Since the discovery of colossal dielectric constant in CCTO supercapacitor in 2000, development of its practical application to energy storage has been of great interest. In spite of intensive efforts, there has been thus far, no report of proven application. The object of this research is to understand the reason for this lack of success and to find ways to overcome this limitation. Reported herein is the synthesis of our research in ceramic processing of this material and its characterization, particularly with the objective of identifying potential applications. Experimental results have shown that CCTO's permittivity and loss tangent, the two most essential dielectric parameters of fundamental importance for the efficiency of a capacitor device, are intrinsically coupled. They increase or decrease in tandem. Therefore, efforts to simultaneously retain the high permittivity while minimizing the loss tangent of CCTO might not succeed unless an entirely non-typical approach is taken for processing this material. Based on the experimental results and their analysis, it has been identified that it is possible to produce CCTO bulk ceramics with conventional processes having properties that can be exploited for fabricating an efficient energy storage device (EDS). We have additionally identified that CCTO can be used for the development of efficient solid state capacitors of Class II type comparable to the widely used barium titanate (BT) capacitors. Based on high temperature studies of the resistivity and the Seebeck coefficient it is found that CCTO is a wide bandgap n-type semiconductor material which could be used for high temperature electronics. The temperature dependence of the linear thermal expansion of CCTO shows the presence of possible phase changes at 220 and 770 °C the origin of which remains unexplained
In this paper, the typical electrical and computer engineering (ECE) curriculum is examined to determine its effectiveness at presenting embedded programming skills. The software concepts and programming techniques necessary for embedded systems are somewhat different than those seen in other engineering domains. Thus, it makes sense to specifically address embedded programming needs within the formal programming education ECE students receive. Several topical areas of concern are identified, and two possible ways to incorporate these areas into an ECE curriculum are presented. The experiences gained within the ECE curriculum at The University of Alabama are presented and are used to develop recommendations for incorporating these topics into typical ECE curricula.
Recently, the University of Alabama Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering adopted curricular changes to incorporate embedded systems into its computer engineering core course sequence. One of the major changes implemented was the creation of a senior lecture/laboratory combination specifically dedicated to embedded systems. This paper describes the specific lecture and laboratory content of this senior-level course and how this course fits within the new curriculum a The University of Alabama.
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