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    Strain Engineered Electrically Pumped SiGeSn Microring Lasers on Si
    (Washington, DC : ACS, 2022) Marzban, Bahareh; Seidel, Lukas; Liu, Teren; Wu, Kui; Kiyek, Vivien; Zoellner, Marvin Hartwig; Ikonic, Zoran; Schulze, Joerg; Grützmacher, Detlev; Capellini, Giovanni; Oehme, Michael; Witzens, Jeremy; Buca, Dan
    SiGeSn holds great promise for enabling fully group-IV integrated photonics operating at wavelengths extending in the mid-infrared range. Here, we demonstrate an electrically pumped GeSn microring laser based on SiGeSn/GeSn heterostructures. The ring shape allows for enhanced strain relaxation, leading to enhanced optical properties, and better guiding of the carriers into the optically active region. We have engineered a partial undercut of the ring to further promote strain relaxation while maintaining adequate heat sinking. Lasing is measured up to 90 K, with a 75 K T0. Scaling of the threshold current density as the inverse of the outer circumference is linked to optical losses at the etched surface, limiting device performance. Modeling is consistent with experiments across the range of explored inner and outer radii. These results will guide additional device optimization, aiming at improving electrical injection and using stressors to increase the bandgap directness of the active material.
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    Nanoscale Mapping of the 3D Strain Tensor in a Germanium Quantum Well Hosting a Functional Spin Qubit Device
    (Washington, DC : Soc., 2023) Corley-Wiciak, Cedric; Richter, Carsten; Zoellner, Marvin H.; Zaitsev, Ignatii; Manganelli, Costanza L.; Zatterin, Edoardo; Schülli, Tobias U.; Corley-Wiciak, Agnieszka A.; Katzer, Jens; Reichmann, Felix; Klesse, Wolfgang M.; Hendrickx, Nico W.; Sammak, Amir; Veldhorst, Menno; Scappucci, Giordano; Virgilio, Michele; Capellini, Giovanni
    A strained Ge quantum well, grown on a SiGe/Si virtual substrate and hosting two electrostatically defined hole spin qubits, is nondestructively investigated by synchrotron-based scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy to determine all its Bravais lattice parameters. This allows rendering the three-dimensional spatial dependence of the six strain tensor components with a lateral resolution of approximately 50 nm. Two different spatial scales governing the strain field fluctuations in proximity of the qubits are observed at <100 nm and >1 μm, respectively. The short-ranged fluctuations have a typical bandwidth of 2 × 10-4 and can be quantitatively linked to the compressive stressing action of the metal electrodes defining the qubits. By finite element mechanical simulations, it is estimated that this strain fluctuation is increased up to 6 × 10-4 at cryogenic temperature. The longer-ranged fluctuations are of the 10-3 order and are associated with misfit dislocations in the plastically relaxed virtual substrate. From this, energy variations of the light and heavy-hole energy maxima of the order of several 100 μeV and 1 meV are calculated for electrodes and dislocations, respectively. These insights over material-related inhomogeneities may feed into further modeling for optimization and design of large-scale quantum processors manufactured using the mainstream Si-based microelectronics technology.
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    A Flashback on Control Logic Injection Attacks against Programmable Logic Controllers
    (Basel : MDPI, 2022) Alsabbagh, Wael; Langendörfer, Peter
    Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) make up a substantial part of critical infrastructures (CIs) and industrial control systems (ICSs). They are programmed with a control logic that defines how to drive and operate critical processes such as nuclear power plants, petrochemical factories, water treatment systems, and other facilities. Unfortunately, these devices are not fully secure and are prone to malicious threats, especially those exploiting vulnerabilities in the control logic of PLCs. Such threats are known as control logic injection attacks. They mainly aim at sabotaging physical processes controlled by exposed PLCs, causing catastrophic damage to target systems as shown by Stuxnet. Looking back over the last decade, many research endeavors exploring and discussing these threats have been published. In this article, we present a flashback on the recent works related to control logic injection attacks against PLCs. To this end, we provide the security research community with a new systematization based on the attacker techniques under three main attack scenarios. For each study presented in this work, we overview the attack strategies, tools, security goals, infected devices, and underlying vulnerabilities. Based on our analysis, we highlight the current security challenges in protecting PLCs from such severe attacks and suggest security recommendations for future research directions.
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    Dielectrophoresis: An Approach to Increase Sensitivity, Reduce Response Time and to Suppress Nonspecific Binding in Biosensors?
    (Basel : MDPI, 2022) Henriksson, Anders; Neubauer, Peter; Birkholz, Mario
    The performance of receptor-based biosensors is often limited by either diffusion of the analyte causing unreasonable long assay times or a lack of specificity limiting the sensitivity due to the noise of nonspecific binding. Alternating current (AC) electrokinetics and its effect on biosensing is an increasing field of research dedicated to address this issue and can improve mass transfer of the analyte by electrothermal effects, electroosmosis, or dielectrophoresis (DEP). Accordingly, several works have shown improved sensitivity and lowered assay times by order of magnitude thanks to the improved mass transfer with these techniques. To realize high sensitivity in real samples with realistic sample matrix avoiding nonspecific binding is critical and the improved mass transfer should ideally be specific to the target analyte. In this paper we cover recent approaches to combine biosensors with DEP, which is the AC kinetic approach with the highest selectivity. We conclude that while associated with many challenges, for several applications the approach could be beneficial, especially if more work is dedicated to minimizing nonspecific bindings, for which DEP offers interesting perspectives.
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    PS-BBICS: Pulse stretching bulk built-in current sensor for on-chip measurement of single event transients
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2022) Andjelkovic, Marko; Marjanovic, Milos; Chen, Junchao; Ilic, Stefan; Ristic, Goran; Krstic, Milos
    The bulk built-in current sensor (BBICS) is a cost-effective solution for detection of energetic particle strikes in integrated circuits. With an appropriate number of BBICSs distributed across the chip, the soft error locations can be identified, and the dynamic fault-tolerant mechanisms can be activated locally to correct the soft errors in the affected logic. In this work, we introduce a pulse stretching BBICS (PS-BBICS) constructed by connecting a standard BBICS and a custom-designed pulse stretching cell. The aim of PS-BBICS is to enable the on-chip measurement of the single event transient (SET) pulse width, allowing to detect the linear energy transfer (LET) of incident particles, and thus assess more accurately the radiation conditions. Based on Spectre simulations, we have shown that for the LET from 1 to 100 MeV cm2 mg−1, the SET pulse width detected by PS-BBICS varies by 620–800 ps. The threshold LET of PS-BBICS increases linearly with the number of monitored inverters, and it is around 1.7 MeV cm2 mg−1 for ten monitored inverters. On the other hand, the SET pulse width is independent of the number of monitored inverters for LET > 4 MeV cm2 mg−1. It was shown that supply voltage, temperature and process variations have strong impact on the response of PS-BBICS.
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    Towards the Growth of Hexagonal Boron Nitride on Ge(001)/Si Substrates by Chemical Vapor Deposition
    (Basel : MDPI, 2022) Franck, Max; Dabrowski, Jaroslaw; Schubert, Markus Andreas; Wenger, Christian; Lukosius, Mindaugas
    The growth of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on epitaxial Ge(001)/Si substrates via high-vacuum chemical vapor deposition from borazine is investigated for the first time in a systematic manner. The influences of the process pressure and growth temperature in the range of 10−7–10−3 mbar and 900–980 °C, respectively, are evaluated with respect to morphology, growth rate, and crystalline quality of the hBN films. At 900 °C, nanocrystalline hBN films with a lateral crystallite size of ~2–3 nm are obtained and confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirms an atomic N:B ratio of 1 ± 0.1. A three-dimensional growth mode is observed by atomic force microscopy. Increasing the process pressure in the reactor mainly affects the growth rate, with only slight effects on crystalline quality and none on the principle growth mode. Growth of hBN at 980 °C increases the average crystallite size and leads to the formation of 3–10 well-oriented, vertically stacked layers of hBN on the Ge surface. Exploratory ab initio density functional theory simulations indicate that hBN edges are saturated by hydrogen, and it is proposed that partial de-saturation by H radicals produced on hot parts of the set-up is responsible for the growth.
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    Testbeam results of the Picosecond Avalanche Detector proof-of-concept prototype
    (London : Inst. of Physics, 2022) Iacobucci, G.; Zambito, S.; Milanesio, M.; Moretti, T.; Saidi, J.; Paolozzi, L.; Munker, M.; Cardella, R.; Martinelli, F.; Picardi, A.; Rücker, H.; Trusch, A.; Valerio, P.; Cadoux, F.; Cardarelli, R.; Débieux, S.; Favre, Y.; Fenoglio, C.A.; Ferrere, D.; Gonzalez-Sevilla, S.; Gurimskaya, Y.; Kotitsa, R.; Magliocca, C.; Nessi, M.; Pizarro-Medina, A.; Sabater Iglesias, J.; Vicente Barreto Pinto, M.
    The proof-of-concept prototype of the Picosecond Avalanche Detector, a multi-PN junction monolithic silicon detector with continuous gain layer deep in the sensor depleted region, was tested with a beam of 180 GeV pions at the CERN SPS. The prototype features low noise and fast SiGe BiCMOS frontend electronics and hexagonal pixels with 100 μm pitch. At a sensor bias voltage of 125 V, the detector provides full efficiency and average time resolution of 30, 25 and 17 ps in the overall pixel area for a power consumption of 0.4, 0.9 and 2.7 W/cm2, respectively. In this first prototype the time resolution depends significantly on the distance from the center of the pixel, varying at the highest power consumption measured between 13 ps at the center of the pixel and 25 ps in the inter-pixel region.
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    Picosecond Avalanche Detector — working principle and gain measurement with a proof-of-concept prototype
    (London : Inst. of Physics, 2022) Paolozzi, L.; Munker, M.; Cardella, R.; Milanesio, M.; Gurimskaya, Y.; Martinelli, F.; Picardi, A.; Rücker, H.; Trusch, A.; Valerio, P.; Cadoux, F.; Cardarelli, R.; Débieux, S.; Favre, Y.; Fenoglio, C.A.; Ferrere, D.; Gonzalez-Sevilla, S.; Kotitsa, R.; Magliocca, C.; Moretti, T.; Nessi, M.; Pizarro Medina, A.; Sabater Iglesias, J.; Saidi, J.; Vicente Barreto Pinto, M.; Zambito, S.; Iacobucci, G.
    The Picosecond Avalanche Detector is a multi-junction silicon pixel detector based on a (NP)drift(NP)gain structure, devised to enable charged-particle tracking with high spatial resolution and picosecond time-stamp capability. It uses a continuous junction deep inside the sensor volume to amplify the primary charge produced by ionizing radiation in a thin absorption layer. The signal is then induced by the secondary charges moving inside a thicker drift region. A proof-of-concept monolithic prototype, consisting of a matrix of hexagonal pixels with 100 μm pitch, has been produced using the 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process by IHP microelectronics. Measurements on probe station and with a 55Fe X-ray source show that the prototype is functional and displays avalanche gain up to a maximum electron gain of 23. A study of the avalanche characteristics, corroborated by TCAD simulations, indicates that space-charge effects due to the large primary charge produced by the conversion of X-rays from the ^55Fe source limits the effective gain.
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    Anthropomorphized artificial intelligence, attachment, and consumer behavior
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer, 2021) Hermann, Erik
    The increasing humanization and emotional intelligence of AI applications have the potential to induce consumers’ attachment to AI and to transform human-to-AI interactions into human-to-human-like interactions. In turn, consumer behavior as well as consumers’ individual and social lives can be affected in various ways. Following this reasoning, I illustrate the implications and research opportunities related to consumers’ (potential) attachment to humanized AI applications along the stages of the consumption process.
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    Novel Functionalities of Smart Home Devices for the Elastic Energy Management Algorithm
    (Basel : MDPI, 2022) Powroźnik, Piotr; Szcześniak, Paweł; Sobolewski, Łukasz; Piotrowski, Krzysztof
    Energy management in power systems is influenced by such factors as economic and ecological aspects. Increasing the use of electricity produced at a given time from renewable energy sources (RES) by employing the elastic energy management algorithm will allow for an increase in “green energy“ in the energy sector. At the same time, it can reduce the production of electricity from fossil fuels, which is a positive economic aspect. In addition, it will reduce the volume of energy from RES that have to be stored using expensive energy storage or sent to other parts of the grid. The model parameters proposed in the elastic energy management algorithm are discussed. In particular, attention is paid to the time shift, which allows for the acceleration or the delay in the start-up of smart appliances. The actions taken by the algorithm are aimed at maintaining a compromise between the user’s comfort and the requirements of distribution network operators. Establishing the value of the time shift parameter is based on GMDH neural networks and the regression method. In the simulation studies, the extension of selected activities related to the tasks performed in households and its impact on the user’s comfort as well as the response to the increased generation of energy from renewable energy sources have been verified by the simulation research presented in this article. The widespread use of the new functionalities of smart appliance devices together with the elastic energy management algorithm is planned for the future. Such a combination of hardware and software will enable more effective energy management in smart grids, which will be part of national power systems.