Voltage Pulse Research Articles

Effect of Anodic Oxidation Pulse Voltage on Antibacterial Properties and Biocompatibility of Ti-Ag Alloy

For the application of titanium and titanium alloys in orthopedic implant materials, the antibacterial properties and cell biocompatibility determine whether the implant surgery is successful. In this study, a functional anodic oxidation (AO) coating was successfully prepared to modify the surface of Ti-Ag alloy. The surface characteristics of the anodized Ti-Ag alloy were analyzed using techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and contact angle measurements. The corrosion characteristics of Ti-Ag samples were tested by an electrochemical workstation. In addition, the antibacterial properties and cell activity were studied by the plate count method and MC3T3-E1 cell staining. The results indicate that the AO process can generate a multi-functional TiO2/Ag2O coating with a large number of block and flower-like structures on the surface of a Ti-Ag alloy. When the AO voltage of the sample is 120 V, the maximum roughness is 0.73 μm and the minimum wetting degree is 23°, which improves the biocompatibility. The corrosion test results show that AO treatment can improve the corrosion resistance of a Ti-Ag alloy. The oxidation voltage is 20 V and the coating has the best corrosion resistance. The corrosion open circuit potential (Eocp) is 107.621 mV and the corrosion current density (icorr) is 2.241 × 10−8 A·cm−2. This coating can promote ion release and show more than 99% of a strong antibacterial ability against S. aureus. The results of the compatibility evaluation by cultured cells showed that the multifunctional coating formed by the anodic oxidation process did not cause cytotoxicity and promoted the adhesion of MC3T3-E1 cells.

Torque and flux control of induction motors fed by synchronized and symmetrical voltage pulses

SummaryThe low switching frequency in high‐power motor drives is mandatory for reducing thermal stress on power devices but often results in significant current harmonics. Synchronized space vector modulation (SynSVM), a widely used low‐carrier‐ratio PWM strategy, offers a simple implementation and reduced harmonics. However, implementing SynSVM in traditional AC motor current regulation poses challenges due to fixed voltage samples. To address this, a high‐performance control scheme based on SynSVM is proposed in this manuscript. It ensures the stator flux vector follows a predefined trajectory by integrating voltage pulses from the original SynSVM. The basic voltage vector switching is facilitated through high‐frequency monitoring and compensation of torque and flux errors, resulting in a fast torque response. Furthermore, synchronized and symmetrical voltage pulses, inherent in the original SynSVM, are equivalently generated, to effectively mitigate current harmonics. This proposed method liberates designers from the complexities of current regulation based on SynSVM. Both simulations and experiments validate the efficacy of the proposed method.

A high‐power electromagnetic source for disabling improvised explosive devices

AbstractUltra‐wideband (UWB) microwave sources driven by specialised pulsed power generators have experienced a considerable development in the last decade due to their wide domain of new applications such as defence or counter‐terrorism activity. The authors present the main findings of a research dedicated to the development of a pulsed power‐driven electromagnetic field source for disabling improvised explosive devices (IED). The pulsed power generator driving the source is a 13‐stage compact Marx producing voltage pulses reaching an amplitude of 0.5 MV, with a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of up to 100 Hz. The generator is coupled to a bipolar pulse forming line, providing bipolar pulses with a dV/dt of around 1.6 MV/ns. This pulsed power system feeds an array composed of 16 Koshelev‐type UWB antennas through an impedance matching transformer. The resulting electromagnetic source is capable to produce pulsed electric fields (PEFs) having a figure‐of‐merit (FOM) of 1 MV. First, practical experiments were carried out to study the effects of the PEFs on targets. The targets used in the present study are M2B type flashbulbs, known to have the same susceptibility as the US army M6 detonator. Different configurations of wires (shielded, twisted, etc) with different lengths were used in connecting items inside these targets. The tests were performed by placing the flashbulbs at different distances to determine the essential parameters (i.e., amplitude, duration, and frequency range) of the PEFs required to trigger them. An overview of the experimental campaign and the main findings are also presented followed by conclusions.

Electrical pruning of Pinus radiata epicormic growths

A novel method for pruning epicormic growths with high voltage energy pulses is presented. This method could be utilized in autonomous forest management, for example by a drone carrying an electrical pulse generator and applicator pruning device. In a laboratory setting, short duration, high voltage pulses of electricity were generated using a capacitor network and a current source. These pulses were applied to Pinus radiata needles and the relative tissue injury to the needles was assessed by estimating electrolyte leakage from the needles in deionised water using electrical conductivity (EC) measurements. EC was positively correlated with the electrical energy applied. This validated the theory that electrical stimuli can cause increased cell death in plant matter. The cell damage, based on electrolyte leakage, caused by stimulating a Pinus radiata needle with a single 1.5 J pulse of energy was 21 % of the maximum, where the maximum was found to result in an EC of 333 µS/cm per gramme of needle in a 45 ml solution. These results from testing on needles removed from the tree confirm the potential of electrical pruning of epicormic growths. Future testing on live in-situ needles will be implemented to determine the level at which cell death induced by the application of high voltage pulses is sufficient to prune epicormic growths, given that mechanical and biotic factors of needles removed from the tree may enhance the rate of cell death in harvested samples.

An Artificial Neural Network Based on Oxide Synaptic Transistor for Accurate and Robust Image Recognition.

Synaptic transistors with low-temperature, solution-processed dielectric films have demonstrated programmable conductance, and therefore potential applications in hardware artificial neural networks for recognizing noisy images. Here, we engineered AlOx/InOx synaptic transistors via a solution process to instantiate neural networks. The transistors show long-term potentiation under appropriate gate voltage pulses. The artificial neural network, consisting of one input layer and one output layer, was constructed using 9 × 3 synaptic transistors. By programming the calculated weight, the hardware network can recognize 3 × 3 pixel images of characters z, v and n with a high accuracy of 85%, even with 40% noise. This work demonstrates that metal-oxide transistors, which exhibit significant long-term potentiation of conductance, can be used for the accurate recognition of noisy images.

Modeling of Charge-to-Breakdown with an Electron Trapping Model for Analysis of Thermal Gate Oxide Failure Mechanism in SiC Power MOSFETs.

The failure mechanism of thermal gate oxide in silicon carbide (SiC) power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs), whether it is field-driven breakdown or charge-driven breakdown, has always been a controversial topic. Previous studies have demonstrated that the failure time of thermally grown silicon dioxide (SiO2) on SiC stressed with a constant voltage is indicated as charge driven rather than field driven through the observation of Weibull Slope β. Considering the importance of the accurate failure mechanism for the thermal gate oxide lifetime prediction model of time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB), charge-driven breakdown needs to be further fundamentally justified. In this work, the charge-to-breakdown (QBD) of the thermal gate oxide in a type of commercial planar SiC power MOSFETs, under the constant current stress (CCS), constant voltage stress (CVS), and pulsed voltage stress (PVS) are extracted, respectively. A mathematical electron trapping model in thermal SiO2 grown on single crystal silicon (Si) under CCS, which was proposed by M. Liang et al., is proven to work equally well with thermal SiO2 grown on SiC and used to deduce the QBD model of the device under test (DUT). Compared with the QBD obtained under the three stress conditions, the charge-driven breakdown mechanism is validated in the thermal gate oxide of SiC power MOSFETs.

Sensorless Control of Surfaced-Mounted Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor in a Wide-Speed Range

This paper delves into a comprehensive study of a wide-speed-range sensorless control approach for surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motors (SPMSMs). In the low-speed range, a novel high-frequency pulse voltage injection (HFPVI) method is introduced for rotor position estimation, which does not depend on motor saliency and is well-suited for SPMSMs. This method incorporates a second-order generalized integrator (SOGI) and a new modulation signal to enhance the accuracy of rotor position estimation. For medium-to-high speeds, an improved super-twisting sliding mode observer (STSMO) utilizing a continuous hyperbolic tangent function is proposed to mitigate chattering. Additionally, a new phase-locked loop (NPLL) is introduced to accurately obtain the rotor position. Furthermore, this paper designs an exponential weighted switching function to facilitate a smooth transition of the motor from the low-speed domain to the medium- and high-speed domains. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed methods are validated through simulations and experiments conducted on an RTU-BOX platform. The rotor position estimation errors of the proposed new HFPVI method and the improved STSMO method under various operating conditions are both approximately 0.05 rad (2.8 elc·deg), and the SPMSM can switch smoothly from the low-speed range to the medium- and high-speed ranges.

Hydrogen generation by dielectric barrier discharge plasma assisted ammonia decomposition

Ammonia, which can serve as a hydrogen carrier for later dehydrogenation in zero-carbon hydrogen generation, is considered one of the key solutions. However, this solution is challenged by the high decomposition temperature and low reaction efficiency. In this paper, non-equilibrium plasma was used to effectively improve the reaction performance of ammonia decomposition to hydrogen and nitrogen using a dielectric barrier discharge reactor. Impacts of operating conditions including discharge parameters, diluted gases, and ammonia concentration on hydrogen generation were investigated. The ammonia decomposition breakdown voltage followed the order of 1 % ammonia/carbon dioxide (4000 V) > 1 % ammonia/nitrogen (3500 V) > 1 % ammonia/helium (1500 V) ≈ 1 % ammonia/argon (1500 V). The effect of pulse voltage and frequency is more significant on plasma-assisted ammonia decomposition compared to the pulse width. When the pulse frequency and width were 30 kHz and 100 ns at 298 K, the ammonia conversion reached 26.3 %, 34.1 % and 40.9 % at 5000, 7000, and 10000 V, respectively. With the addition of argon in 5 % ammonia/helium, the resulting penning effect makes the discharge easier and more uniform to promote ammonia decomposition. Furthermore, the kinetic analysis was investigated to better understand the conversion and utilization of ammonia in plasma-assisted reactions.

An 8 mm endoscopic histotripsy array with integrated high-resolution ultrasound imaging

An 8 mm diameter, image-guided, annular array histotripsy transducer was fabricated and characterized. The array was laser etched on a 5 MHz, 1–3 dice and fill, PZT-5H/epoxy composite with a 45 % volume fraction. Flexible PCBs were used to electrically connect to the array elements using wirebonds. The array was backed with a low acoustic impedance epoxy mixture. A 3.6 by 3.8 mm, 64-element, 30 MHz phased array imaging probe was positioned in the center hole, to co-align the imaging plane with the bubble cloud produced by the therapy array. A custom 16-channel high voltage pulse generator was used to test the annular array for focal lengths ranging from 3- to 8-mm. An aluminum lens-focussed transducer with a 7 mm focal length was fabricated using the same piezocomposite and backing material and tested along with the histotripsy array. Simulated results from COMSOL FEM models were compared to measured results for low voltage characterization of the array and lens-focussed transducer. The measured transmit sensitivity of the array ranged from 0.113 to 0.167 MPa/V, while the lens-focussed transducer was 0.192 MPa/V. Simulated values were 0.160 to 0.174 MPa/V and 0.169 MPa/V, respectively. The measured acoustic fields showed a significantly increased depth-of-field compared the lens-focussed transducer, while the beamwidths of the array focus were comparable to the lens. The measured cavitation voltage in water was between 254 V and 498 V depending on the focal length, and 336 V for the lens-focussed transducer. The array had a lower cavitation voltage than the lens-focussed transducer for a comparable operating depth. The histotripsy array was tested in a tissue phantom and an in vivo rat brain. It was used to produce an elongated lesion in the brain by electronically steering the focal length from 3- to 8-mm axially. Real time ultrasound imaging with a Doppler overlay was used to target the tissue and monitor ablation progress, and histology confirmed the targeted tissue was fully homogenized.

Ultra-fast switching memristors based on two-dimensional materials

The ability to scale two-dimensional (2D) material thickness down to a single monolayer presents a promising opportunity to realize high-speed energy-efficient memristors. Here, we report an ultra-fast memristor fabricated using atomically thin sheets of 2D hexagonal Boron Nitride, exhibiting the shortest observed switching speed (120 ps) among 2D memristors and low switching energy (2pJ). Furthermore, we study the switching dynamics of these memristors using ultra-short (120ps-3ns) voltage pulses, a frequency range that is highly relevant in the context of modern complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. We employ statistical analysis of transient characteristics to gain insights into the memristor switching mechanism. Cycling endurance data confirms the ultra-fast switching capability of these memristors, making them attractive for next generation computing, storage, and Radio-Frequency (RF) circuit applications.

Si/SiGe QuBus for single electron information-processing devices with memory and micron-scale connectivity function

The connectivity within single carrier information-processing devices requires transport and storage of single charge quanta. Single electrons have been adiabatically transported while confined to a moving quantum dot in short, all-electrical Si/SiGe shuttle device, called quantum bus (QuBus). Here we show a QuBus spanning a length of 10 μm and operated by only six simply-tunable voltage pulses. We introduce a characterization method, called shuttle-tomography, to benchmark the potential imperfections and local shuttle-fidelity of the QuBus. The fidelity of the single-electron shuttle across the full device and back (a total distance of 19 μm) is (99.7 ± 0.3) %. Using the QuBus, we position and detect up to 34 electrons and initialize a register of 34 quantum dots with arbitrarily chosen patterns of zero and single-electrons. The simple operation signals, compatibility with industry fabrication and low spin-environment-interaction in 28Si/SiGe, promises long-range spin-conserving transport of spin qubits for quantum connectivity in quantum computing architectures.

ANALYSIS OF THE MAGAMP POWER CONVERTER STABILITY TAKING INTO ACCOUNT OF THE INTERVAL UNCERTAINTY OF THE MAGAMP CORES PARAMETERS

To ensure the functioning of radio electronic equipment (RAE), semiconductor power converters (NPEs) are used, which perform the functions of converting and adjusting the parameters of electrical energy. The modern consumer needs NPEs with a rigid set of operational characteristics - ensuring functional parameters in a wide range of changes in all disturbing factors. The existing principles of NPE construction do not always allow such a set of characteristics to be realized. The article analyzes the stability of the pulse voltage stabilizer based on high-frequency magnetic amplifiers, taking into account the technological spread of their core parameters. The circuit of the voltage stabilizer is presented, its operation is described, the principle of operation of the high-frequency magnetic amplifier is disclosed, and its transfer function in the frequency domain is found. The study is based on the use of interval analysis theory. The conducted analysis of the stability of the NPE, taking into account the interval uncertainty of the parameters of the cores of high-frequency magnetic amplifiers, confirmed their performance both with technological dispersion of the parameters of the cores and with a wide range of changes in all disturbing factors, including the parallel operation of voltage stabilizers on a common load.

Power Scavenging Microsystem for Smart Contact Lenses.

On-the-eye microsystems such as smart contacts for vision correction, health monitoring, drug delivery, and displaying information represent a new emerging class of low-profile (≤ 1mm) wireless microsystems that conform to the curvature of the eyeball surface. The implementation of suitable low-profile power sources for eye-based microsystems on curved substrates is a major technical challenge addressed in this paper. The fabrication and characterization of a hybrid energy generation unit composed of a flexible silicon solar cell and eye-blinking activated Mg-O2 metal-air harvester capable of sustainably supplying electrical power to smart ocular devices are reported. The encapsulated photovoltaic device provides a DC output with a power density of 42.4 µW cm-2 and 2.5mW cm-2 under indoor and outdoor lighting conditions, respectively. The eye-blinking activated Mg-air harvester delivers pulsed power output with a maximum power density of 1.3mW cm-2. A power management circuit with an integrated 11 mF supercapacitor is used to convert the harvesters' pulsed voltages to DC, boost up the voltages, and continuously deliver ≈150 µW at a stable 3.3V DC output. Uniquely, in contrast to wireless power transfer, the power pack continuously generates electric power and does not require any type of external accessories for operation.

High-Performance Memristive Synapse Composed of Ferroelectric ZnVO-Based Schottky Junction.

In pursuit of realizing neuromorphic computing devices, we demonstrated the high-performance synaptic functions on the top-to-bottom Au/ZnVO/Pt two-terminal ferroelectric Schottky junction (FSJ) device architecture. The active layer of ZnVO exhibited the ferroelectric characteristics because of the broken lattice-translational symmetry, arising from the incorporation of smaller V5+ ions into smaller Zn2+ host lattice sites. The fabricated FSJ devices displayed an asymmetric hysteresis behavior attributed to the ferroelectric polarization-dependent Schottky field-emission rate difference in between positive and negative bias voltage regions. Additionally, it was observed that the magnitude of the on-state current could be systematically controlled by changing either the amplitude or the width of the applied voltage pulses. Owing to these voltage pulse-tunable multi-state memory characteristics, the device revealed diverse synaptic functions such as short-term memory, dynamic range-tunable long-term memory, and versatile rules in spike time-dependent synaptic plasticity. For the pattern-recognition simulation, furthermore, more than 95% accuracy was recorded when using the optimized experimental device parameters. These findings suggest the ZnVO-based FSJ device holds significant promise for application in next-generation brain-inspired neuromorphic computing systems.

Design and fabrication of a coupled high-Q photonic nanocavity system with large coupling coefficients.

In a previous work, we demonstrated a coupled cavity system where photons in one storage cavity can be transferred to another storage cavity at an arbitrary time by applying a voltage pulse to a third cavity placed in a p-i-n junction. In this work, we demonstrate methods to improve the transfer efficiency and photon lifetimes of such a coupled system. Firstly, we designed a photonic-crystal structure that achieves a large coupling coefficient without reducing the radiation quality factor compared to the previously proposed structure: The photonic-crystal design was changed to a more symmetric configuration to suppress radiation losses and then optimized using an automatic structure tuning method based on the Covariance Matrix Adaptive Evolutional Strategy (CMAES). Here we added two improvements to achieve an evolution toward the desired direction in the two-dimensional target parameter space (spanned by the coupling coefficient and the inverse radiation loss). Secondly, to improve the experimental cavity quality factors, we developed a fabrication process that reduces the surface contamination associated with the fabrication of the p-i-n junction: We covered the photonic structure with a SiO2 mask to avoid the contamination and the electrode material was changed from Al to Au/Cr to enable cleaning by a weak acid. Owing to these improvements of the cavity design and the fabrication process, the obtained system provides coupling strengths that are about three times stronger and photon lifetimes that are about two times longer, compared to the previously reported system.

Electrically‐Reconfigurable Extremely‐High Density Physical Unclonable Cryptographic Keys Based on Aurivillius Ferroelectrics

AbstractIn the era of information, emerging hardware security primitives, i.e., hardware random number generators and physically unclonable functions, hold profound promise for the establishment of exceptionally secure network information systems. Nonetheless, these potential solutions are constrained by inherent drawbacks, including the need for additional error correction circuits or algorithms, heightened susceptibility to environmental interference, and limited data density. This paper demonstrates the extremely high‐density, physical‐unclonable cryptographic keys by harnessing stochastically ferroelectric domain polarizations in Aurivillius ferroelectric material CaBi2Nb2O9 (CBNO). Ferroelectric polarization of CBNO nanodomains can serve as a robust source of physical unclonable entropy. Through the application of high‐speed voltage pulses, the inherent randomness of ferroelectric polarizations can be enhanced, thereby yielding cryptographic keys characterized by remarkable uniformity, uniqueness, and negligible environmental sensitivity. More importantly, the voltage pulse operations facilitate the configurability of the ferroelectric cryptographic keys with no correlation. An unprecedented data density of 435 Gbit µm−2 is therefore achievable with a miniaturized CBNO of less than 1 um2. Notably, the reconfigured keys successfully pass the National Institute of Standards and Technology random number tests without requiring additional post‐processing steps. Emanating from the inherent attributes of the material, these high‐density ferroelectric keys confer intrinsic advantages to information security, evincing substantial resistance to duplication or cloning.

Switching Converters Dynamics Considering Non-Ideality of the Error Amplifier within the Analogue Control System

The paper discusses a pulse voltage converter with a high switching frequency of a switch with an analog control system capable of providing the required conversion frequencies. The pulsed voltage converter under study has a control system with a proportional-integral regulator, implemented on the basis of a general-purpose operational amplifier. Operational amplifiers with such parameters are widely used as part of modern control microcircuits for pulse-width converters. In this work, the influence of the technological spread of the gain of the operational amplifier on the dynamics of the converter is studied. The studies were carried out both using the developed nonlinear dynamic model of the system, and using a small-signal open-loop dynamic model. A technique has been developed for selecting the parameters of the controller, taking into account the technological spread of the gain of the operational amplifier based on a nonlinear dynamic model. An analysis of the results obtained using a nonlinear dynamic model showed a significant influence of the specified spread on the dynamics of the system, even when the cutoff frequency of the open-loop control system is significantly removed from the frequency of the high-frequency pole of the operational amplifier. This must be taken into account when designing pulse voltage converters with analog control systems, namely, when choosing the parameters of regulators. It is shown that with the optimal values of the controller, selected according to the proposed method, the effect of technological gain spread on the frequency characteristics of an open circuit in the low-mid frequency regions is minimal, which indicates the effectiveness of the method.

Autonomous Light Intensity Adaptation in an Energy‐Efficient Retinomorphic Organic Ferroelectric Neuristor

Autonomous Light Intensity Adaptation in an Energy‐Efficient Retinomorphic Organic Ferroelectric Neuristor

Research on the surface characteristics of 42CrMo alloy steel pulse electrochemical machining

Electrochemical processing, due to its unique material removal mechanism compared to mechanical processing, often results in significantly different micro-morphologies. It is widely used in areas such as aerospace component processing, surface finishing, passivation, micro-structure mold processing, etc. The complexity of alloy steel composition makes uniform etching difficult to achieve, and the post-etch micro-morphology is also complex, making it challenging to describe and analyze. Therefore, it is difficult to analyze the surface morphology of electrochemical etching under different parameters. In this study, a self-developed electrochemical etching device with adjustable DC voltage, pulse width voltage, and pulse width positive and negative voltage output was used. Different parameters of pulse voltage were used to etch the surface of 42CrMo alloy steel. Due to the strong relationship between surface roughness parameters and the chosen measurement scale, as well as the surface morphology and waviness errors introduced by specimen preparation and etching processes, a wavelet filtering method was used to remove the low frequency components in the surface morphology, and only the surface roughness part was retained for fractal parameter calculation and analysis. The research showed that fractal analysis can also be applied to analyze the surface morphology after electrochemical etching. Pulse voltages with characteristic voltages, characteristic pulse frequencies, and duty ratios can achieve better surface quality during positive pulse etching. Positive and negative pulse etching can obtain better surface morphology than positive pulse etching, but the etching amount is lower, making it suitable for precision finishing.

Universal Continuous Model of Active Power Factor Correctors

The purpose of the work is to develop continuous mathematical models of power factor correctors for switch-mode power supplies. The models are designed to solve optimization problems aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of these devices. This goal was achieved by developing a universal continuous averaged model of switch-mode voltage converters, which are an integral part of any active power factor corrector. State-space averaging method was proposed for constructing such a universal model. It has been shown that such a model adequately reproduces the processes in any of the main types of DC-DC voltage converters. The possibility of constructing a mathematical model of an active power factor corrector based on the proposed universal model of a DC-DC voltage converter is substantiated. The features of the structures of active power factor correctors for switching power supplies are considered and the problems that arise when studying their energy efficiency are shown. By simulation in the time domain with using the constructed model, diagrams of transients of the power factor corrector during load and primary network voltage disturbances are obtained. The most important result is the creation of a universal continuous mathematical model of switching voltage regulators. This model, unlike previously proposed models, is suitable for use in the analysis, modeling and design of any power factor correctors without the need to modify it in each specific case. The significance of the results obtained lies in accelerating the design process of active power factor correctors built on the basis of any type of pulsed DC-DC voltage converters. The developed model is intended for use in the Micro-Cap electronic circuit analysis program. However, since it is ultimately a software module in the SPICE language, this model can be used in many circuit analysis programs that support this language.