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Chung-King Hsu1,2, Mei-Hsiu Liao3, Yu-Tyng Tai4, Shing-Hwa Liu5, Keng-Liang Ou6, Hsu-Wei Fang7, I-Jung Lee8, Ruei-Ming Chen2,31Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, 2Cell Physiology and Molecular Image Research Center, Taipei Medical University-Wan Fang Medical Center, 3Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Taipei Medical University, 4Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Medical University-Wan Fang Medical Center, 5Institute of Toxicology, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, 6Graduate Institute of Biomedical Materials and Engineering, Taipei Medical University, 7Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, National Taipei University of Technology, 8Division of Information and Herbarium, National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, Taipei, TaiwanAbstract: Our previous study showed that Gusuibu (Drynaria fortunei J. Sm.) can stimulate osteoblast maturation. This study was further designed to evaluate the effects of nanoparticles prepared from the water extract of Gusuibu (WEG) on osteoblast survival and maturation. Primary osteoblasts were exposed to 1, 10, 100, and 1000 µg/mL nanoparticles of WEG (nWEG) for 24, 48, and 72 hours did not affect morphologies, viability, or apoptosis of osteoblasts. In comparison, treatment of osteoblasts with 1000 µg/mL WEG for 72 hours decreased cell viability and induced DNA fragmentation and cell apoptosis. nWEG had better antioxidant bioactivity in protecting osteoblasts from oxidative and nitrosative stress-induced apoptosis than WEG. In addition, nWEG stimulated greater osteoblast maturation than did WEG. Therefore, this study shows that WEG nanoparticles are safer to primary osteoblasts than are normal-sized products, and may promote better bone healing by protecting osteoblasts from apoptotic insults, and by promoting osteogenic maturation.Keywords: Gusuibu, nanoparticles, cell protection, osteoblast maturation

In this study, stress intensity factors for axial cracks in hollow cylinders subjected to thermal shock are determined by using the thermal weight function method. The thermal weight function is a universal function for a given cracked body and can be obtained from any arbitrary mechanical loading system. The thermal weight function may be thought of as Green's function for the stress intensity factor of cracked bodies subject to thermal loadings. Once the thermal weight function for a cracked body is determined, the stress intensity factor for any arbitrary distributed thermal loading can be simply and efficiently evaluated through the integration of the product of the temperature and the correspondent thermal weight function. A numerical boundary element method for the determination of thermal weight functions for axial cracks in hollow cylinders is used in this study to evaluate the transient stress intensity factor. As a demonstration, some examples of axial cracks in hollow cylinders subjected to thermal shock are solved by using the thermal weight function method, and the results are compared with available results in the published literature.

Atomic layer deposition (ALD)-based TiN electrode on ferroelectric HfZrO2 metal/ferroelectric/metal (MFM) capacitor and ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) is demonstrated experimentally with weight transfer, that is, ΔP, per pulse analysis through consecutive alternating potentiation/depression (Pot./Dep.) training pulses. The weight training pulse schemes are studied to have symmetric and linear synapse weight transfer to increase the accuracy and accelerate the deep neural network (DNN) training. With ALD TiN inserted, αp/αd = −0.63/−0.84, asymmetry |αp−αd| = 0.21, and polarization modulation ratio (Pot./Dep.) = 97%/98% are achieved for MFM capacitor, and αp−αd = −1.32/−1.88, asymmetry |αp−αd| = 0.56, and Gmax/Gmin > 10 × are delivered for FeFET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comprehensive investigation on the effect of dislocation edge stress for Si N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors is presented in this work by the experimental measurement and proposed simulation model. The accurate stress measurement in Si OD region with and without dislocation edge stress treatment is extracted by atomic force microscope-Raman technique with the nanometer level space resolution. Less compressive stress in Si OD region on the real transistor with dislocation edge stress treatment is observed successfully and has its corresponding higher electron carrier mobility, agreed with the strained Si theory. Main reasons for the less compressive stress in the device with dislocation edge stress treatment are the more stress relaxation of the STI intrinsic compressive stress in modern CMOS process and one layer Si atom missing near the source and drain region along the dislocation line. The measured stress from AFM-Raman spectra experimentally, the simulated stress from proposed finite element method, and its corresponding electrical characteristics agrees well with each other in this work. After the comprehensive understanding and calibrated model for the dislocation edge stress, the relationship between channel stress and dislocation edge shapes, including the angle and length of dislocation lines is simulated and investigated clearly. It can be found that longer dislocation line and smaller dislocation angle can relax the intrinsic STI compressive stress more and should have the better electron carrier mobility and device performance for N-MOSFETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High efficient surface textured SiGe-based solar cell is proposed by the designed top nano-level surface trench structure and the optimized SiGe/Si type-II substrate hetero-junction design. The surface reflectance rate of solar cell can be successfully reduced about 3 times (totally from 32% to ∼10%) by the nano-surface textured structure with obvious photonic crystal effect, simulated by finite differential time domain simulation. With different top surface trench spacing (d) structure design on the nanometer level, broadband antireflection and total absorption rate can be realized and enhanced greatly, respectively. Moreover, SiGe/Si hetero-structure substrate is also implemented to enhance an additional solar cell efficiency about 3% in this work, not only due to the originally higher absorption rate in SiGe-based material but also due to optimized SiGe/Si type-II hetero-structure substrate design. The offset and discontinuousness of the energy band between n+-Si and grown fully strained Si0.9Ge0.1 type-II hetero-junction structure can prevent hole diffusion into the n+-Si layer and have the larger Voc. With the integration of these two key technologies including nano-level surface trench structure design and SiGe/Si type-II hetero-structure optimization, the high efficient (∼18% for the stable production and 21% for the peak record) nano-surface textured SiGe-based solar cell can be achieved and demonstrated in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to the development of the nano-wire device, the vertical gate-all-around (V-GAA) Si nano-tube (NT) device structure is proposed with the promising device performance in this work. The vertical device structure makes the transistor easy to be scaled down continuously to meet the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor scaling needs of the 10/7 nm technology node and beyond. The NT device with the center hollow structure has the capability to deplete the out-of gate control carriers in the center of the nano-wire device and further results in the better device short channel control. Based on the simulation data, the V-GAA Si NT device can keep the Ion-state current the same and reduce the Ioff-state stand-by power. With the demonstration of the promising device performance, the proposed V-GAA Si NT device can be regarded as one of the most promising candidates for the future application of the sub-10/7 nm logic device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A metal-oxide-semiconductor tunneling diode is used to emit electroluminescence from a Si/Si0.2Ge0.8 heterojunction. Besides the 1.1 μm and 1.6 μm infrared emission from the band edges of Si and SiGe, respectively, 2 μm infrared emission is also observed due to the radiative recombination between the electrons in the Si conduction band and the holes in the SiGe valence band. This type II recombination can emit photons whose energy is below the SiGe band gap to extend the emission range of Si/Ge-based light-emitting devices. The emission line shape can be fitted by the electron-hole-plasma recombination model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary-ion mass spectroscopy, energy dispersion spectrometry, and Raman spectroscopy reveal that SiGe dots grown by ultrahigh-vacuum chemical vapor deposition at 600 °C exhibit significant intermixing with an average Ge composition of ∼50%. Raman spectroscopy shows the top SiGe quantum dots of the 20-layer sample to be more relaxed than those of the 5-layer samples. As a result, the electroluminescence from the top SiGe quantum dots of the 20-layer sample has the higher peak energy at ∼0.84 eV as compared to ∼0.82 eV for the 5-layer sample. The external tensile mechanical strain can compensate the built-in compressive strain of SiGe quantum dots and increase electroluminescence energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buckled SiGe films on viscous oxide with different Ge content are studied by wafer bonding and smart-cut process. Compressively strained SiGe layers on the viscous oxide were relaxed to form the buckled state after thermal treatment. Two-dimensional buckling on blanket films is observed. A higher Ge concentration results in a smaller buckling amplitude and a smaller buckling period. Both buckling amplitude and period increase as oxidation time is increased. A small SiGe film (mesa) area can inhibit buckling. Semiempirical analysis gives the critical area size, below which no buckling is observed in the equilibrium states. The critical area size decreases with increasing Ge concentration and decreasing thickness of SiGe films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]