The focus of this thesis is developing materials for thin-film transistors (TFTs). Cu₃SbS₄ is explored as p-channel layer. Cu₃SbS₄ TFTs show p-type, depletion-mode behavior with a small amount of gate-controlled modulation of the channel conductance. This behavior is consistent with Hall measurements indicating a mobility of 17 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹ and hole...
Automating pick-and-place operations for large steel castings in a foundry is challenging, particularly from a perception point of view. Accurately estimating the identity and orientation of a given part is an open and complex problem, especially if that part sits in a bin of very similar parts. The problem is...
New amplifier architectures are presented using non-traditional methods of biasing. Time-based dynamic biasing and signal-based dynamic biasing are discussed in the context of new architectures. This includes a new form of ring amplification with a dynamic deadzone, allowing for a structure whose coarse path does not consume static power.
The cleanliness of water is a major issue with regards to humanity's continued survival. The chlorination and chloro-amination of water is essential to the creation of microbiologically clean water. However these processes also give rise to oxidative byproducts such as nitrosamines. In particular, due to its high toxicity, N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA)...
The aim of this research is to develop a fundamental understanding of the dominant defect species and the relevant defect equilibrium conditions for bismuth-containing perovskites to help guide the development of these materials for emerging applications. This is of paramount importance for many demanding applications, because ultimately the defect equilibria...
High performance dielectric materials are needed for high power SiC- or GaN-based electronics which combine the best features of high energy density, low dielectric loss and high reliability and for advanced high-speed and high-voltage energy storage where temperature stability plays an important role in material properties. An ideal capacitor for...
Polyoxometalates are a rapidly growing class of discrete metal oxide clusters with a wide range of applications including functional materials. These anionic clusters of the group V and VI transition metals are inexpensive and non-toxic. Within group V polyoxometalates, niobium and tantalum chemistry has been underdeveloped owing to their unique...
The ternary system (Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅)TiO₃-(Bi₀.₅K₀.₅)TiO₃-Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ (BNT-BKT-BMgT) was explored along the [75-(x 2) ]Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅TiO₃ - [25-(x 2)]Bi₀.₅K₀.₅TiO₃ - [x]Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ composition line. Thin films were fabricated using chelated mixing route solutions spin cast onto platinized silicon substrates. Processing parameters such as: excess cation molar%, solution molality, and crystallization temperatures, for composition where x=0,...
Recent sensor System-on-Chips (SoC) have enabled significant advances in energy-efficiency by incorporating various micro-powered building blocks. Unfortunately, most of these sensor systems do not address the high power cost associated with data storage and transmission, which in some cases vastly exceeds the power consumed by the rest of the SoC....
As the CMOS process scales down to submicron, digital circuit performance improves, while reduced supply voltage and lower transistor intrinsic gain make it difficult to implement analog circuits in a power efficient manner. Therefore, it has become advantageous to shift more analog signal processing functions conventionally realized in voltage (analog)...