. These results provided us with a deeper understanding of the phase evolution in the hot-dip galvanizing of high silicon steels.

Silicon-based photodetectors, as low-cost and environmentally friendly optical sensors, are attractive. Also, their compatibility with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is advantageous for the development of silicon photonics systems. However, extending optical responsivity of silicon-based photodetectors to the mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelength range remains challenging. In developing mid-IR infrared Schottky detectors, nanoscale metals are critical. Nonetheless, one key factor is the Fermi level pinning effect at the metal/silicon interface and the presence of metal-induced gap states (MIGS). Here, we demonstrate the utilization of the passivated surface layer on semiconductor materials as an insulating material in metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) contacts to mitigate the Fermi level pinning effect. The removal of Fermi level pinning effectively reduces the Schottky barrier height by 12.5% to 16%. The demonstrated devices exhibit a high responsivity of up to 234 μA/W at a wavelength of 2 μm, 48.2 μA/W at 3 μm, and 1.75 μA/W at 6 μm. The corresponding detectivities at 2 and 3 μm are 1.17×10^8 cm Hz^1/2 W^-1 and 2.41×10^7 cm Hz^1/2 W^-1, respectively. The expanded sensing wavelength range contributes to the application development of future silicon photonics integration platforms.

Silicon photonics is emerging as a competitive platform for electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs) at the 2 µm wavelength band where GeSn photodetectors (PDs) have proven to be efficient PDs. Here, we present a comprehensive theoretical study of GeSn vertical p-i-n homojunction waveguide photodetectors (WGPDs) that have a strain-free and defect-free GeSn active layer for 2-µm Si-based EPICs. The use of a narrow-gap GeSn alloy as the active layer can fully cover entire the 2 µm wavelength band. The waveguide structure allows for decoupling the photon-absorbing path and the carrier-collection path, thereby allowing for simultaneous achievement of high-responsivity and high-bandwidth (BW) operation at the 2-µm wavelength band. We present the theoretical models to calculate the carrier saturation velocities, optical absorption coefficient, responsivity, 3-dB bandwidth, zero-bias resistance, and detectivity, and optimize this device structure to achieve highest performance at the 2-µm wavelength band. The results indicate that the performance of the GeSn WGPD has strong dependence on the Sn composition and geometric parameters. The optimally designed GeSn WGPD with 10% Sn concentration can give responsivity of 1.55 A/W, detectivity of 6.12×1010 cmHz½W-1 at 2 µm wavelength, and ~97 GHz BW. Therefore, this optimally designed GeSn WGPD is a potential candidate for silicon photonic EPICs offering high-speed optical communications.

In this paper, the preparation methods of porous silicon nitride materials with controllable dielectric constant and pore structure were systematically studied. By using microwave sintering technology, porous silicon nitride materials with high closed pore ratio were prepared by adjusting the content of sintering additives and sintering process parameters, and controlling the grain boundary phase and pore structure and size. The effects of sintering conditions on the total porosity, closed porosity, pore structure and dielectric properties of materials were systematically studied.

Cycling reliability is crucial for Si-based materials due to severe volume change during cycles that results in the fast capacity fading. Though the binder only occupies a very low amount of the total mass of anodes, it is proved to perform a key parameter to improve the cycle performance of Si-based anodes. Because they are eco-friendly and cost saving, water-based binders styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) are regarded as the better binder to substitute Poly (vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) as the binder for Si-based anode. In this study, the anodes are fabricated by simply mixing the active materials (naso Si, graphite and conductive additive) together and using the mixture of SBR and CMC as a binder. The results showed that the retention capacities of the anodes are more than 440 mAh/g after 400 cycles. It indicates that it is an easy and simple way to make high performance anodes.

Effect of abrasive shape on the three-body abrasion behaviors of monocrystalline silicon was investigated by Molecular dynamics modelling. The axial ratio of abrasive particle was varied from 1.00, i.e., a complete sphere, to 0.40 to mimic abrasive shape. The particle’s movement turns toward sliding from rolling when the axial ratio becomes less than a critical value 0.46. In the abrasion process, the friction force and normal force showed an approximately sinusoid-like fluctuation for the rolling ellipsoidal particles, while the front cutting of particle caused that friction force increased and became larger than normal force for sliding particles. The phase transformation process was tracked under different particle’ movement patterns. The Si-II and Bct5 phase producing in loading process can partially transform to Si-III/Si-XII phase and backtrack to original crystal silicon under pressure release, which also occurred in the abrasion process. The secondary phase transformation showed difference for particles’ rolling and sliding movements after three-body abrasion. The rolling of particle induced the periodical and inhomogeneous deformation of substrates, while the sliding benefited producing high-quality surface in CMP process. This study aiming to construct more precise model to understand the wear mechanism benefits evaluating the MEMS wear and CMP process of crystal materials.

The ANFC/ABPE-10 composite film was prepared by ABPE-10 impregnating into ANFC films under negative pressure. And the composite film had meted high performance FOLED substrate requirement even when ANFC dosage was high for approximately 70%, which was consistent with for low cost efficiency, recyclability, and environmentally friendly. The enhanced properties of ANFC films were mainly because of the nature of ABPE-10 itself and the IPN structure formed between ABPE-10 and ANFC film. The transparency of composite films with different ANFC dosage was significantly increased from 67% to 88% by UV-Vis analysis. The composite film inherited the properties of AFNC, obtaining low CTE characteristics and ductile compact structure. The contact angles of ANFC films increased by 102% from 49.2° to 102.9°after dipping ABPE-10. Additionally, the composite films had outstanding mechanical properties such as tensile strength 173.72 MPa, Young’s modulus 4.06 GPa, and elongation at break 5.81%.

High production cost is one of the major factors that limit the market growth of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) as a biopolymer. Improving PHA synthesis performance and utilizing low grade feedstock are two logical strategies for reducing the cost. As an oleaginous yeast, Y. lipolytica has a high carbon flux through acetyl-CoA (main PHB precursor) which makes it a desired cell factory for PHB biosynthesis. Two different metabolic pathways introduced into Y. lipolytica PO1f in this study for enhancing PHB biosynthesis, along with glucose and acetate as co-substrates. Results showed that NBC pathway led to more than 11% PHB accumulation, while there was non-detectable PHB accumulations using ABC pathway. Further modifications were done using peroxisomal compartmentalization and gene-dose overexpression. Final strain showed up to 41% PHB of CDW with a growth rate of 0.227 h-1. Low growth rate was observed using acetate or glucose as sole carbon and energy source. The co-substrate strategy showed compensatory effect on overcoming inhibitory and toxic effects of both substrates at high concentrations. Cultivating the engineered strain in optimal co-substrate condition predicted by RSM led to 83.4 g/L biomass concentration and 31.7 g/L PHB.

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) processing generates a by-product (CB) with potential for health benefits and could be a favorable ingredient to be added to a probiotic food matrix. This study aimed to assess the functional attributes of CB in fermented milk with a probiotic and a starter culture using in vitro- gastrointestinal conditions. Using a standardized fermentability assay, two strains more adapted to the dehydrated CB were chosen and applied in: Test Formulation (TF, with CB) and Control Formulation (CF, without CB). TF and CF were fermented by the probiotic strain Lacticaseibacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei F19® and the starter Streptococcus thermophilus ST-M6®. During a 28-day refrigerated (6-8 °C) shelf-life study, both strains used in CF and TF were resistant and maintained a population above 8.0 log CFU/mL in the fermented milk. TF had significant increase in total phenolic compounds and greater antioxidant potential during shelf life, along with improved survival of F19® after in vitro-simulated gastrointestinal conditions. The cashew by-product revealed to be promising as a substrate for the strains studied and the presence of CB increased the content of phenolics and antioxidant activity during storage, as well as the gastric resistance to the probiotic., leading to a promising healthy product.

In this study, Ni50Ti50 powder was coated on the surface of graphite substrate (C) by plasma spraying process using a radio frequency inductively coupled plasma reactor. The coating was carried out by using 12- and 9-kW power under Ar atmosphere. The cross-section of coating layers and the surface were examined with SEM, EDX, XRD analysis and microhardness test. The thickness and quality of the coating increased with input power. Many pores were detected in the cross-sectional surface areas. Higher input power caused a better coating layer in NiTi alloy. The hardness of the coating layer decreases with higher input power.

Various peptides or non-structural amino acids are recognized by their specific target proteins and perform biological role in various pathways in vivo. Understanding the interactions between target protein and peptides (or non-structural amino acids) provides key information on the molecular interactions, which can be potentially translated to the development of novel drugs. However, it is experimentally challenging to determine the crystal structure of protein-peptide complexes. To obtain structural information on substrate recognition of peptide-recognizing enzyme, X-ray crystallographic studies were performed using triglycine (Gly-Gly-Gly) as main-chain of peptide. The crystal structure of Parengyodontium album Proteinase K in complex with triglcyine was determined at 1.4 Å resolution. Two different bound conformations of triglycine were observed at the substrate recognition site. The triglycine backbone forms stable interactions with β5-α4 and α5-β6 loops of main-chain. One of the triglycine-binding conformations was identical with the binding mode of a peptide-based inhibitor from a previously reported crystal structure of Proteinase K. Triglycine has potential application X-ray crystallography to identify substrate recognition sites in peptide binding enzymes.

The fracture strength was compared in a scratch test of coatings based on the ZrN system with the introduction of Ti, Nb and Hf, which were deposited on a titanium alloy substrate. The coatings were deposited using Controlled Accelerated Arc (CAA-PVD) technology. The comparison was carried out according to two parameters: adhesion strength to the substrate and overall coating strength. The (Zr,Hf)N coating showed better resistance to destruction, but had worse adhesion to the substrate. As a result, although the coating is retained directly in the scribing groove, a large area of delamination and destruction is formed around the groove. The (Ti,Zr,Nb)N coating, with its somewhat lower strength, has high adhesion to the substrate; no noticeable delamination is observed along the groove boundary.

We experimentally demonstrate waveguide and microring resonator (MRR) polarizers by integrating 2D graphene oxide (GO) films onto silicon (Si) photonic devices. The 2D GO films with highly anisotropic light absorption are on-chip integrated with precise control over their thicknesses and sizes. Detailed measurements are performed for the fabricated devices with different GO film thicknesses, coating lengths, and Si waveguide widths. The results show that a maximum polarization-dependent loss (PDL) of ~17 dB is achieved for the hybrid waveguides, and the hybrid MRRs achieved a maximum polarization extinction ratio (PER) of ~10 dB. We also characterize the wavelength- and power-dependent response for these polarizers. The former demonstrates a broad operation bandwidth of over ~100 nm, and the latter verifies performance improvement enabled by photo-thermal changes in GO films. By fitting the experimental results with theoretical simulations, we find that the anisotropy in the loss of GO films dominates the polarization selectivity of these devices. These results highlight the strong potential of 2D GO films for realizing high-performance polarization selective devices in Si photonic platform.

With the ever-growing emphasis on global decarbonization and rapid increases in the power density of electronics equipment in recent years, new methods and lightweight materials have been developed to manage heat load as well as interfacial stresses associated with Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) mismatch between components. The Al-Si system provides an attractive combination of CTE performance and high thermal conductivity whilst being a very lightweight option. Such materials are of interest to industries where thermal management is a key design criterion, such as aerospace, automotive, consumer electronics, defense, EV and space. This paper will describe the development and manufacture of a family of high-performance hypereutectic Al-Si alloys (AyontEX™) by a powder metallurgy method. These alloys are of particular interest for structural heat sink applications that require high reliability under thermal cycling (CTE of 17μm/(m·°C)) as well as reflective optics and instrument assemblies that require good thermal and mechanical stability (CTE of 13μm/(m·°C)). Critical performance relationships are presented, coupled with the microstructure, physical and mechanical properties of these Al-Si alloys.

Silicon Photomultipliers find applications across various fields. One potential Silicon Photomultiplier application domain is neutrino telescopes, where they may enhance the angular resolution. However, the elevated dark count rate associated with Silicon Photomultipliers represents a significant challenge to their widespread utilization. To address this issue, it is proposed to use Silicon Photomultipliers and Photomultiplier Tubes together. The Photomultiplier Tubes signals would serve as a trigger to mitigate the dark count rate, thereby preventing undue saturation of the available bandwidth. This paper presents an investigation into a fast and resource-efficient method for filtering Silicon Photomultiplier dark count rate. A low-resource and fast coincident filter has been developed, which removes the Silicon Photomultiplier dark count rate by using as trigger the Photomultiplier Tube input signals. The architecture of the coincidence filter, together with the first results obtained, which validate the effectiveness of this method are presented.

This article describes a novel electrochemical on-chip biosensor that utilizes anti-PSA antibody (Ab) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to enhance the sensing and detection capability of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in the blood. The AgNPs are prepared, characterized, and applied onto a silicon photonic on-chip biosensing receptor platform designed to enhance the accurate detection of PSA. The AgNPs were synthesized by a chemical reduction method using silver nitrate (AgNO₃) as the precursor. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and light microscopy were among the methods used in the characterization and analysis of the AgNPs. Each stage of the immunosensor fabrication was characterized using cyclic voltammetry. The proposed immunosensor was applied in the detection of PSA, a prostate cancer biomarker, with a high sensitivity and a limit of detection of 0.17 ng/mL over a linear concentration range of 2.5 to 11.0 ng/mL. The immunosensor displayed good stability and was selective in the presence of interfering species like immunoglobulin (Ig) in human serum, ascorbic acid (AA), and diclofenac (Dic). The detectivity and sensitivity are significantly higher than previous reports on similar or related technologies.

The work presented in this paper represents a preliminary study on the performance of the new Silicon tracker layer, the Layer 0 (L0), that will be installed on top of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), at the end of 2024. AMS-02 is a cosmic rays (CR) detector that has been operating on the International Space Stations (ISS) since May 2011. Thanks to its 9-layer Silicon tracker, this apparatus can perform high energy CR measurements with an unprecedented level of statistics and precision. However, high Z (Z $\ge 15$) CR nuclei statistic is strongly affected by fragmentation along the detector: with the installation of the new Silicon layer will be possible to achieve new unique high energy (TeV region) measures for those nuclei along with increased statistics for all nuclei up to Zinc. To achieve this, a Silicon ladder prototype, that will be part of the final Silicon layer, has been exposed to an ions test beam at the super-proton-synchrotron (SPS) of the CERN to characterize its charge resolution and the readout electronics. Preliminary results have shown a charge resolution of 10 $\%$ for nuclei up to Z=7.