We explore the relationship between the degree of financial risk disclosure and a firm’s financial attributes. Financial risk disclosure indices (FRDIs) are calculated based on a set of 30 disclosure identifiers through content analysis of the annual reports of 48 manufacturing companies over a six-year period (2010–2015) in Bangladesh. We find no common practice among the companies in disclosing financial risk by integrating a customized financial risk disclosure into their financial reporting process. The results indicate that firm size, financial performance, and auditor type are positively and significantly associated with the level of financial risk disclosure.

Polystyrene is a negative electron beam resist whose exposure properties can be tuned simply by using different molecular weights (Mw). Most previous studies have used monodisperse polystyrene with a polydispersity index (PDI) of less than 1.1 in order to avoid any uncertainties. Here we show that despite the fact that polystyrene's sensitivity is inversely proportional to its Mw, no noticeable effect of very broad molecular weight distribution on sensitivity, contrast and achievable resolution is observed. It is thus unnecessary to use the costly monodisperse polystyrene for electron beam lithography. Since the polydispersity is unknown for general purpose polystyrene, we simulated a high PDI polystyrene by mixing in a 1:1 weight ratio two polystyrene samples with Mw of 170 and 900 kg mol(-1) for the high Mw range, and 2.5 and 13 kg mol(-1) for the low Mw range. The exposure property of the mixture resembles that of a monodisperse polystyrene with similar number averaged molecular weight Mn, which indicates that it is Mn rather than Mw (weight averaged molecular weight) that dominates the exposure properties of polystyrene resist. This also implies that polystyrene of a certain molecular weight can be simulated by a mixture of two polystyrenes having different molecular weights.

Formation of metal-semiconductor (M-S) contacts at sub-20 nanometer range is a key requirement for down-scaling of semiconductor devices. However, electrical measurements of M-S contacts at this scale have exhibited dramatic change in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics compared to that of conventional (or planar) Schottky contacts. This change is actually attributed to the limited metal contact region where the transferred charge from the semiconductor into the metal is confined to a small surface area, which in turn results in an enhanced electric field at the nano-M-S interface. We here present detailed theoretical models to analyze the nano-M-S junctions at 10 nm contact range and then implement this analysis on the experimental data we conducted under these conditions. Both theoretical and experimental results demonstrate a significant effect of the contact size on the electronic structure of the M-S junctions and thus on the I-V characteristics. This effect is rather prominent when the size of the metal contact is substantially smaller than the width of conventional depletion region of the relevant planar M-S contacts. Published by AIP Publishing.

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In nanofabrication, use of thin resist is required to achieve very high resolution features. But thin resist makes pattern transferring by dry etching difficult because typical resist has poor resistance to plasma etching. One widely employed strategy is to use an intermediate hard mask layer, with the pattern first transferred into this layer, then into the substrate or sublayer. Cr is one of the most popular hard etching mask materials because of its high resistance to plasma etching. Cr etching is carried out in O 2 and Cl 2 or CCl 4 environment to form the volatile etching product CrO 2 Cl 2 , but addition of O 2 gas leads to fast resist etching. In this work, the authors show that Cr 2 O 3 can be etched readily in a Cl 2 /O 2 gas mixture with less oxygen than needed for Cr etching, because Cr 2 O 3 contains oxygen by itself. Thus it is easier to transfer the resist pattern into Cr 2 O 3 than into Cr. For the subsequent pattern transferring into the substrate here silicon using nonswitching pseudo-Bosch inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching with SF 6 /C 4 F 8 gas and Cr or Cr 2 O 3 as mask, it was found that the two materials have the same etching resistance and selectivity of 100:1 over silicon. Therefore, Cr 2 O 3 is a more suitable hard mask material than Cr for pattern transferring using dry plasma etching.