Density Leakage Research Articles

Proton‐conducting γ‐sulfopropyl Acrylate Tethered Halato‐Telechelic PVDF Membranes for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

AbstractAdvanced fluorinated proton‐conducting membrane are dominating functional macromolecules due to their high performance in electrochemical energy devices. However, the co‐ion leakage and low power densities still proposes a challenge. Herein, a novel functionally tailored polyvinylidene fluoride‐co‐(γ)‐sulfopropyl acrylate (PVDF‐g‐SA) based proton‐conducting membrane is prepared for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). The approach introduces a facile guideline to design halato‐telechelic −SO3H architectures by tethering γ‐sulfopropyl acrylate onto dehydrofluorinated PVDF. The optimized PVDF‐g‐SA‐15 exhibits proton conductivity (κmH+) of 17 mS cm−1 (akin Nafion: ~19 mS cm−1) and retained 87 % and >95 % of its properties in Fenton's reagent and 3 M H2SO4, respectively. In VRFB device, the PVDF‐g‐SA‐15 shows ∼98 % capacity utilization outperforming Nafion‐117 (∼85 %). Moreover, bearing dense ionic orientation (viz AFM phases), the potential drop rate is ~2× lower for PVDF‐g‐SA‐15 (1.4×10−3 V min−1) than that of Nafion‐117 (2.6×10−3 V min−1). Operational endurance is evaluated fit for 150 mA cm−2 showing maximum coulombic, energy and voltage efficiencies of >98 %, ∼78 %, ∼80 %, respectively. Further investigation for ~200 cycles infer excellent durability with ∼95 % property retention. Additionally, the PVDF‐g‐SA‐15 can deliver ~20 % higher power density than Nafion‐117 does. Thus, the revealed alternate membrane holds promising utility in VRFB applications.

An In Situ Polymerization Gel Polymer Electrolyte Based on Pentaerythritol Tetracrylate for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Problems occur frequently during the application of traditional liquid electrolyte batteries, such as fluid leakage and low energy density. As a product of liquid electrolyte transition to solid electrolyte, gel polymer electrolyte has its own advantages for achieving high conductivity and good thermal stability. In this study, pentaerythritol tetracrylate (PETEA) was used as the precursor to prepare polymer-based materials with the assistance of azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) as the initiator. Because fluorine is beneficial to improving the migration efficiency of Li+ and the electrochemical performance of the gel polymer electrolyte, dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate (DFHMA) is introduced to the PETEA-based gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) system. The DFHMA-introduced GPE shows better electrochemical performance, battery cycle performance, conductivity, and lithium-ion migration number compared with the pristine PETEA-based GPE. In particular, the DFHMA-introduced GPE exhibits the best performance because the molar ratio of PETEA to DFHMA is 5:1. Herein, the electrochemical window is 4.6 V, the ionic conductivity reaches 1.207 mS cm-1, and the number of lithium-ion migrations reaches the value of 0.663. Because the electric current density is 2 C, the specific capacity of LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 (NCM523)/GPE/Li reaches 143.1 mAh g-1 after 100 cycles.

Annealing modulated microstructural and electrical properties of plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition-derived HfO2/SiO2 nanolaminates on AlGaN/GaN

In current work, HfO2/SiO2 nanolaminates and HfO2 films were grown on AlGaN/GaN substrates via plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition. A comparative study of how rapid thermal annealing modulates the microstructural and electrical properties of both films has been presented. It is found that the HfO2/SiO2 nanolaminate keeps an amorphous structure when thermally treated below 600 °C, whereas crystal grains appear within the 800 °C annealed sample. High-temperature annealing facilitates the transformation from Hf–O and Si–O to Hf–O–Si in the HfO2/SiO2 nanolaminates, forming an HfSiO4 composite structure simultaneously. The 800 °C annealed HfO2/SiO2 shows a low k value and large leakage current density. While the 600 °C annealed HfO2/SiO2 possesses an effective dielectric constant of 18.3, a turn-on potential of 9.0 V, as well as a leakage density of 10−2 μA/cm2 at gate biases of both −10 and 2 V, revealing good potential in fabricating high electron mobility transistors.

Research on the mechanism and influence of P incorporation in N-rich nitride AlPN and growth of high quality AlPN/GaN HEMT

In this work, high quality AlPN films are grown with an improved MOCVD system, in which the source transport circuit is adjusted to suppress the pre-reaction of Al and P. The mechanism of P incorporation into AlN, including the formation and characteristics of P anti-site defects in AlPN are investigated. In addition, the relationship between the P anti-site defects and the crystal quality is analyzed in detail. Further, high quality AlPN/GaN heterostructure with high density of sheet carriers and low leakage is grown, which are attributed to the lower N vacancies and lower surface status of AlPN barrier. The results in this work not only demonstrate the great potential of AlPN based structures in electronic device applications, but also provide instructive principles, such as anti-site defects, restraining pre-reactions, strain states, electrical properties and surface states in studying the novel N-rich group III-V semiconductors.

Finerenone, a Non-Steroidal Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonist, Reduces Vascular Injury and Increases Regulatory T-Cells: Studies in Rodents with Diabetic and Neovascular Retinopathy.

Vision loss in diabetic retinopathy features damage to the blood-retinal barrier and neovascularization, with hypertension and the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) having causal roles. We evaluated if finerenone, a non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonist, reduced vascular pathology and inflammation in diabetic and neovascular retinopathy. Diabetic and hypertensive transgenic (mRen-2)27 rats overexpressing the RAS received the MR antagonist finerenone (10 mg/kg/day, oral gavage) or the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor perindopril (10 mg/kg/day, drinking water) for 12 weeks. As retinal neovascularization does not develop in diabetic rodents, finerenone (5 mg/kg/day, i.p.) was evaluated in murine oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). Retinal vasculopathy was assessed by measuring gliosis, vascular leakage, neovascularization, and VEGF. Inflammation was investigated by quantitating retinal microglia/macrophages, pro-inflammatory mediators, and anti-inflammatory regulatory T-cells (Tregs). In diabetes, both treatments reduced systolic blood pressure, gliosis, vascular leakage, and microglial/macrophage density, but only finerenone lowered VEGF, ICAM-1, and IL-1ß. In OIR, finerenone reduced neovascularization, vascular leakage, and microglial density, and increased Tregs in the blood, spleen, and retina. Our findings, in the context of the FIDELIO-DKD and FIGARO-DKD trials reporting the benefits of finerenone on renal and cardiovascular outcomes in diabetic kidney disease, indicate the potential of finerenone as an effective oral treatment for diabetic retinopathy.

PS-BPB06-8: THE NON-STEROIDAL MINERALOCORTICOID RECEPTOR ANTAGONIST, FINERENONE, REDUCES VASCULAR PATHOLOGY AND INFLAMMATION IN PRE-CLINICAL DIABETIC RETINOPATHY

Objective: Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of vision loss in the working population across the globe. Diabetes has devastating effects on the retinal vasculature, and can lead to vision-threatening vascular leakage, odema, and neovascularization. Current treatments such as anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are administered directly into the eye late in the disease process but are ineffective in about 50% of patients. Hypertension is a risk factor for the development of diabetic retinopathy and the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system contributes to disease pathogenesis. Here we aimed to determine if finerenone, a non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonist, reduced vascular pathology and inflammation in animal models of diabetic retinopathy. Methods: To study diabetic retinopathy, streptozotocin diabetes was induced in female hypertensive transgenic Ren-2 rats overexpressing renin in extra-renal tissues. Diabetic Ren-2 rats were randomised to receive finerenone (10 mg/kg/day) by oral gavage or the angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor perindopril (10 mg/kg/day) in drinking water for 12 weeks. As retinal neovascularization does not develop in diabetic rodents, the oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model was studied. Litters of C57BL/6J mice were exposed to high oxygen (75%) between postnatal days 7 to 12 and then room air until postnatal day 18. Mouse pups were randomised to be OIR controls, or treated with finerenone (5 mg/kg/day) by intraperitoneal injection between postnatal days 7 to 18. Comparisons were made to mice exposed to room air. Damage to the blood-retinal barrier was evaluated by measuring the gliosis of macroglial Müller cells which confer barrier properties, vascular leakage (albumin ELISA), neovascularization, and the expression of VEGF. Inflammation was evaluated by the quantitation of retinal microglia and the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators. Results: Systolic blood pressure was similar between untreated non-diabetic (174.2 ± 6.3 mmHG) and diabetic (184.2 ± 8.5 mmHG) Ren-2 rats. Finerenone (138.5 ± 5.01 mmHG, P < 0.0001) and perindopril (106 ± 2.9 mmHG, P < 0.0001) reduced systolic blood pressure compared to untreated diabetic rats. In diabetic rats, finerenone reduced the gliosis of retinal Müller cells, vascular leakage, microglial density and the expression of VEGF, ICAM-1 and IL-1β;. In diabetic rats, perindopril did not reduce retinal VEGF levels, microglial density and the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators. In OIR mice, finerenone reduced retinal neovascularization, vascular leakage and microglial density. Conclusion: Our findings placed in the context of the FIDELIO-DKD trial reporting the benefits of finerenone on renal and cardiovascular outcomes in diabetic kidney disease, indicate the potential of finerenone to be an effective orally administered treatment for diabetic retinopathy.

Piezoelectric properties of (Na, K)(Nb, Sb)O3–CaZrO3 thin film grown on Sr2Nb3O10 perovskite oxide nanosheet at low temperatures

A Sr2Nb3O10 (SNO) nanosheet was deposited on a Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si (Pt–Si) substrate using the Langmuir–Blodgett technique. An SNO monolayer was used as the seed layer for the growth of a crystalline 0.97(Na0.5K0.5)(Nb0.91Sb0.09)O3–0.03CaZrO3 (NKNS–CZ) thin film at a low temperature of 400 °C. The NKNS–CZ thin film grew along the [001] direction, and it had a dense microstructure with an average grain size of 75 nm. The dielectric constant of the film was 250, with a low dielectric loss of 3.5% at 100 kHz. The leakage current density of the Pt/NKNS–CZ top-electrode interface was approximately 1.3 × 10−6 A/cm2 at 0.05 MV/cm. Additionally, a slightly increased leakage density (8.1 × 10−5 A/cm2 at 0.05 MV/cm) was observed at the NKNS–CZ/SNO/Pt–Si bottom-electrode interface. Hence, the film exhibited relatively good insulating properties. The d33 and d33 × g33 values of the thin film were approximately 270 pm/V and 32.9 pm2/N, respectively. These are the largest d33 and d33 × g33 values reported until now. Therefore, the NKNS–CZ thin film shows excellent piezoelectric properties, and it can be used for fabricating thin-film piezoelectric energy harvesters.

Assesing the influence of environmental variables on the performance of water companies: An efficiency analysis tree approach

Efficiency assessment is a valuable tool for industries that are regulated, such as the provision of drinking water. Hence, past research on this topic is wide. However, current, widely used approaches such as parametric, non-parametric and partial frontier methods present several limitations and pitfalls. Thus, here, the Efficiency Analysis Tree (EAT) method was trialled on a sample of water companies. This method overcomes overfitting issues, because it employs a combination of classification, regression tree methods, and non-parametric analyses. For comparative purposes, efficiency was also estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) non-parametric methods. The approach was applied empirically using a sample of English and Welsh water companies during 1991–2020. Average efficiency was estimated at 0.489, showing that water companies could save 51.1% of their costs if efficient. Except for the 2011–2015 period, efficiency increased over time, indicating that price reviews by the English and Welsh water regulator contributed to improving water company performance. The application of bootstrap regression analysis techniques showed that the main source of raw water, percentage of metered properties, population density, and percentage of water leakage represented environmental variables that significantly influenced the efficiency scores of water companies. The approach introduced here could be of use to water regulators, as it overcomes the existing limitations of traditional approaches employed to assess the performance of water companies, facilitating sound decision-making.

GIS and Remote Sensing-Based Approach for Monitoring and Assessment of Plastic Leakage and Pollution Reduction in the Lower Mekong River Basin

Determination of plastic leakage sources and pathways is essential in plastic pollution mitigation. Finding ways to stem land-sourced plastic waste leakage requires understanding its sources. Spatial analysis conducted in a geographic information system (GIS) environment and remote sensing investigation uncovered insights into the distribution of plastic leakage in the lower Mekong River basin (LMRB). The main objectives of this approach were: (i) to map plastic leakage density using multi-source geospatial data; and (ii) to identify plastic leakage source hotspots and their accumulation pathways by incorporating hydrological information. Mapping results have shown that plastic leakage density was highly concentrated in urban areas with a high intensity of human activities. In contrast, the major pathways for plastic leakage source hotspots were the high morphometric areas directly influenced by facilities, infrastructure, and population. The overall efforts in this study demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed novel method used for predicting plastic leakage density and its sources from land-based activities. It is also accomplished using multi-geospatial data with GIS-based analysis to produce a graphical model for plastic leakage waste density in each region that non-technical personnel can easily visualize. The proposed method can be applied to other areas beyond the LMRB to improve the baseline information on plastic waste leakage into the river.

Simulation Study of Gate-Drain Leakage Current and Density of Polarization Charge at Heterojunction Interface in GaN HEMTs

In previous report, we showed that the source-drain leakage current at off state can be suppressed by thinning the undoped channel layer even if the gate length was reduced to 25 nm in device simulation of AlGaN/GaN HEMT. On the other hand, if the source-drain leakage current can be suppressed, leak current is dominated by the leakage current between the gate and drain. In this report, the source-drain leakage current and the gate-drain leakage current are calculated when drain voltage is until 50 V. When the sufficiently small access resistance is assumed, change of Al composition of barrier has almost no effect in DC characteristics, while the gate-drain leakage is suppressed when Al composition is lower due to lower polarization charge at heterojunction. To use high Schottky barrier height of the gate of AlGaN layer with high Al composition effectively, reduction of the density of polarization charge by using semi-polar-face is proposed.

Design and characteristic analysis of dual-excitation and dual-modulation axial permanent magnetic gear

In order to solve the problems of serious axial and tangential leakage and low torque density in the magnetic circuit axial permanent magnet gear (APMG), an external regulating ring is introduced on the basis of APMG to form a dual-excitation and modulation APMG structure, namely DEM-APMG. The low speed rotor of DEM-APMG is clamped between the inner and outer magnetizing rings to generate dual-excitation field (i.e. dual excitation). At the same time, the inner and outer magnetizing rings modulate the low speed rotor dual-directionally modulation (i.e. dual modulation). The axial and tangential leakage flux of APMG can be converted into useful harmonics to increase the output torque and torque density on the basis of APMG. In this study, mathematical analysis is used to describe the air gap magnetic density and electromagnetic torque model of a DEM-APMG, which essentially describes the root cause of the increase in torque density. Using 3D finite element static and dynamic simulations, the transmission characteristics of the APMG and DEM-APMG are compared and analyzed. Results show that the maximum static torque of the DEM-APMG high-speed and low-speed rotors with the same outer diameter increase by 22.7% and 23.8%, respectively, compared with APMG, 26% and 29%, respectively, in steady-state operation, and the torque density increases by 24%. The influence of the primary structural parameters on the transmission characteristics is also investigated using the control variable method. Results show that the duty cycle of the magnet adjusting block, the axial length of the high-speed permanent magnet and the low-speed permanent magnet have the strongest effect on the torque density of the DEM-APMG. When the axial length of the high-speed permanent magnet and low-speed permanent magnet is 8mm, and the duty cycle is 0.4, the torque density can reach the optimal value of 156kNm/m3.

Design and Demonstration of MEM Relay-Based Arithmetic and Sequential Circuit Blocks

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become more prevalent in recent years and is an integral part of everyday life. Thus, the need for ultralow-power sensors and processing units has dramatically increased. The continuous scaling of CMOS transistors has resulted in more severe subthreshold leakage and high power density issues. In recent years, microelectromechanical (MEM) relays have attracted research interests. They are viewed as promising beyond-CMOS candidates due to their nonleaking property and abrupt switch ON/OFF characteristics. This article presents the design and characterization of a few core relay-based digital blocks, including an adder and a D-latch. While the mechanical movement of relays makes them inherently slower than transistors, we show that the scaled 32-bit relay adder offers 60 times less energy per operation than its CMOS counterpart in 40-nm technology. This makes the proposed relay circuits particularly appealing to applications with stringent demand on energy efficiency and moderate performance requirements, such as remote sensors, wearable accessories, and implantable biomedical devices.

High thermal conductivity and low leakage phase change materials filled with three-dimensional carbon fiber network

As one of the most effective energy storage compounds, phase change materials (PCMS) play an important role in energy conservation and storage. However, the inherent poor thermal conductivity and liquid leakage of PCMS seriously limit their practical application. Polyethylene glycol·calcium chloride (PEG·CaCl2) phase change materials filled with three-dimensional carbon fiber network were prepared by liquid phase impregnation and hot pressing molding method. The experimental results show that carbon fiber network (CF felt) and PEG·CaCl2 complex structure increase the thermal conductivity and stability. The in-plane thermal conductivity of PEG·CaCl2/CF composite (47.73% carbon content) is 0.97 W/mK, about 103% higher than that of PEG. PEG·CaCl2/CF composite does not present leakage even heating at 80 °C for 45 min (35 °C higher than the melting point of pure PEG), showing low leakage ability. High thermal conductivity, low leakage and low density of this composite suggest a promising route for thermal storage applications.

Notable difference between rapid-thermal and microwave annealing on Ge pMOSFETs

Effects of rapid-thermal-annealing (RTA) and microwave annealing (MWA) on Ge pMOSFET with GeOx interfacial layer (IL) and HfO2 gate dielectric were studied in this work. High gate leakage and low hole mobility may be induced by the diffusion of GeOx during RTA thermal process. A high hole mobility of ~510 cm2/V-s, low equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of ~0.7 nm, and very low gate leakage density of ~10−4 A/cm2 at V = VFB + 1 V in Ge pMOSFET can be simultaneously achieved with the efficient annealing effects of MWA on hydrogen plasma (H*) treated GeOx IL due to the suppression of GeOx out-diffusion. The notable difference between RTA and MWA can be attributed to good annealing effects on gate stack by using a MWA with low effective thermal budget.

High Performance p-i-n Photodetectors on Ge-on-Insulator Platform.

In this article, we demonstrated novel methods to improve the performance of p-i-n photodetectors (PDs) on a germanium-on-insulator (GOI). For GOI photodetectors with a mesa diameter of 10 μm, the dark current at −1 V is 2.5 nA, which is 2.6-fold lower than that of the Ge PD processed on Si substrates. This improvement in dark current is due to the careful removal of the defected Ge layer, which is formed with the initial growth of Ge on Si. The bulk leakage current density and surface leakage density of the GOI detector at −1 V are as low as 1.79 mA/cm2 and 0.34 μA/cm, respectively. GOI photodetectors with responsivity of 0.5 and 0.9 A/W at 1550 and 1310 nm wavelength are demonstrated. The optical performance of the GOI photodetector could be remarkably improved by integrating a tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) layer on the oxide side due to the better optical confinement and resonant cavity effect. These PDs with high performances and full compatibility with Si CMOS processes are attractive for applications in both telecommunications and monolithic optoelectronics integration on the same chip.

Study on dielectric properties of PVP and Al2O3 thin films and their implementation in low-temperature solution-processed IGZO-based thin-film transistors

In the present work, we investigated the dielectric properties of solution-processed Poly-(4-vinylphenol) (PVP), and atomic layer deposited (ALD) alumina (Al2O3) thin films. Later, we integrate these dielectric materials into a thin-film transistor (TFT) device fabricated on a glass substrate using solution-processed indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) as a semiconductor. Both PVP and Al2O3 films show good dielectric behavior with minimum leakage and capacitance densities of 7.0 nF/cm2 and $$1.034 \times {10}^{-7}$$ F/cm2, respectively. A bottom source/drain top-gate transistor based on PVP as gate insulator operates in the linear region and demonstrates highly negative threshold voltage values beyond − 40 V. On the other hand, the bottom-gate top source/drain transistor based on Al2O3 gate dielectric demonstrates good saturation behavior with saturation current and saturation mobility of $$4.16 \times {10}^{-4}$$ A and 2.203 cm2/Vs, respectively. Further, using the photochemical activation method, the processing temperature of IGZO thin films is reduced to 325 °C from 400 °C. Low-temperature processed IGZO TFTs also show good saturation behavior with low positive threshold voltage values. However, it is achieved at the expense of saturation mobility which decreases to 0.557 cm2/Vs. Our study presents the possibility of producing organic–inorganic hybrid low-cost, and high-performance devices for upcoming flexible electronics.

A 40-nm Ultra-Low Leakage Voltage-Stacked SRAM for Intelligent IoT Sensors

A stacked voltage domain SRAM is proposed as an effective leakage reduction technique where bit-cell arrays are split into two voltage domains (top and bottom) connecting in series between VDD and GND to generate a subthreshold retention voltage directly from a nominal supply with no area penalty or efficiency loss compared to the conventional voltage regulator approach. The Zigzag 8T bit-cell structure is chosen with an optimal transistor sizing to balance among hold stability, leakage, and area density. SRAM peripherals remains at full supply domain resulting in super-cutoff read for improved sensing margin and word-line overdrive for better write margin. A novel array swapping mechanism with a comprehensive timing control ensure stable access to arbitrary arrays within one system clock cycle. The proposed SRAM achieves 1.03-pW/b leakage at 0.58 V in 40 nm.

Effect of bismuth and vanadium as the varistor forming element in ZnO-based ceramics

This paper focuses on the difference between Bi and V as the varistor forming element (VFE) in ZnO-based ceramics. For this purpose, the density, microstructure and electrical properties of ZnBiMnNbO and ZnVMnNbO varistor ceramics sintered at 900 °C for 3 h were compared. Besides having a higher density and a smaller grain size, the Bi-containing varistor ceramic has Bi2O3, Bi5Nb3O15 and ZnMnO3, as its secondary phases in comparison with ZnV2O4, Zn3(VO4)2 and ZnMn2O4 in the V-containing one. The nonlinear coefficients (α) over 0.1–1 and 1–10 mA/cm2 ranges, breakdown field (EB) and leakage density (JL) of Bi-containing ceramic are 31.38, 27.33, 576.75 V/mm and 3.75 µA/cm2, respectively. Those of its V-containing counterpart are 4.99, 23.53, 440.00 V/mm and 281.00 µA/cm2. These results suggest Bi is more effective than V on acting as the VFE in ZnO-based ceramics.

TAP: Reducing the Energy of Asymmetric Hybrid Last-Level Cache via Thrashing Aware Placement and Migration

Emerging non-volatile memories (NVMs) have favorable properties, such as low leakage and high density, and have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Among them, spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive random access memory (STT-MRAM) with SRAM-comparable read speed is a good candidate to build large last-level caches (LLCs). However, STT-MRAM suffers from long write latency and high write energy. To mitigate the impact of asymmetric read/write energy and latency, hybrid cache designs have been proposed to combine the merits of STT-MRAM and SRAM. In such a hybrid SRAM/STT-MRAM LLC, intelligent block placement and migration policies are needed to improve the energy efficiency. Prior studies map write-intensive blocks to SRAM and keep read-intensive blocks in STT-MRAM for reducing the energy consumption of hybrid LLCs. The write-intensive/read-intensive blocks are usually captured by sampling the address (PC) of memory access instructions or adding simple access counters in each cache line. Nevertheless, these prior approaches cannot fully capture the energy-harmful access behavior in STT-MRAM, especially the writes caused by repetitive data transfer between the LLC and upper-level caches. In this paper, we find that conflict misses in L2 often generate thrashing blocks which move back and forth between L2 and LLC. If dirty thrashing blocks that incur extensive writes are placed in STT-MRAM, energy consumption would excessively increase, especially when running memory-bound workloads. Thus, we propose a thrashing aware placement and migration policy (TAP) to tackle the challenge. TAP places dirty thrashing blocks into SRAM and migrates clean thrashing blocks from SRAM to STT-MRAM. Evaluation results show that TAP can provide significant energy savings with minimal performance loss.

Room‐Temperature Fabrication of High‐Quality Lanthanum Oxide High‐κ Dielectric Films by a Solution Process for Low‐Power Soft Electronics

AbstractHigh‐quality dielectric films are indispensable for field‐effect electronic devices to provide high electrical performance. However, deposition of high‐quality dielectric films on flexible substrate remains a challenging task, which greatly limits the electrical performance of flexible or organic field‐effect devices. A room‐temperature deep ultraviolet (DUV) irradiation process is proposed for densification of solution‐processed La2O3 films. It is found that room‐temperature DUV‐La2O3 films not only exhibit leakage and dielectric properties that are comparable to those of high‐temperature annealed‐La2O3 films, but also have very smooth and clean surfaces and excellent bending strain tolerance. The fabricated La2O3 films exhibit a wide band gap (5.78 eV), high dielectric constant (12.68), low leakage density (8.8 × 10−7 A cm−2 at 2 MV cm−1), and high breakdown field strength (3.5 MV cm−1). Organic thin‐film transistors (OTFTs) based on high‐quality solution‐processed La2O3 gate dielectrics show a low operation voltage (≤3 V), low gate leakage current (<10−9 A), and high Ion/Ioff ratio (>105). Based on these room‐temperature‐fabricated high‐performance OTFTs, low‐voltage complementary integrated circuits are successfully fabricated, including complementary inverters and NAND gate circuits. The results demonstrate that room‐temperature DUV‐processed La2O3 films are ideal gate dielectric materials for future flexible and low‐power‐consumption electronic devices.