Engineering Commons^™

Metal Modulation Epitaxy Growth For Extremely High Hole Concentrations Above 10(19) Cm(-3) In Gan, Gon Namkoong, Elaissa Trybus, Kyung Keun Lee, Michael Moseley, W. Alan Doolittle, David C. Look

Applied Research Center Publications

The free hole carriers in GaN have been limited to concentrations in the low 10¹⁸ cm⁻³ range due to the deep activation energy, lower solubility, and compensation from defects, therefore, limiting doping efficiency to about 1%. Herein, we report an enhanced doping efficiency up to ~10% in GaN by a periodic doping, metal modulation epitaxy growth technique. The hole concentrations grown by periodically modulating Ga atoms and Mg dopants were over ~1.5 x 10¹⁹ cm⁻³.

© 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Relative Intensity Noise Study In The Injection-Locked Integrated Electroabsorption Modulator-Lasers, Xiaomin Jin, Bennet Yun Tarng, Shun Lien Chuang

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

A High Power, High Efficiency Amplifier Using Gan Hemt, Bumjin Kim, Dennis Derickson, Cheng Sun

Electrical Engineering

A class B and a class F power amplifier are described using a GaN HEMT device. They both were designed to operate at a frequency of 1.7 GHz with the same bias conditions. The performances of each amplifier were successfully simulated and compared. A class B amplifier was physically implemented and achieved a high power-added-efficiency of 69.2%, 39.9 dBm output power and associated gain of 14.9 dB. The experimental results were in close agreement to the simulation results.

The Effect Of Contact Length On Adhesion Between Carbon Nanotubes On Silicon Dioxide, Robert C. Davis, Kaylee Mcelroy, Aaron R. Hopkins

Faculty Publications

The force of adhesion was measured for single walled carbon nanotubes grown over lithographically defined silicon dioxide trenches. We varied contact lengths between the nanotubes and silicon dioxide from 230 to 850 nm. Suspended nanotubes were pushed vertically into the trenches with an atomic force microscope tip, causing them to slip along the surface. Previous work done at shorter contact lengths found that tension was constant with contact length [J. D. Whittaker et al., Nano Lett. 6, 953 (2006)]. This study finds that when the nanotube contact length approaches 1 µm, the tension at which nanotubes slip begins to increase …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2007, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge.

The senior design competition helps to focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects …

System For Sequentially Providing Aberation Corrected Electromagnetic Radation To A Spot On A Sample At Multiple Angles Of Incidence, Martin M. Liphardt, John A. Woollam,

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A system for sequentially providing electromagnetic radia tion to a spot on a sample at different angles of incidence, and after reflection therefrom into a detector. The system includes a plurality of spherical mirrors, and a refractive element for correcting aberration.

Rotating Or Rotatable Compensator Systemi Providing Aberation Corrected Electromagnetic Raadation To A Spot On A Sample At Multiple Angles Of Ancidence, Martin M. Liphardt, Blaine D. Johs, Jeffrey S. Hale, Craig M. Herzinger, Steven E. Green, Ping He, John A. Woollam

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The present invention relates to ellipsometer systems, and more particularly to ellipsometer systems comprising trans missive rotating or stepwise rotatable compensators for continuously or step-wise varying polarization states and further comprising transmissive multi-element lens focusing of a spectroscopic electromagnetic beam into a small, chromatically relatively undispersed area spot on a sample system. The ellipsometer system optionally is present in an environmental control chamber.

Life Cycle Aware Computing: Reusing Silicon Technology, John Y. Oliver, Rajeevan Amirtharajah, Venkatesh Akella, Roland Geyer, Frederic T. Chong

Electrical Engineering

Despite the high costs associated with processor manufacturing, the typical chip is used for only a fraction of its expected lifetime. Reusing processors would create a "food chain" of electronic devices that amortizes the energy required to build chips over several computing generations.

Efficiency Study Of Adjustable Speed Drive With Dual Motor Connection, C. Mitsui, S. Tu, Taufik, M. Anwari

Electrical Engineering

This paper presents a study of AC adjustable speed drive when used to operate two induction motors. The impact of running the two motors under various loading conditions and operating output frequency to overall efficiency of the adjustable speed drives under room temperature will be discussed. Data obtained from laboratory and their analysis will be presented

A Fast Image Super-Resolution Algorithm Using An Adaptive Wiener Filter, Russell C. Hardie

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A computationally simple super-resolution algorithm using a type of adaptive Wiener filter is proposed. The algorithm produces an improved resolution image from a sequence of low-resolution (LR) video frames with overlapping field of view. The algorithm uses subpixel registration to position each LR pixel value on a common spatial grid that is referenced to the average position of the input frames. The positions of the LR pixels are not quantized to a finite grid as with some previous techniques. The output high-resolution (HR) pixels are obtained using a weighted sum of LR pixels in a local moving window. Using a …

Collaborative Routing Algorithm For Wireless Sensor Network Longevity, Shishir Bashyal, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study proposes a new parameter for evaluating longevity of wireless sensor networks after showing that the existing parameters do not properly evaluate the performance of algorithms in increasing longevity. This study also proposes an ant inspired Collaborative Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Network Longevity (CRAWL) that has scalability and adaptability features required in most wireless sensor networks. Using the proposed longevity metrics and implementing the algorithm in simulations, it is shown that CRAWL is much more adaptive to non-uniform distribution of available energy in sensor networks. The performance of CRAWL is compared to that of a non-collaborative algorithm. Both …

Improved Covariance Model Parameter Estimation Using Rna Thermodynamic Properties, Jennifer A. Smith, Kay C. Wiese

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Covariance models are a powerful description of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) families that can be used to search nucleotide databases for new members of these ncRNA families. Currently, estimation of the parameters of a covariance model (state transition and emission scores) is based only on the observed frequencies of mutations, insertions, and deletions in known ncRNA sequences. For families with very few known members, this can result in rather uninformative models where the consensus sequence has a good score and most deviations from consensus have a fairly uniform poor score. It is proposed here to combine the traditional observed-frequency information with …

An Estimation Of Distribution Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm, Raghavendra V. Kulkarni, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

PSO is a powerful evolutionary algorithm used for finding global solution to a multidimensional problem. Particles in PSO tend to re-explore already visited bad solution regions of search space because they do not learn as a whole. This is avoided by restricting particles into promising regions through probabilistic modeling of the archive of best solutions. This paper presents hybrids of estimation of distribution algorithm and two PSO variants. These algorithms are tested on benchmark functions having high dimensionalities. Results indicate that the methods strengthen the global optimization abilities of PSO and therefore, serve as attractive choices to determine solutions to …

Electromagnetic Simulation For Inhomogeneous Interconnect And Packaging Structures, Lijun Jiang, Barry J. Rubin, Yuan Liu, Jason D. Morsey, Alina Deustch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The paper contains a novel mechanism for full wave electromagnetic simulation of complicated inhomogeneous structures, such as on-chip interconnects, IC packaging, antennas, and scattering objects. It uses only Equivalent Principle based EFIE instead of both EFIE and MFIE to establish the surface integral equations for practical inhomogeneous structure so that a much more simplified formulation process is needed in the EM simulation procedure. To overcome the numerical error of K operator in the formulation, a new analytical solution to the K operator for general full-wave integral equations is provided. Numerical results are demonstrated to verify the proposed algorithm. © 2007 …

Passive Fathometer Processing, Peter Gerstoft, William S. Hodgkiss, Martin Siderius, Chen-Fen Huang, Chris H. Harrison

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ocean acoustic noise can be processed efficiently to extract Green's function information between two receivers. By using noise array-processing techniques, it has been demonstrated that a passive array can be used as a fathometer [Siderius, et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120, 1315-1323 (2006)]. Here, this approach is derived in both frequency and time domains and the output corresponds to the reflection sequence. From this reflection sequence, it is possible to extract seabed layering. In the ocean waveguide, most of the energy is horizontally propagating, whereas the bottom information is contained in the vertically propagating noise. Extracting the seabed information …

Practical Sensor For Measurement Of Nitrogen, Dusan Popovic, Vladimir Milosavljevic, Steven Daniels

Articles

This paper presents a method for precise measurement of atomic and molecular nitrogen in an oxygen-nitrogen dc plasma. This is achieved by monitoring the intensities of the atomic nitrogen spectral line at 821.6 nm and the molecular nitrogen bandhead at 337.1 nm, relative to the atomic oxygen spectral line at 844.7 nm. Oxygen is one of the most frequently used gases for surface chemical treatment, including deposition and etching, therefore the ability to measure and control the process and chemical composition of the process is essential. To validate this oxygen actimometry method for N2-xO2 (where x varies from 0 to …

Comparative Study Of Sinusoidal Pulse-Width And Hysteresis Modulations In Current Source Inverter, Taufik, Yat Tam, Makbul Anwari

Electrical Engineering

In this paper, modeling and comparative analysis of current source inverter (CSI) using sinusoidal pulse-width-modulation (SPWM) and hysteresis modulation (HM) will be presented. The modeling of both CSI-SPWM and CSI-HM are implemented using OrCAD Pspice. Results from the simulations will be presented along with the performance analysis of both inverters. More specifically, comparative analysis pertaining to output current regulation, harmonic contents, and transient response will be discussed. Moreover, further investigation about the effect of current THD, power factor and efficiency for balanced and unbalanced three-phase input sources with ±1%, ±3%, ±5% rms variation at the converter stage to various output …

Digitally Controlled Zvs Quasi-Resonant Boost Converter With M-Type Switch, Taufik, Patrick Luther, Makbul Anwari

Electrical Engineering

This paper presents the analysis, modeling and design of zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) quasi resonant boost converter. The use of M-type switch in the topology will be described, including circuitpsilas mode of operation along with the derivations of critical voltage and current equations in each mode. Computer simulation using OrCAD Pspice and hardware development for the resonant converter with digital control will be presented. Results from both simulation and laboratory measurements to compare with theoretical analysis will be discussed.

Application Of Intermediate Wavelength Band Spectroscopic Ellipsometry To In-Stu. Real Time Fabrication Of Multiple Layer Alternating Hghalow Refractive Index Filters, Blaine D. Johs, Jeffery S. Hale, John A. Woollam, Craig M. Herzinger

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Disclosed is application of oblique angle of incidence, reflection and/or transmission mode spectroscopic ellipsometry PSI and/or DELTA, (including combinations thereof and/or mathematical equivalents), vs. wavelength data over an intermediate wavelength band range around a pass or reject band, to monitor and/or control fabrication of multiple layer high/low refractive index band-pass, band-reject and varied attenuation vs. wavelength thin film interference filters, either alone or in combination with transmissive non-ellipsometric electromagnetic beam turning point vs. layer data obtained at an essentially normal angle of incidence.

A Theoretical Framework For Quality-Aware Cross-Layer Optimized Wireless Multimedia Communications, Song Chi, Haohong Wang, Dalei Wu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Although cross-layer has been thought as one of themost effective and efficient ways formultimedia communications over wireless networks and a plethora of research has been done in this area, there is still lacking of a rigorous mathematical model to gain indepth understanding of cross-layer design tradeoffs, spanning from application layer to physical layer. As a result, many existing cross-layer designs enhance the performance of certain layers at the price of either introducing side effects to the overall system performance or violating the syntax and semantics of the layered network architecture. Therefore, lacking of a rigorous theoretical study makes existing cross-layer …

Rate-Distortion Optimized Vector Spiht For Wavelet Image Coding, Y. Liang, Scott E. Budge

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, a novel image coding scheme using rate-distortion optimized vector quantization of wavelet coefficients is presented. A vector set partitioning algorithm is used to locate significant wavelet vectors which are classified into a number of classes based on their energies, thus reducing the complexity of the vector quantization. The set partitioning bits are reused to indicate the vector classification indices to save the bits for coding of the classification overhead. A set of codebooks with different sizes is designed for each class of vectors, and a Lagrangian optimization algorithm is employed to select an optimal codebook for each …

A Handheld Texel Camera For Acquiring Near-Instantaneous 3d Images, B.M. Boldt, Scott E. Budge, R.T. Pack, P.D. Israelsen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A Texel camera is a device which synchronously captures depth information via a ladar and digital imagery of the same scene. The ladar and digital camera are co-boresighted to eliminate parallax. This configuration fuses the ladar data to the digital image at the pixel level, eliminating complex post-processing to register the datasets. This paper describes a handheld version of a Texel Camera which can be used to create near-instantaneous 3D imagery. The hardware configuration of the Texel Camera, issues and method associated with ladar/camera calibration, and representative imagery are presented.

Wireless Positioning Techniques: A Developer's Update, Seamus Rooney, Keith Gardiner, James Carswell

Conference papers

This paper describes the current efforts to develop an open source, privacy sensitive, location determination software component for mobile devices. Currently in mobile computing, the ability of a mobile device to determine its own location is becoming increasingly desirable as the usefulness of such a feature enhances many commercial applications. There have been numerous attempts to achieve this from both the network positioning perspective and also from the wireless beacon angle not to mention the integration of GPS into mobile devices. There are two important aspects to consider when using such a system which are privacy and cost. This paper …

Experimental Measurement Of Overhead Associated With Active Probing Of Wireless Mesh Networks, Brian Keegan, Karol Kowalik

Conference papers

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) represent the next generation wireless networks. The increased capacity of WMNs means that they are now capable of providing backhaul services traditionally maintained by wired networks. The attraction of WMNs is their ease of deployment and ability to self organise, self configure, and self heal. In order to successfully achieve this objective careful consideration must be applied when constructing a WMN. In order to optimise the operation of the network, data should traverse the network by means of the most efficient route. Characterisation and path selection will be determined by the routing algorithm coupled with the …

Sub-Bottom Profiling Using Time-Frequency Analysis, William Sanders, Dale Bibee, Edit J. Kaminsky

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Electromagnetic Interference On Control Area Network Performance, Fei Ren, Y. Rosa Zheng, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the effects of electromagnetic interference (EMI) on control area network (CAN) communications are investigated by hardware experiments. Distinct CAN bit rates, communication cables, and networks are used to test effects of EMI on CAN bus. Waveforms of CAN data frames in EMI environment are observed and analyzed for figuring out details of effects. Experiments show that the EMI pulses frequently encountered in automobile and off-road machinery can cause the reduction of bit rates and errors in high-speed CAN communications. Replacing traditional unshielded parallel communication cables with shielded communication cables is proved to be an effective method of …

The Existence Of Multiple Equilibria In The Upfc Power Injection Model, Mahyar Zarghami, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This letter shows the existence of multiple equilibria that arise from the use of the state model of the unified power flow controller (UPFC). These multiple equilibria can arise from a common power injection model for the same terminal conditions of shunt bus voltage and series active and reactive power injections. The multiple equilibria result in two or more sets of eigenvalues, some of which may indicate an unstable operating condition. Therefore, the use of the UPFC power injection model must be used with caution to ensure stable operation of the UPFC.

A Gray-Code Type Bit Assignment Algorithm For Unitary Space-Time Constellations, Adam Panagos, Kurt Louis Kosbar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Many techniques for constructing unitary space- time constellations have been proposed. To minimize bit-error rate (BER) in a wireless communication system, constellations constructed using these techniques should be given a Gray- code type bit assignment, where symbols which are close in signal space have bit assignments which have small Hamming distance. To the authors' knowledge, no efficient general strategy for making this bit assignment has been suggested. This work proposes a prioritized distance (PD) algorithm for making this assignment in an optimal manner by minimizing the probability of bit error union bound. The algorithm can be used on constellations constructed …

Comparative Application Of Differential Evolution And Particle Swarm Techniques To Reactive Power And Voltage Control, G. A. Bakare, G. Krost, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, U. O. Aliyu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents the comparative application of two metaheuristic approaches: Differential Evolution (DE) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to the solution of the reactive power and voltage control problem. Efficient distribution of reactive power in an electric network leads to minimization of the system losses and improvement of the system voltage profile. It can be achieved by varying the excitation of generators or the on-load tap changer positions of transformers as well as by switching of discrete portions of inductors or capacitors etc. This constitutes a typical mixed integer non-linear optimization problem for the solution of which metaheuristic techniques have …

Estimation Of High-Frequency Currents From Near-Field Scan Measurements, Haixiao Weng, Daryl G. Beetner, Richard E. Dubroff, Jin Shi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-frequency currents on the pins of integrated circuits (ICs) and on printed circuit board (PCB) traces are needed to predict and analyze electromagnetic interference in high-speed devices. These currents can, however, be difficult to measure when traces are buried within the PCB or chip-package, especially when several current-carrying traces are in close proximity. Techniques for estimating high-frequency currents from near-field scan data are proposed in this paper. These techniques are applied to find currents on the pins of an IC, on traces buried beneath other traces in a PCB, and on traces over a slot in the ground plane. Methods …