A well-defined test structure of organic static-induction transistor (SIT) having regularly sized nano-apertures in the gate electrode has been fabricated by colloidal lithography using 130-nm-diameter polystyrene spheres as shadow masks during vacuum deposition. Transistor characteristics of individual nano-apertures, namely 'nano-SIT,' have been measured using a conductive atomic-force-microscope (AFM) probe as a movable source electrode. Position of the source electrode is found to be more important to increase current on/off ratio than the distance between source and gate electrodes. Experimentally obtained maximum on/off ratio was 710 (at VDS = -4 V, VGS = 0 and 2 V) when a source electrode was fixed at the edge of gate aperture. The characteristics have been then analyzed using semiconductor device simulation by employing a strongly non-linear carrier mobility model in the CuPc layer. From device simulation, source current is found to be modulated not only by a saddle point potential in the gate aperture area but also by a pinch-off effect near the source electrode. According to the obtained results, a modified structure of organic SIT and an adequate acceptor concentration is proposed. On/off ratio of the modified organic SIT is expected to be 100 times larger than that of a conventional one.

The location information of ubiquitous objects is one of the key issues for context-aware systems. Therefore, several positioning systems to obtain precise location information have been researched. However, they have scalability and flexibility problems because they need completely configured space with a large number of sensors. To avoid the problems, we proposed a self-organizing location estimation method that uses ad hoc networks and Self-Organizing Maps and needs no prepared space with a large number of sensors. But, as in other similar precise localization methods, the proposed method needs advanced distance measurements unavailable to conventional wireless communication systems. In this paper, the self-organizing location estimation method's modification for distance measurement that uses received signal strength available to conventional wireless communication systems but which fluctuates uncertainly, is described and location estimation accuracy with the modified method is shown.

Pt Schottky diode gas sensors for carbon monoxide (CO) were fabricated using slightly Si doped bulk GaN grown on sapphire substrate. The influence of diode size, Pt thickness, operating temperature on gas sensitivity was investigated. CO sensitivity was improved six times by optimizing the size and thickness of the Pt contact. Surface restructuring and morphology changes of Pt film were observed after thermal annealing. These changes are enhanced as the film thickness is reduced further and contribute to improve CO sensitivity.

In AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), Si3N4 passivation film brings effective improvements in the current collapse phenomenon, however, the suppression of this phenomenon in a high voltage operation can not be achieved in only the Si3N4 deposition process. In order to solve this problem, we have demonstrated an NH3-plasma surface pretreatment in the chamber of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) just before Si3N4 deposition process. We found that the optimized NH3-plasma pretreatment could improve the current collapse as compared with only the Si3N4 deposition and an excessive pretreatment made it worse adversely in AlGaN/GaN-HEMTs. It was confirmed by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis that the optimized NH3-plasma pretreatment decreased the carbon contamination such as hydrocarbon on the AlGaN surface and the excessive pretreatment degraded the stoicheiometric composition of AlGaN surface.

Phase pure cubic (c-) GaN/AlGaN heterostructures on 3C-SiC free standing (001) substrates have successfully been developed. Almost complete (100%) phase pure c-GaN films are achieved with 2-nm surface roughness on 3C-SiC substrate and stoichiometric growth conditions. The polarization effect in c-GaN/AlGaN has been evaluated, based on measuring the transition energy of GaN/AlGaN quantum wells (QWs). It is demonstrated that the polarization electric fields are negligible small in c-GaN/AlGaN/3C-SiC compared with those of hexagonal (h-)GaN/AlGaN, 710 kV/cm for Al content x of 0.15, and 1.4 MV/cm for x of 0.25. A sheet carrier concentration of c-GaN/AlGaN heterojunction interface is estimated to 1.61012 cm-2, one order of magnitude smaller than that of h-GaN/AlGaN. The band diagrams of c-GaN/AlGaN HEMTs have been simulated to demonstrate the normally-off mode operation. The blocking voltage capability of GaN films was demonstrated with C-V measurement of Schottky diode test vehicle, and extrapolated higher than 600 V in c-GaN films at a doping level below 51015 cm-3, to show the possibility for high power electronics applications.

We achieved first dynamic all-optical signal processing with a bandgap-engineered MZI SOA all-optical switch. The wide-gap Selective Area Growth (SAG) technique was used to provide multi-bandgap materials with a single step epitaxy. The maximum photoluminescence (PL) peak shift obtained between the active region and the passive region was 192 nm. The static current switching with the fabricated switch indicated a large carrier induced refractive index change; up to 14 π phase shift was obtained with 60 mA injection in the SOA. The carrier recovery time of the SOA for obtaining a phase shift of π was estimated to be 250-300 ps. A clear eye pattern was obtained in 2.5 Gbps all-optical wavelength conversion. This is the first all-optical wavelength conversion demonstration with a bandgap-engineered PIC with either selective area growth or quantum-well intermixing techniques.

This paper presents a method for tuning the structure of a causal network (CN) to evaluate a learner's profile for a learning assistance system that employs hierarchically structured learning material. The method uses as an initial CN structure causally related inter-node paths that explicitly define the learning material structure. Then, based on this initial structure other inter-node paths (sideway paths) not present in the initial CN structure are inferred by referring to the learner's database generated through the use of a learning assistance system. An evaluation using simulation indicates that the method has an inference probability of about 63% and an inference accuracy of about 30%.

This investigation of the temperature and illumination effects on the AlGaN/GaN HFET threshold voltage shows that it shifts about -1 V under incandescent lamp or blue LED illumination, while almost no shift takes place under red LED illumination. The temperature coefficient for the threshold voltage shift is +3.44 mV/deg under the illuminations and +0.28 mV/deg in darkness. The threshold voltage variation can be attributed to a virtual back-gate effect caused by light-generated buffer layer potential variations. The expressions for the potential variation are derived using Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) statistics and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for the carriers and deep traps in the buffer layer. The expressions indicate that large photoresponses will occur when the electron concentration in the buffer layer is extremely small, that is, highly resistive. In semi-insulating substrates, the substrate potential varies so as to keep the trap occupation function constant. The sign and the magnitude of the threshold voltage variation are explained by the shift of the pinning energy calculated from the Fermi-Dirac distribution function.

Sensing elements based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT and Schottky diode structures have been investigated in relation with the strain sensitivity of their characteristics. Piezoresistance of the Al0.3Ga0.7N/GaN HEMT-channel as well as changes in the current-voltage characteristics of the Schottky diodes have been observed with gauge factor (GF) values ranging between 19 and 350 for the selected biasing conditions. While a stable response to strain was measured, the observed temperature dependence of the channel resistance demonstrates the need for a systematic characterisation of the sensor properties to allow compensation of the observed temperature effects.

Accumulation of non-equilibrium longitudinal optical (LO) phonons (termed hot phonons) is considered as a possible cause for limitation of frequency of operation of GaN-based high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). The experimental data on noise temperature of hot electrons at a microwave frequency as a function of supplied electric power is used to extract information on hot phonons: the hot-phonon lifetime, the equivalent hot-phonon temperature, the effective occupancy of hot-phonon states involved into electron-LO-phonon interaction. The possible ways for controlling the hot-phonon effect on electron drift velocity through variation of electron density, channel composition, and hot-phonon lifetime are discussed. The expected dependence of hot-electron drift velocity on hot-phonon lifetime is confirmed experimentally. A self-consistent explanation of different frequency behaviour of InP-based and GaN-based HEMTs is obtained from a comparative study of hot-phonon effects.

Based on fluoride-based plasma treatment of the gate region in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs and post-gate rapid thermal annealing (RTA), enhancement mode (E-mode) AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with low on-resistance and low knee-voltage were fabricated. The fabricated E-mode AlGaN/GaN HEMT with 1 µm-long gate exhibits a threshold voltage of 0.9 V, a knee-voltage of 2.2 V, a maximum drain current density of 310 mA/mm, a peak gm of 148 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency fT of 10.1 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency fmax of 34.3 GHz. In addition, the fluoride-based plasma treatment was also found to be effective in lowering the gate leakage current, in both forward and reverse bias. Two orders of magnitude reducation in gate leakage current was observed in the fabricated E-mode HEMTs compared to the conventional D-mode HEMTs without fluoride-based plasma treatment.

The correlation between ohmic contact resistivity (ρc) and transconductance (gm) in AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) was investigated. To characterize ρc precisely, we fabricated a circular transmission line model (c-TLM) pattern adjoined to a field-effect transistor (FET) pattern on an HEMT. By measuring ohmic contact resistance and sheet resistance using the adjoined c-TLM, intrinsic transconductance (gm0), which is not influenced by the source resistance, can be estimated. The gm0 thus obtained is between 179 and 206 mS/mm. Then, it became possible to calculate the correlation between gm and (ρc. We found that ρc should be below 10-5 Ωcm2 for the improvement of gm in AlGaN/GaN HEMT when Rsh 400 Ω/.

A model for the enhancement-mode operation of an AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistor (MIS-HFET) under DC and AC conditions is proposed. In DC operation at positive gate voltages, the MIS-HFET can be divided into a transistor area and a resistor area due to the diode nature of the insulator/AlGaN interface. The transistor area shrinks with the increases in gate voltage. The intrinsic-transistor gate-length reduction causes a drain current increase. The I-V characteristics based on the gradual channel approximation are derived. The ID hysteresis of the MIS-HFET is investigated by a circuit simulation using SPICE. We have confirmed that the hysteresis was caused by the phase difference between the potential variation of the gate insulator/AlGaN interface and that of the gate electrode due to CR components in the gate structure.

The hand posture estimation system by searching a similar image from a vast database, such as our previous research, may cause the increase of processing time, and prevent realtime controlling of a robot. In this study, the authors proposed a new estimation method of human hand posture by rearranging a large-scale database with the Self-Organizing Map including self-reproduction and self-annihilation, which enables two-step searches of similar image with short period of processing time, within small errors, and without deviation of search time. The experimental results showed that our system exhibited good performance with high accuracy within processing time above 50 fps for each image input with a 2.8 GHz CPU PC.

Reduction of the intensity noise in semiconductor lasers is important subject to extend application range of the device. Blue-violet InGaN laser reveals high quantum noise when the laser is operated with low output power. The authors proposed a new scheme of noise reduction both for the optical feedback noise and the quantum noise by applying electric feedback which is positive type at a high frequency and negative type for lower frequency range. Noise reduction effect down to a level lower than the quantum noise was experimentally confirmed even under the optical feedback.

This study investigates a band extension technique for speech data encoded with G.711, the most common codec for digital speech communications system such as VoIP. The proposed technique employs steganography for the transmission of the side information required for the band extension. Due to the steganography, the proposed technique is able to enhance the speech quality without an increase of the amount of data transmission. From the results of a subjective experiment, it is indicated that the proposed technique may potentially be useful for improving the speech quality, compared with the conventional technique.

This paper describes a two-dimensional clustering scheme-based analysis of audible noises induced at telephone terminals. To analyze EMI sources that cause telephone-audible noise, we use a self-organizing map, which provides a way to map high-dimensional data onto a two-dimensional domain. Also, in order to discriminate EMI sources without using particular resonance frequencies that have peaks in the frequency domain, we use the energy spectra of telephone-audible noises as input for training the self-organizing map. In applying this method in actual environments, we measured ten kinds of telephone-audible noises (due to Radio waves and cross-talk noises, etc.) and then derived their energy spectra for eight frequency bands: 1-250 Hz, 250-500 Hz, 500-1 kHz, 1 k-1.5 kHz, 1.5 k-2 kHz, 2 k-3 kHz, 3 k-4 kHz, and over 4 kHz. We visually confirmed that the measured telephone-audible noise data could be projected onto the map in accordance with their properties, resulting in a combined depiction of the composition of derived energy spectra in the frequency bands. The proposed method can deal with multi-dimensional parameters, projecting its results onto a two-dimensional space in which the projected data positions give us an effective depiction of EMI sources that cause disturbances at telephone terminals.

A self-organizing wireless network has to deal with reliability and congestion problems when the network size increases. In order to alleviate such problems, we designed and analyzed protocols and algorithms for a reliable and efficient multiple-layer self-organizing wireless network architecture. Each layer uses a high-power root node to supervise the self-organizing functions, to capture and maintain the physical topology, and to serve as the root of the hierarchical routing topology of the layer. We consider the problem of adding a new root with its own rooted spanning tree to the network. Based on minimum-depth and minimum-load metrics, we present efficient algorithms that achieve optimum selection of root(s). We then exploit layer scheduling algorithms that adapt to network load fluctuations in order to optimize the performance. For optimality we consider a load balancing objective and a minimum delay objective respectively. The former attempts to optimize the overall network performance while the latter strives to optimize the per-message performance. Four algorithms are presented and simulations were used to evaluate and compare their performance. We show that the presented algorithms have superior performance in terms of data throughput and/or message delay, compared to a heuristic approach that does not account for network load fluctuations.

Highly reliable GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are demonstrated for 3G-wireless base station applications. A state-of-the-art 250-W AlGaN/GaN-HEMTs push-pull transmitter amplifier operated at a drain bias voltage of 50 V is addressed with high efficiency under W-CDMA signals. The amplifier, combined with a digital pre-distortion (DPD) system, also achieved an adjacent channel leakage power ratio (ACLR) of less than -50 dBc for 4-carrier W-CDMA signals. Memory effect and temperature characteristics are also discussed. A stable operation including gate leakage current under RF stress testing for 1000 h is demonstrated at a drain bias voltage of 60 V. AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on an n-type doped 3-inch SiC substrate is introduced towards low cost manufacturing for the first time.

Properties of the quantum noise and the optical feedback noise in blue-violet InGaN semiconductor lasers were measured in detail. We confirmed that the quantum noise in the blue-violet laser becomes higher than that in the near-infrared laser. This property is an intrinsic property basing on principle of the quantum mechanics, and is severe subject to apply the laser for optical disk with the small consuming power. The feedback noise was classified into two types of "low frequency type" and "flat type" basing on frequency spectrum of the noise. This classification was the same as that in the near infra-red lasers.