1,721,042 research outputs found

    "DRAGO chip: a low-noise CMOS preamplifier shaper for silicon detectors with integrated front-end JFET"

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    We present a CMOS preamplifier-shaper circuit designed to be used with low-noise solid-state detectors, like silicon drift detectors (SDDs), in X-ray Spectroscopy and γ-ray imaging applications. The circuit is composed of a low-noise preamplifier and by a sixth-order semi-Gaussian shaping amplifier with four selectable peaking times from 1.7 μs up to 6 μs. The integrated time constants used for the shaping are implemented by means of a recently proposed "RC" cell. This cell is based on the demagnification of the current flowing in a resistor R thanks to the use of current mirrors. The particular solution adopted here allows a precise and stable implementation of the desired time constant, for given values of R and C, and guarantees low-noise performances of the shaping amplifier when used with a cooled SDDs or other solid-state detectors with low leakage current. In this work, the main features of the circuit are first presented. The experimental results obtained with a prototype realized in the 0.35-μm 3.3-V CMOS austriamicrosystems technology are then reported and discussed. The energy resolution measured using the chip with a SDD cooled at - 10°C is 150 eV at 6 keV which corresponds to an electronics noise of 10.8 e-rms. © 2005 IEEE

    An eight channel low-noise CMOS readout circuit for silicon detectors with on-chip front-end FET

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    We propose a CMOS readout circuit for the processing of signals from multi-channel silicon detectors to be used in X-ray spectroscopy and γ-ray imaging applications. The circuit is composed by eight channels, each one featuring a low-noise preamplifier, a 6th-order semigaussian shaping amplifier with four selectable peaking times, from 1.8 up to 6 μs, a peak stretcher and a discriminator. The circuit is conceived to be used with silicon detectors with a front-end FET integrated on the detector chips itself, like silicon drift detectors with JFET and pixel detectors with DEPMOS. The integrated time constants used for the shaping are implemented by means of an RC-cell, based on the technique of demagnification of the current flowing in a resistor R by means of the use of current mirrors. The eight analog channels of the chip are multiplexed to a single analog output. A suitable digital section provides self-resetting of each channel and trigger output and is able to set independent thresholds on the analog channels by means of a programmable serial register and 3-bit DACs. The circuit has been realized in the 0.35 μm CMOS AMS technology. In this work, the main features of the circuit are presented along with the experimental results of its characterization. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

    Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of Organic Solar Cells

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    In this article, we continue our mathematical study of organic solar cells (OSCs) and propose a two-scale (micro- and macro-scale) model of heterojunction OSCs with interface geometries characterized by an arbitrarily complex morphology. The microscale model consists of a system of partial and ordinary differential equations in an heterogeneous domain, that provides a full description of excitation/transport phenomena occurring in the bulk regions and dissociation/recombination processes occurring in a thin material slab across the interface. The macroscale model is obtained by a micro-to-macro scale transition that consists of averaging the mass balance equations in the normal direction across the interface thickness, giving rise to nonlinear transmission conditions that are parametrized by the interfacial width. These conditions account in a lumped manner for the volumetric dissociation/recombination phenomena occurring in the thin slab and depend locally on the electric field magnitude and orientation. Using the macroscale model in two spatial dimensions, device structures with complex interface morphologies, for which existing data are available, are numerically investigated showing that, if the electric field orientation relative to the interface is taken into due account, the device performance is determined not only by the total interface length but also by its shape

    Solution map analysis of a multiscale Drift–Diffusion model for organic solar cells

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    In this article we address the theoretical study of a multiscale drift–diffusion (DD) model for the description of photoconversion mechanisms in organic solar cells. The multiscale nature of the formulation is based on the co-presence of light absorption, conversion and diffusion phenomena that occur in the three-dimensional material bulk, of charge photoconversion phenomena that occur at the two-dimensional material interface separating acceptor and donor material phases, and of charge separation and subsequent charge transport in each three-dimensional material phase to device terminals that are driven by drift and diffusion electrical forces. The model accounts for the nonlinear interaction among four species: excitons, polarons, electrons and holes, and allows to quantitatively predict the electrical current collected at the device contacts of the cell. Existence and uniqueness of weak solutions of the DD system, as well as nonnegativity of all species concentrations, are proved in the stationary regime via a solution map that is a variant of the Gummel iteration commonly used in the treatment of the DD model for inorganic semiconductors. The results are established upon assuming suitable restrictions on the data and some regularity property on the mixed boundary value problem for the Poisson equation. The theoretical conclusions are numerically validated on the simulation of three-dimensional problems characterized by realistic values of the physical parameters

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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