bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Engineering Enzymes and Antibodies
Authors: Hilvert Donald 
Published: August 2016

Phenomenal rate accelerations, exacting selectivities, and mild reaction conditions characterize biocatalysis and have generated considerable interest in nonbiological applications of enzymes. As a result of greater availability and purity, these molecules are now being used increasingly in organic synthesis to prepare complex natural products and novel materials. They are also being exploited industrially in the production of food additives, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals.Unfortunately, for many commercial applications, natural enzymes may be unsuitable. They may be unstable or difficult to isolate; they may function poorly at the temperatures, pH's, and substrate concentrations needed for reaction; or they may lack appropriate specificity. For many chemical reactions, a natural enzyme may not even exist. For example, natural biocatalysts for the synthetically valuable Diels-Alder cycloaddition have yet to be discovered.
Mutated Bacteriortiodopsins: Competitive Materials for Optical Information Processing?
Authors: Hampp N. , Brauchte C. , Oesterhelt D. 
Published: August 2016

In 1971, the first halobacterial retinal protein was discovered and named bacteriorhodopsin. Bacteriorhodopsin (BR) is a protein of 248 amino acids that is integrated into the bacterial membrane. It is a light driven pump, moving protons from the inside to the outside of the cell. The resulting gradient drives the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for the organism. In the 1970s, rapidly growing research activities focused on the biochemical and biophysical properties of BR and resulted in a linearly increasing number of publications per year. The constant level of about 200 publications/year in the last decade signifies the steadily growing knowledge about the structure and bioenergetic function of BR and related molecules. Nowadays, BR is one of the best-investigated membrane proteins (e.g., References 3–10).Only five years after the unusual chemical and photophysical properties of BR were reported, several articles appeared suggesting technical applications of BR for sunlight energy conversion. Although no commercial applications of BR have resulted from these studies, new ideas for application have arisen, covering about 10% of the total publications on BR during the last two years. Is this an indicator of real potential for BR as a biological material in technology?
Microscopic Properties of Thin Films: Learning About Point Defects
Authors: Ourmazd A. , Scheffler M. , Heinemann M. , Rouviere J-L. 
Published: August 2016

Microscopic properties of thin films are often strongly influenced by departures from “perfection.” These can take the form of extended defects such as dislocations, interfacial roughness, or point defects. Direct imaging of extended defects was one of the early contributions of electron microscopy to solid-state science. Since then, the role of extended defects in controlling the fabrication and properties of thin films has been extensively studied and reviewed. Recently, in-situ observation of strain relaxation in thin-film structures has increased our understanding of dislocation kinetics and its effect on properties of thin films.In this article, we focus on electron microscopic studies of interfacial roughness, the effect of processing on thin films, and the role and properties of intrinsic point defects in solids. Concurrent development of sophisticated theoretical and experimental approaches has substantially facilitated the investigation of point-defect properties. Here, we illustrate how results from theory and experiment can be combined to form a detailed picture of point-defect diffusion in solids, and highlight areas needing increased attention. Microscopic properties of thin films cannot be covered in a single review. For this reason, and because fabrication of semiconducting thin films has reached unprecedented levels of sophistication, we illustrate this article with references to semiconducting materials.Our main conclusions can be summarized as follows, (a) Thin films of the highest quality are bounded by interfaces that are microscopically rough. Moreover, thin-film interfaces contain roughness on many length scales, each affecting a subset of the physical properties of interest.
Nanotribology
Authors: Belak James F. 
Published: August 2016

Friction, lubrication, wear, and adhesion are all phenomena familiar from everyday experience. We experience friction when we go for a walk on ordinary ground—we do not expect to fall flat on our faces, as we might when walking on ice. Wear is particularly well known because it leads to catastrophic failure and represents one of the most costly problems facing industry today. These phenomena are part of the field of tribology—the science of interacting surfaces in relative motion. A macroscopic understanding of tribology is crucial for the design and engineering of mechanical components. As dimensional tolerances of these components approach the nanometer scale and novel new materials are used in their fabrication, macroscopic understanding must give way to a microscopic atomic-scale understanding. This fundamental microscopic understanding and its practical application remain limited.With the advent of surface proximity probes, however, those limitations are rapidly disappearing. Researchers are now able to test and develop a microscopic understanding of such tribological phenomena as boundary-layer lubrication and asperity-surface interactions—ideas that underlie our current macroscopic understanding. This emerging field is known as nanotribology or molecular tribology, the focus of this issue of the MRS Bulletin. The new experimental probes include the surface force apparatus for measuring interfacial forces as a function of surface separation and, more recently, rheological properties of molecularly thin layers; a quartz-crystal microbalance for measuring the atomic-scale friction of adsorbed monolayer films; and the atomic force microscope (AFM) for measuring nanomechanical properties of surfaces, atomicscale friction of clean surfaces, and frictional properties of surfaces coated with molecular films.
Chemical Vapor Deposition of Copper for Multilevel Metallization
Authors: Kaloyeros Alain E. , Fury Michael A. 
Published: August 2016

Since the birth of integrated circuitry about thirty five years ago, microelectronics design and manufacturing technologies have evolved toward higher integration density with smaller design rules. As the semiconductor industry moves into ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI), device geometries continue to shrink into the sub-half-micron region while circuit densities increase to optimize reliability and improve performance. The resulting demands on interconnect technologies necessitate the exploitation of all development avenues: design, materials, and manufacturing.Emerging sub-half-micron technologies require multilevel metallization (MLM) design schemes that reduce interconnection lengths and lead to lower signal transmission delays and enhanced device speeds. MLM schemes also permit increased device density, due to the ability to use the third (vertical) dimension, and easier signal routing because of higher flexibility in architectural design. These schemes, in turn, demand interconnect metals that can handle the higher current densities resulting from the decreasing size of device features, without the loss of electrical and structural integrity, and deliver the sheet resistance needed to meet performance demands. They also require reliable deposition techniques to successfully fabricate the increasingly complex architectures as lateral feature sizes are scaled down more rapidly than conductor or insulator thicknesses.
Refractory Metal Nitride Encapsulation for Copper Wiring
Authors: Li Jian , Mayer J.W. 
Published: August 2016

Recent interest in copper-based metallization for ultra fast logic devices has stimulated extensive studies on thermal stability issues, as well as the search for novel deposition and etching processes. In copper wiring technology, thermal stability problems include: (1) rapid diffusion of copper into dielectric substrates, (2) low-temperature reaction with most near-noble metals and their silicides, (3) the susceptibility of copper to oxidation, (4) poor adhesion characteristics of copper on most dielectric materials, and (5) thermal-stress-induced void formation and cracking. The basic issues have been summarized in a recent review.When copper is in contact with a silicon substrate, copper can diffuse into active regions of devices where it becomes a recombination-generation center. In addition, copper forms the silicide Cu3Si by reacting with the substrate at temperatures less than 200°C. After the formation of the Cu3Si phase, the underlying silicon in the Cu3Si/Si structure is readily oxidized even at room temperature. In the case of copper in contact with silicon dioxide under bias thermal stress (BTS), copper is found at the SiO2/Si interface under a positive electric field. Copper diffusion in doped glass, e.g., phosphosilicate glass and silicon nitride films, is a factor at temperatures below 400°C.
Planarized Copper Multilevel Interconnections for ULSI Applications
Authors: Misawa N. , Ohba T. , Yagi H. 
Published: August 2016

As the degree of large-scale integration (LSI) increases, the area of a single transistor will diminish and the density of transistors will increase. Accordingly, technology for high-density wiring to interconnect the huge number of transistors is needed because transistors cannot perform any useful functions without interconnects and electrodes. For advanced microprocessor chips with a sub-half-micron design rule and at least four interconnect layers, the minimum width of the interconnects becomes less than 0.35 μm.Aluminum or an aluminum alloy is now generally used as the interconnect material in LSI circuits because the physical and chemical properties of aluminum are compatible with current LSI processing: Aluminum forms a thin protective oxide film that withstands various thermal processes; it has relatively low electrical resistivity and halide compounds with a relatively high vapor pressure which are suitable for reactive ion etching (RIE), and it is an inexpensive material. The reliability of aluminum interconnects, however, is a major concern for maintaining the total reliability of advanced LSI. Because of its relatively low melting point, aluminum as an interconnect material is susceptible to stress- and electromigration, which leads to open failure of the interconnect. It is well-known that these failure modes are accelerated by decreasing the width and thickness of the interconnects. Hence, use of aluminum interconnects may be limited for future sub-half-micron LSIs.
Materials Characteristics and Dissolution Behavior of Spent Nuclear Fuel
Authors: Johnson L.H. , Werme L.O. 
Published: August 2016

The geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel is currently under consideration in many countries. Most of this fuel is in the form of assemblies of zirconium-alloy-clad rods containing enriched (1–4% 235U) or natural (0.71% 235U) uranium oxide pellets. Approximately 135,000 Mg are presently in temporary storage facilities throughout the world in nations with commercial nuclear power stations.Safe geologic disposal of nuclear waste could be achieved using a combination of a natural barrier (the host rock of the repository) and engineered barriers, which would include a low-solubility waste form, long-lived containers, and clay- and cement-based barriers surrounding the waste containers and sealing the excavations.A requirement in evaluating the safety of disposal of nuclear waste is a knowledge of the kinetics and mechanism of dissolution of the waste form in groundwater and the solubility of the waste form constituents. In the case of spent nuclear fuel, this means developing an understanding of fuel microstructure, its impact on release of contained fission products, and the dissolution behavior of spent fuel and of UO2, the principal constituent of the fuel.
Cements in Radioactive Waste Disposal
Authors: Glasser F.P. , Atkins M. 
Published: August 2016

Depending on their radioactive content and abundance of long-lived radionuclides, radioactive wastes are often described as low, intermediate or high-level. Cements play a major role in the engineered structures, existing and planned, of most national programs for low- and intermediate-level (ILW) radioactive wastes. Final disposal of ILW is usually by burial at considerable depth (>250 meters), e.g., in planned repositories in clay at Mol (Belgium), in salt at Gorleben (Germany), and in volcanic tuffs at Sellafield (United Kingdom). A sample disposal concept is shown in Figure 1. Shallow land burial is also employed, mostly for low-level wastes (LLW) and often in concrete-lined vaults, e.g., at Drigg (UK) and Center de la Manche (France). Cements are likely to be used in a waste repository as structural elements in the engineered structure and for encapsulation of the actual waste itself (see Figure 1). In the UK, cements are also the favored material for infilling of the vault space (backfilling), and sealing.LLW and ILW are characterized by considerable heterogeneity, and comprise liquids, solids, floes, sludges, exchange resins, and contaminated laboratory equipment. Cements are capable of converting most of these waste streams into solid and stable monoliths that can be further encapsulated in a steel or concrete container. Such a product is ideal for interim storage, transportation, and final emplacement in a repository. The technology of cementation is well-established, and suited to automation and remote handling (thereby reducing the radiation dose to workers).
Thermal Spray Processing of FGMs
Authors: Sampath S. , Herman H. , Shimoda N. , Saito T. 
Published: August 2016

Functionally gradient materials (FGMs) display continuously or discontinuously varying compositions and/or microstructures over definable geometrical distances. The gradients can be continuous on a microscopic level, or they can be laminates comprised of gradients of metals, ceramics, polymers, or variations of porosity/density. Several processing techniques have been explored for the fabrication of FGMs for structural applications, e.g., powder metallurgy, thermal spraying, in situ synthesis, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis, reactive infiltration, etc. Physical and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques are also being explored to process FGM films with nanometer level gradients in composition. This article addresses the issues related to thermal-spray processing of FGMs and will only peripherally compare the advantages and limitations of thermal spray versus other processing techniques as reported in the literature.In thermal spraying, feedstock material (in the form of powder, rod, or wire) is introduced into a combustion or plasma flame. The particles melt in transit and impinge on the substrate where they flatten, undergo rapid solidification, and form a deposit through successive impingement. Thermal spraying has been traditionally employed to produce a variety of protective coatings of ceramics, metals, and polymers on a range of substrates. More recently, the process has been used for spray-forming structural components.Arc spray, combustion, and plasma are the major techniques comprising thermal spray. These classifications are based on the type of heat source and the method by which feedstock is injected. Arc-spray processes use electrically conductive wire as feedstock, while combustion methods use powder or wire.
CVD Processing
Authors: Hirai Toshio 
Published: August 2016

Various methods are used in functionally gradient materials technology to control the composition and structure of a composite.The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method yields a deposit with source gases by applying variou s forms of energy (heat, light, plasma, etc.) to the gases after they are introduced into a CVD reactor. Hydride, bromide, and chloride are generally used for source materials. By continually changing the mixture ratio of source gases or by controlling the CVD conditions such as deposition temperatures, gas pressure, and gas-flow rate, CVD permits relatively easy syntheses of various FGMs (to a maximum thickness on the order of a centimeter).
Microstructural Design and Control of Silicon Nitride Ceramics
Authors: Mitomo Mamoru , Hirosaki Naoto , Hirotsuru Hideki 
Published: August 2016

The improvement of mechanical properties by microstructural control has been one of the main topics of interest in the development of silicon nitride ceramics. Toughening, by developing an in situ composite or self-reinforced microstructure, has attracted particular attention.Microstructural design is a key factor in the optimization of processing parameters. The microstructures of sintered materials are composed of silicon nitride grains and grain boundaries, which can be either crystalline, amorphous, or partially crystalline, depending on the composition, amount of sintering additives, and processing parameters. Silicon nitride ceramics have been fabricated with an addition of metal oxides and rare-earth oxides that form a liquid phase during sintering and accelerate grain boundary diffusion. The effect of composition of the glassy phase on the mechanical properties of ceramics is presented by Becher et al. and Hoffmann elsewhere in this issue. This article focuses specifically on the design and control of grain size.As it is well recognized, many processing parameters affect grain growth behavior and the resulting microstructure. During sintering, the α- to β-phase transformation leads to a self-reinforcing microstructure on account of the anisotropic grain growth of the stable hexagonal β- Si3N4 phase. Therefore, α-rich powders are widely used for starting materials. Phase transformation accelerates anisotropic grain growth, resulting in an increase in the fracture toughness of Si3N4 ceramics. Kang and Han discuss the effect of phase transformation on nucleation and grain growth in an article in this issue. The effect of the grain-size distribution on microstructural development is described in this article, based on studies conducted mostly with β-Si3N4 powders.
Structure and Strength of Multilayers
Authors: Clemens B.M. , Kung H. , Barnett S.A. 
Published: August 2016

Nanometer-scale multilayer materials exhibit a wealth of interesting structural and mechanical property behaviors. Physical-vapor-deposition technology allows almost unlimited freedom to choose among elements, alloys, and Compounds as layering constituents and to design and produce materials with compositional and structural periodicities approaching the atomic Scale. These materials have tremendous interface area density, approaching 106 mm/mm3, so that a Square centimeter area of a one-micron-thick multilayer film with a bilayer period of 2 nm has an interface area of roughly 1,000 cm2. Hence interfacial effects can dominate multilayer structure and properties leading to unusually large strains and frequently stabilization of metastable structures. The atomic-scale layering of different materials also leads to very high hardnesses and good wear resistance. These materials are a test-bed for examination of the fundamental aspects of phase stability and for exploring mechanical strengthening mechanisms. They are also becoming increasingly interesting for applications such as hard coatings, x-ray optical elements, in microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), and in magnetic recording media and heads.In this article, we review some of the interesting structures and mechanical properties that have been observed in nanometer-scale artificial multilayer structures.Superlattice thin films are readily deposited by vapor-phase techniques such as sputter deposition, evaporation, and chemical vapor deposition, as well as by electrochemical deposition. Superlattice deposition Systems are similar to conventional film deposition Systems, except for the provision to modulate the fluxes and thereby produce alternating super-lattice layers.
In SituX-Ray Diffraction and XAFS Studies of Expanded Fluid Selenium Using Synchrotron Radiation
Authors: Tamura K. , Inui M. 
Published: August 2016

A substantial and continuous volume expansion from liquid to rarefied vapor occurs by the change of temperature and pressure surrounding the liquid-vapor critical point without crossing the saturated vapor pressure curve. Many investigations have been carried out with molecular fluids including supercritical fluids, and several variations of the equation of state have been advanced since the famous work by van der Waals. In the expansion process the mean interatomic distance increases by up to 10 times that found under standard conditions. However reconstitution of the molecular units or other major structure changes are rare in these fluids. On the other hand, in the expansion process of metallic or semiconducting liquids, physical properties can drastically change. Liquid Hg, well-known as a prototype of liquid metals, undergoes a metal-insulator transition when the density is reduced to about 9 g/cm3near the critical point.Elemental Se, which units in its liquid form is a semiconductor with a twofold-coordinated chain structure in which atoms are covalently bonded, also experiences a semiconductor-metal-insulator transition around the critical point (critical temperature and pressure data of Se:Tc= 1615°C,Pc= 385 bar,pc = 1.85 g/cm3).The first indication of the semiconductormetal (SC-M) transition in fluid Se was found in electrical conductivity data by Hoshino and co-workers. Figure 1 shows the contours of constant dc conductivity plotted on the pressure-temperature (P-T) plane. The high-conductivity region appears in the immediate vicinity of the critical point. Another indication of the SC-M transition was obtained from the measurement of the optical reflectivity by Seyer et al. Drude-like energy dependence of the reflectivity spectra was observed at elevated pressures and temperatures.
In SituMagnetic-Circular-X-Ray-Dichroism Measurements: An Epitaxial Fe Wedge on Cu(100)
Authors: Dávila M.E. , Arvanitis D. , Dunn J. Hunter , Mårtensson N. , Srivastava P. , Wilhelm F. , Baberschke K. 
Published: August 2016

Circularly polarized x-ray radiation is attracting increasing interest as a tool for the characterization of the electronic, magnetic, and chiral properties of low-dimensional structures. Using circular light (with electric field vector parallel to the orbital plane), a dependence of the measured quantity by changing either the orientation of the light polarization or the magnetization is indicative of the existence of magnetic circular dichroism. It can be observed in x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), in which the photon energy is scanned through an absorption threshold exciting a core electron into an unoccupied valence state using circularly polarized light. Synchrotron radiation sources have made this technique possible. It can also be observed in photo-emission spectroscopy from core and valence levels. Here we focus on magnetic circular x-ray dichroism (MCXD) in XAS as an element-specific tool to investigate magnetic properties of ultrathin filmsin situ. The application of magneto-optical sum rules enables the determination of the orbital and spin magnetic moments per atom from XAS spectra, as well as the easy magnetization direction.MCXD-based magnetometry in XAS is extensively used by measuring the L absorption edges of 3d-transition metals, where large intensity changes (up to 60%) of the L-edge white lines are observed upon reversal of either the sample magnetization or the light helicity. The high magnetic contrast obtained, combined with the elemental specificity of the technique, allows for the study of very dilute samples such as ultrathin films. We first concentrate on the selection rules governing MCXD in XAS.