This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. AbstractThe hotside operating temperatures for many projected thennophotovoltaic (TPV) conversion system applications are approximately 10oO 'C, which sets an upper limit on the TPV diode bandgap of 0.6 eV from efficiency and power density considerations. This bandgap requirement has necessitated the development of new diode material systems, never previously considered for energy generation. To date, InGaAsSb quaternary diodes grown lattice-matched on GaSb substrates have achieved the highest performance. This report relates observed diode performance to electrooptic properties such as minority carrier lifetime, diffusion length and mobility and provides initial links to microstructural properties. This analysis has bounded potential diode performance improvements. For the 0.52 eV InGaAsSb diodes used in this analysis the measured dark current is 2 x Ncm2 (no photon recycling), and an absolute thermodynamic limit of 1.4 x A/cm2. These dark currents are equivalent to open circuit voltage gains of 20 mV (7%), 60 mV (20%) and 140 mV (45%), respectively.

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Highlights d An inhaled fungal protease allergen damages the junctions of bronchiolar club cells d The mechanosensor TRPV4 senses the junction injury, triggering allergic inflammation d TRPV4 is sufficient for inflammation in mice and linked with fungal asthma in humans d Calcineurin mediates TRPV4-dependent calcium signaling within bronchiolar club cells

Pico projectors are the latest technology to prove that big things often do come in small packages. These tiny projectors are embedded in mobile devices to provide large-screen displays that can be viewed from anywhere. This paper describes Microvision's PicoP® display engine, a biaxial MEMS scanning laser projection technology. It's amazing what we carry in our pockets these days. From cell phones to iPods to PDAs, we have at our fingertips connectivity with friends and colleagues around the world, libraries of text, music, photos, videos and more. Unfortunately, the displays that we use to view all this information are also small; they are flat-panel screens with just a few square inches of display area. No wonder that projectors that display large images from within hand-held electronic devices-pico projectors-are drawing so much attention in the tech world. With pico projectors, you can project a full-size image onto whatever is near at hand, whether it be the wall, your shirt, or a piece of paper. Pico projectors represent a core enabling technology for the future growth of portable devices.

IntroductionA high performance 0.20pm logic technology has been developed with six levels of planarized copper interconnects. 0.15pm transistors (Lg,,,=0.15+0.04pm) are optimized for 1.8V operation to provide high performance with low power-delay products and excellent reliability. Copper has been integrated into the back-end to provide low resistance interconnects. Critical layer pitches for the technology are summarized in Table 1 and enable fabrication of 7.6pm2 6T SRAM cells.Isolation and Transistors CMP planarized shallow trenches with good electrical isolation down to n+/p+ spacings of 0.5pm were fabricated (Fig. 1). Dual gate 0.15pm transistors with 35A physical gate oxides (accumulation t,,=39A measured at Vg=+l .SV) were formed using super steep retrograde channels, shallow extensions and halos, relatively deep source/drain regions and 1 OOnm nitride spacers. CoSi, was selectively formed on the polysilicon gates and source/drain regions with a nominal sheet resistance of 9Wsq. Rapid thermal processing was utilized as much as possible throughout the flow to minimize transient enhanced dopant diffusion.Fig. 2 shows a typical SEM cross-section of a NMOS transistor with a gate length of 0.15pm. Well delineated shallow S/D extensions and the deeper S/D junctions are clearly observed. The saturation drive currents for nominal gate length NMOS and PMOS devices are shown in Fig. 3 . The nominal drive currents are 630pNpm for NMOS and 230pA/ym for PMOS at 1.8V. The off-state leakage currents of these devices are well below the worst case leakage specification of 2nA/pm. The drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) measured on NMOS and PMOS devices is plotted as a function of Leff in Fig. 4. Good short channel characteristics are maintained down to effective channel lengths of O.1ym. The Vt roll-off for N and P devices in the linear and saturation regions are shown in Fig. 5. The Vt's are 0.44V and -0.46V for Nch and Pch respectively, at a gate length of 0.15pm and the associated subthreshold slopes are less than 90mv/dec. The use of nitrided gate oxides was investigated due to their superior hot carrier reliability. Fig. 6 compares the degradation under hot carrier stress of nitrided oxides to thermal oxides and highlights the improved reliability of NO-annealed oxides. Peak Gms comparable to those from thermal oxides were obtained (Fig. 7). A further advantage afforded by nitrided gate dielectrics is its superior boron blocking properties, Increasing the poly silicon doping in the P+ gate to reduce poly depletion resulted in only a 88mV Vt shift in nitrided oxides (Fig. 8) compared to a 300mV Vt shift in thermal oxides. A significant reduction in the inversion to, is achieved with the higher gate doping, resulting in improved device characteristics. NMOS transistor design focused on minimizing defect enhanced dopant re-distribution such as TED. To this end, the effect of different source/drain implant energies on NMOS transistor performance is shown in Fig. 9. The lower energy implant results in a significantl...

A novel see-through screen is developed for automobiles which reduces the size of the head-up display (HUD) unit considerably. The screen is illuminated by a laser scanning pico-projector and a real image is formed on the screen. The screen has thousands of hexagonally packed microlenses that are partially reflective and embedded in an index matched medium which provides very good see-through capability. Light reflected from the microlenses expand and form a hexagon shaped viewing window. This system is called a direct projection HUD system as the pico projector projects directly onto the screen and forms a real image on it. The system is very compact and does not require any space under the dashboard, which saves on space for the car manufacturers, or allows it to be used immediately as an aftermarket HUD installed in any car.

Head-up display (HUD) systems have been used in recent car models to provide essential information to the drivers while keeping their eyes on the road. Virtual image HUD systems have been the preferred method, but they have the drawback of requiring a large volume of space in order to accommodate the relay optics that creates the virtual image. This is especially significant as the desired field of view increases. Direct projection HUD systems have been developed with a separate stand-alone microlens array (MLA)-based transparent screen on the dashboard, offering a compact solution. In this paper, we propose a direct projection HUD system based on a unique, windshield-embedded see-through screen that uses minimal space under the dashboard, offering an elegant and compact solution to the HUD problem. The screen is based on MLAs with varying surface normal angles such that the light from the projector is directed to the viewer's eyes from all positions across the field of view. Varying tilts provide an efficient relay and high brightness even with a low-lumen output projector. The calculated screen gain is about 69 and the eyebox area is about 30 cm×30 cm.

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