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Now showing 1 - 10 of 16
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    Carrier Lifetime in Liquid-phase Crystallized Silicon on Glass
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Vetter, Michael; Gawlik, Annett; Plentz, Jonathan; Andrä, Gudrun; Ribeyron, Pierre-Jean; Cuevas, Andres; Weeber, Arthur; Ballif, Christophe; Glunz, Stefan; Poortmans, Jef; Brendel, Rolf; Aberle, Armin; Sinton, Ron; Verlinden, Pierre; Hahn, Giso
    Liquid-phase crystallized silicon on glass (LPCSG) presents a promising material to fabricate high quality silicon thin films, e.g. for solar cells and modules. Barrier layers and a doped amorphous silicon layer are deposited on the glass substrate followed by crystallization with a line focus laser beam. In this paper we introduce injection level dependent lifetime measurements generated by the quasi steady-state photoconductance decay method (QSSPC) to characterize LPCSG absorbers. This contactless method allows a determination of the LPCSG absorber quality already at an early stage of solar cell fabrication, and provides a monitoring of the absorber quality during the solar cell fabrication steps. We found minority carrier lifetimes higher than 200ns in our layers (e.g. n-type absorber with ND=2x1015cm-3) indicating a surface recombination velocity SBL<3000cm/s at the barrier layer/Si interface.
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    Decomposition of methane over alumina supported Fe and Ni–Fe bimetallic catalyst: Effect of preparation procedure and calcination temperature
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Al-Fatesh, A.S.; Fakeeha, A.H.; Ibrahim, A.A.; Khan, W.U.; Atia, H.; Eckelt, R.; Seshan, K.; Chowdhury, B.
    Catalytic decomposition of methane has been studied extensively as the production of hydrogen and formation of carbon nanotube is proven crucial from the scientific and technological point of view. In that context, variation of catalyst preparation procedure, calcination temperature and use of promoters could significantly alter the methane conversion, hydrogen yield and morphology of carbon nanotubes formed after the reaction. In this work, Ni promoted and unpromoted Fe/Al2O3 catalysts have been prepared by impregnation, sol–gel and co-precipitation method with calcination at two different temperatures. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 physisorption, temperature programmed reduction (TPR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) techniques. The catalytic activity was tested for methane decomposition reaction. The catalytic activity was high when calcined at 500 °C temperature irrespective of the preparation method. However while calcined at high temperature the catalyst prepared by impregnation method showed a high activity. It is found from XRD and TPR characterization that disordered iron oxides supported on alumina play an important role for dissociative chemisorptions of methane generating molecular hydrogen. The transmission electron microscope technique results of the spent catalysts showed the formation of carbon nanotube which is having length of 32–34 nm. The Fe nanoparticles are present on the tip of the carbon nanotube and nanotube grows by contraction–elongation mechanism. Among three different methodologies impregnation method was more effective to generate adequate active sites in the catalyst surface. The Ni promotion enhances the reducibility of Fe/Al2O3 oxides showing a higher catalytic activity. The catalyst is stable up to six hours on stream as observed in the activity results.
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    Laser Patterning of CIGS thin Films with 1550 nm Nanosecond Laser Pulses
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Ehrhardt, Martin; Lorenz, Pierre; Bayer, Lukas; Zagoranskiy, Igor; Zimmer, Klaus
    The results of laser scribing experiments of CIGS thin films deposited on Mo-coated stainless steel sheets, using laser pulses with a wavelength of 1550 nm and a pulse duration of 6 ns, are presented in this study. It is shown that a removal of the CIGS from the Mo film is possible without edge melting of the CIGS or damaging of the Mo. The critical parameter for inducing the delamination lift-off process of the CIGS from the Mo was identified to be the scribing speed of the laser. In dependence on the laser parameters two different material removal processes were found. For a low pulse overlap the laser pulse penetrates the CIGS film and is absorbed in the interface between the CIGS and the Mo causing a lift-off process of the CIGS from the Mo back contact. For a high pulse overlap an ablation process starting from the top side of the CIGS film was found. The composition and morphology of the sample material after the laser patterning were analysed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and micro-Raman spectroscopy.
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    Nanostructuring of Fused Silica Assisted by Laser-shaped Metal Triangles Using a Nanosecond Laser
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Lorenz, Pierre; Grüner, Christoph; Ehrhardt, Martin; Bayer, Lukas; Zimmer, Klaus
    Self-organized processes are of special interest for the laser-induced nanostructuring of surfaces. In this study we combined two self-organized processes: the microsphere lithography and the molten phase transformation for the nanostructuring of dielectrics. A fused silica substrate was covered with periodically ordered polystyrene (PS) spheres and the system was subsequently covered with 30 nm chromium. Afterwards the PS spheres were removed and the bare and resultant periodic Cr triangles were irradiated in two steps using a KrF excimer laser. First step: A low laser fluence treatment results in a melting and shape transformation of the triangles. Second step: A high laser fluence treatment of the pre-treated surface results in a nanostructuring of the dielectric surface (and removal of the metal). The surface topography was studied by scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, the different steps were simulated and compared with the experimental results.
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    Significance of the Resonance Condition for Controlling the Seam Position in Laser-assisted TIG Welding
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Emde, B.; Huse, M.; Hermsdorf, J.; Kaierle, S.; Wesling, V.; Overmeyer, L.; Kozakov, R.; Uhrlandt, D.
    As an energy-preserving variant of laser hybrid welding, laser-assisted arc welding uses laser powers of less than 1 kW. Recent studies have shown that the electrical conductivity of a TIG welding arc changes within the arc in case of a resonant interaction between laser radiation and argon atoms. This paper presents investigations on how to control the position of the arc root on the workpiece by means of the resonant interaction. Furthermore, the influence on the welding result is demonstrated. The welding tests were carried out on a cooled copper plate and steel samples with resonant and non-resonant laser radiation. Moreover, an analysis of the weld seam is presented.
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    Shock-wave-induced Thin-film Delamination (SWIFD): A Non-thermal Structuring Method of Functional Layers
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Lorenz, Pierre; Ehrhardt, Martin; Bayer, Lukas; Zimmer, Klaus
    The laser structuring of thermally sensitive functional layers is a challenge for laser methods. However, already ultrashort laser pulses can induce thermal modifications. The spatial separation of the laser pulse absorption from the functional layer removal process allows a non-thermal structuring process. Therefore, the rear side of the substrate is irradiated and the following laser ablation process induces a transverse shock wave through the substrate. Finally, the interaction of the shock wave with the substrate/functional layer interface results in a delamination of the functional layer. This shock-wave-induced thin-film delamination (SWIFD) method was tested on a layer system (1.5 μm thick epoxy-based negative photoresist SU 8, 250 nm–1 μm chromium layer) on a 25 μm polyimide flexible substrate where the influence of the systematic variation of the thickness of the metallic intermediate layer on the delamination process was studied. The resultant surface morphology was analyzed by optical microscopy as well as by white light interferometry (WLI).
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    First Terahertz-range Experiments on Pump – Probe Setup at Novosibirsk free Electron Laser
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Choporova, Yulia Yu.; Gerasimov, Vasily V.; Knyazev, Boris A.; Sergeev, Sergey M.; Shevchenko, Oleg A.; Zhukavin, Roman K.; Abrosimov, Nikolay V.; Kovalevsky, Konstantin A.; Ovchar, Vladimir K.; Hübers, Heinz-Wilhelm; Kulipanov, Gennady N.; Shastin, Valery N.; Schneider, Harald; Vinokurov, Nikolay A.
    A single-color pump-probe system has been commissioned at the Novosibirsk free electron laser. The laser emits a tunable monochromatic terahertz radiation. To prove the proper system operation, we investigated the time-resolved absorption of a sample of n-type germanium doped with antimony, which was previously investigated at the FELBE facility, in the temperature range from 5 to 40 K. The measured relaxation time amounted to about 1.7 ns, which agreed with the results obtained at the FELBE. The results of pump-probe measurements of non-equilibrium dynamics of hot electrons in the germanium crystal at cryogenic temperatures are presented for wavelengths of 105, 141 and 150 μm.
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    Tetrahedral Mesh Improvement Using Moving Mesh Smoothing and Lazy Searching Flips
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Dassi, Franco; Kamenski, Lennard; Si, Hang
    We combine the new moving mesh smoothing, based on the integration of an ordinary differential equation coming from a given functional, with the new lazy flip technique, a reversible edge removal algorithm for local mesh quality improvement. These strategies already provide good mesh improvement on themselves, but their combination achieves astonishing results not reported so far. Provided numerical comparison with some publicly available mesh improving software show that we can obtain final tetrahedral meshes with dihedral angles between 40° and 123°.
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    On Tetrahedralisations of Reduced Chazelle Polyhedra with Interior Steiner Points
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Si, Hang; Goerigk, Nadja
    The non-convex polyhedron constructed by Chazelle, known as the Chazelle polyhedron [4], establishes a quadratic lower bound on the minimum number of convex pieces for the 3d polyhedron partitioning problem. In this paper, we study the problem of tetrahedralising the Chazelle polyhedron without modifying its exterior boundary. It is motivated by a crucial step in tetrahedral mesh generation in which a set of arbitrary constraints (edges or faces) need to be entirely preserved. The goal of this study is to gain more knowledge about the family of 3d indecomposable polyhedra which needs additional points, so-called Steiner points, to be tetrahedralised. The requirement of only using interior Steiner points for the Chazelle polyhedron is extremely challenging. We first “cut off” the volume of the Chazelle polyhedron by removing the regions that are tetrahedralisable. This leads to a 3d non-convex polyhedron whose vertices are all in the two slightly shifted saddle surfaces which are used to construct the Chazelle polyhedron. We call it the reduced Chazelle polyhedron. It is an indecomposable polyhedron. We then give a set of (N + 1)2 interior Steiner points that ensures the existence of a tetrahedralisation of the reduced Chazelle polyhedron with 4(N + 1) vertices. The proof is done by transforming a 3d tetrahedralisation problem into a 2d edge flip problem. In particular, we design an edge splitting and flipping algorithm and prove that it gives to a tetrahedralisation of the reduced Chazelle polyhedron.
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    From Planetary Boundaries to national fair shares of the global safe operating space — How can the scales be bridged?
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2016) Häyhä, Tiina; Lucas, Paul L.; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Cornell, Sarah E.; Hoff, Holger
    The planetary boundaries framework proposes quantitative global limits to the anthropogenic perturbation of crucial Earth system processes, and thus marks out a planetary safe operating space for human activities. Yet, decisions regarding resource use and emissions are mostly made at less aggregated scales, by national and sub-national governments, businesses, and other local actors. To operationalize the planetary boundaries concept, the boundaries need to be translated into and aligned with targets that are relevant at these decision-making scales. In this paper, we develop a framework that addresses the biophysical, socio-economic, and ethical dimensions of bridging across scales, to provide a consistently applicable approach for translating the planetary boundaries into national-level fair shares of Earth’s safe operating space. We discuss our findings in the context of previous studies and their implications for future analyses and policymaking. In this way, we link the planetary boundaries framework to widely-applied operational and policy concepts for more robust strong sustainability decision-making.