A facile route to mitigate the Fermi-level pinning between a p-type GaSb semiconductor and an Al2O3 dielectric is proposed. Combination of the sulphurization of the GaSb surface and the subsequent rapid thermal annealing allowed for high quality GaSb/Al2O3 interfacial characteristics; the interfacial trap density value was ≤2.0 × 1012 cm−2 eV−1 in an energy range of 0.05 ≤ ET − Ev ≤ 0.45 eV for the PMOS capacitor via rapid thermal annealing at 575 °C. A physical rationale was given on the basis of the thermo-chemical conversion of Ga2O into Ga2O3 and the conformal elimination of Sb related elements and oxides on the GaSb surface.

The electrical characteristics were evaluated for the metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices with Ti and Pt gates on the atomic-layer-deposited (ALD) HfO2. The equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of the Ti gate is shown to be nearly the same as that of the Pt gate, which means that a negligible chemical reaction occurs between the gate and dielectric. The values of the effective metal work function (Φm,eff), extracted from the conventional relations of flatband voltage versus EOT, were ∼4.2eV for Ti and ∼5.4eV for Pt, respectively. However, somewhat higher values of Φm,eff were extracted by considering the existence of an interfacial layer and the high negative charge at an interface between HfO2 and interfacial layer. The exact values of Φm,eff were ∼4.37eV for Ti and ∼5.51eV for Pt, respectively. Therefore, the Ti gate is compatible with ALD-HfO2 and can be a candidate for n-type MOS devices.

Many people's social media feeds include posts in languages they do not understand. While previous research has examined bilingual social media users' language choices, little research has focused on how people make sense of foreign language posts. In the present study, we interviewed 23 undergraduate social media users about how they consume and make sense of posts in other languages. Interviewees reported that they often did not pay attention to or engage with foreign language posts, due to a lack of relevance and contextual knowledge. When they did actively engage with foreign language posts, interviewees did not rely solely on machine translation output but instead actively collected and combined various cues from within and outside the post in order to understand what it was about. Interviewees further reported different types of goals for trying to make sense of foreign language posts; some focused on simply extracting and understanding the emotional components of a post while others tried to gain a fuller understanding of a post, including its contextual and cultural meanings. Based on these findings, we suggest design possibilities that could better aid multilingual communication in social media.

Selfies are everywhere on social media. Research has focused only on who is posting selfies and has not addressed the audience members viewing selfies. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the judgments people make of selfies posted on Facebook. Using an online experiment, we test how including a selfie on a Facebook status update changes people's appraisals of narcissism, message appropriateness, and social attraction. We also consider how the valence and intimacy of the status update text interplay with the selfie to change social judgments. Participants rated posts with selfies as more narcissistic and inappropriate, and less socially attractive. Selfie evaluations also depended upon the valence and intimacy of the status update text. Gender of the selfie poster did not influence evaluation of posts. One implication from these results is that posting selfies on social media may lead to negative judgments about the poster.

Al2O3 thin films were deposited using tri-methyl aluminum and ozone by spatially separated atomic layer deposition (SALD). A large gap was kept between the reactor and substrates in an attempt to enhance the process gas flow. According to simulation data and deposition results, strong edge pumping for the dominantly lateral flow improved the gas isolation and deposition was very effective, with a resulting gap height of 5 mm. To compare this SALD process with conventional atomic layer deposition (ALD), the authors examined how the amount of source supplied, the deposition temperature, and the number of rotations affected the growth rate. The growth rate per rotation was saturated at ∼0.12 nm/rotation at a deposition temperature of 250 °C, which is comparable to the saturated growth rate of the same film using conventional ALD. The dielectric constant of the films was ∼8 and the film with a capacitance equivalent thickness of 3.2 nm had a leakage level of 9.8 × 10−8 A/cm2 (at −1 V). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy peak area analysis indicates that the films deposited by SALD consist of Al2O3. This indicates that SALD is a viable option for several mass-production applications that require high throughput.

The high interfacial trap density in GaAs MOS capacitors is one of the critical issues for realizing high mobility field-effect transistors. This paper proposes a new approach involving the high pressure thermal oxidation (HPO) of GaAs and subsequent HF etching prior to the deposition of an Al2O3 dielectric film. The HPO-treated MOS capacitors exhibited better electrical properties, such as reduced hysteresis and frequency dispersion compared to those of the control capacitors. These improvements were attributed to their reduced interfacial trap density. The relevant rationale is discussed based on the suppression of the Ga2O3 layer between the Al2O3 dielectric and GaAs semiconductor, which resulted from the As excess and Ga deficient surface modification via HPO and subsequent HF etching.

The electrical properties of La-silicate films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on Ge substrates with different film configurations, such as various Si concentrations, Al2O3 interfacial passivation layers, and SiO2 capping layers, were examined. La-silicate thin films were deposited using alternating injections of the La[N{Si(CH3)3}2]3 precursor with O3 as the La and O precursors, respectively, at a substrate temperature of 310 °C. The Si concentration in the La-silicate films was further controlled by adding ALD cycles of SiO2. For comparison, La2O3 films were also grown using [La((i)PrCp)3] and O3 as the La precursor and oxygen source, respectively, at the identical substrate temperature. The capacitance-voltage (C-V) hysteresis decreased with an increasing Si concentration in the La-silicate films, although the films showed a slight increase in the capacitance equivalent oxide thickness. The adoption of Al2O3 at the interface as a passivation layer resulted in lower C-V hysteresis and a low leakage current density. The C-V hysteresis voltages of the La-silicate films with Al2O3 passivation and SiO2 capping layers was significantly decreased to ∼0.1 V, whereas the single layer La-silicate film showed a hysteresis voltage as large as ∼1.0 V.

Previous research has shown that communication technologies may make it challenging for working professionals to manage the boundaries between their work life and home life. For college students, however, there is a less clear definition of what constitutes work and what constitutes home life. As a result, students may use different boundary management strategies than working professionals. To explore this issue, we interviewed 29 undergraduates about how they managed boundaries between different areas of their life. Interviewees reported maintaining flexible and permeable boundaries that are not bounded physically or temporally. They used both technological and non-technological strategies to manage different life spheres. Interviewees saw technology as a major source of boundary violations but also as a boundary managing strategy that allowed them to achieve better life balance. Based on these findings, we propose design implications for tools to better support the boundary management processes of undergraduate students.