Accurate, real-time monitoring of intravascular oxygen levels is important in tracking the cardiopulmonary health of patients after cardiothoracic surgery. Existing technologies use intravascular placement of glass fiber-optic catheters that pose risks of blood vessel damage, thrombosis, and infection. In addition, physical tethers to power supply systems and data acquisition hardware limit freedom of movement and add clutter to the intensive care unit. This report introduces a wireless, miniaturized, implantable optoelectronic catheter system incorporating optical components on the probe, encapsulated by soft biocompatible materials, as alternative technology that avoids these disadvantages. The absence of physical tethers and the flexible, biocompatible construction of the probe represent key defining features, resulting in a high-performance, patient-friendly implantable oximeter that can monitor localized tissue oxygenation, heart rate, and respiratory activity with wireless, real-time, continuous operation. In vitro and in vivo testing shows that this platform offers measurement accuracy and precision equivalent to those of existing clinical standards.

The Capon algorithm can be applied to reprocess SAR images, resulting in super-resolution super-resolution reconstructed scenes with lower sidelobe levels. Base on this idea, we have proposed a processing chain of Super-Resolution Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (SR-PSI), to increase PS density. In this paper, we review the main aspect of SR-PSI. In addition, we propose a revised robust Capon algorithm, which mitigates the edge effect introduced by the Digonal Loading approach. Then we applied revised-robust-Capon based SR-PSI to a stack of Sentinel-1 data. The results show that the SR-PSI is more effective with respect to the traditional PSI.

Several researchers have shown that the Capon algorithm can be applied to reprocess SAR images, resulting in super-resolution reconstructed scenes with lower sidelobe levels. Thus by employing the Capon-based reprocessed images in Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI), the persistent scatterer (PS) density can be increased. In this letter, we exploit the Capon-based PS densification method for Sentinel-1 (S-1)Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans(TOPS) data. We propose a revised robust approach of the Capon algorithm, which applies the automatic diagonal loading (DL) method when the condition number of the covariance matrix is big enough. The proposed approach is robust and can avoid spurious persistent scatterer candidate (PSC) points introduced by DL approaches. We also consider and analyze the spectral property caused by the scanning mode of TOPS in the reprocessing. We applied the revised-robust-Capon-based reprocessing algorithm to a stack of real-life S-1 data and selected PSCs from them. The final result shows that the number of PSs increases by approximately 30% with respect to the original stack.

Better mechanical, thermal properties and longer lifetimes are needed for the die attach layer in high-power electronic packaging. As traditional Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) solders have many limitations, the sintered nanosilver materials are becoming one of the substitutes for high-power electronic packaging. However, the high performance of sintered nanosilver materials is only achieved when its fine sintering densification is formed. This article investigates the sintering densification process of nanosilver particles based on the design of orthogonal experiments and sintering kinetics modeling in which both the macroproperties and micromorphology are linked and analyzed. The results lead to several conclusions, such as: 1) the orthogonal experiments consider the effects of sintering temperature, dwell time, and sample preparation pressure on the sintering relative shrinkage and relative density - the results show that the most critical impact factor on sintering densification is the sintering temperature. (2) In the sintering kinetic experiments, the sintering densification rates obtained by fitting the relative density versus dwell time curves during 175 °C-250 °C follow the Arrhenius model, and the apparent activation energy of sintering kinetics is calculated to be 36 kJ/mol, while it is calculated from the particle size is 38.1 kJ/mol. 3) Through modeling the relationship between particle size, line shrinkage, and porosity, the line shrinkage and porosity first increase at the initial stage, while the particle size increases, and the macroscopic volume decreases at the end of sintering, the porosity decreases.

Spin-orbit interaction (SOI) plays a key role in creating Majorana zero modes in semiconductor nanowires proximity coupled to a superconductor. We track the evolution of the induced superconducting gap in InSb nanowires coupled to a NbTiN superconductor in a large range of magnetic field strengths and orientations. Based on realistic simulations of our devices, we reveal SOI with a strength of 0.15-0.35 eV Å. Our approach identifies the direction of the spin-orbit field, which is strongly affected by the superconductor geometry and electrostatic gates.

Majorana zero modes are localized quasiparticles that obey non-Abelian exchange statistics. Braiding Majorana zero modes forms the basis of topologically protected quantum operations which could, in principle, significantly reduce qubit decoherence and gate control errors at the device level. Therefore, searching for Majorana zero modes in various solid state systems is a major topic in condensed matter physics and quantum computer science. Since the first experimental signature observed in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices, this field has witnessed a dramatic expansion in material science, transport experiments and theory. While making the first topological qubit based on these Majorana nanowires is currently an ongoing effort, several related important transport experiments are still being pursued in the near term. These will not only serve as intermediate steps but also show Majorana physics in a more fundamental aspect. In this perspective, we summarize these key Majorana experiments and the potential challenges.

High-power light-emitting diode (LED) chip-scale packages (CSPs) prepared by the flip-chip technology have become one of the most promising light sources. The die attach solder layer always plays an important role in heat dissipation, mechanical support, and electronic conductivity. Among different types of solder materials, Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) solder alloy shows its great competitiveness on solderability and mechanical properties for the interconnection of high-power LED CSPs. However, reliability problems caused by voids in the SAC305 solder limit its wide application in the high-power LED chip-scale packaging process. Existence of the voids has been considered as one of the major issues causing chip-on-substrate level reliability problems in microelectronic and optoelectronic devices. In this paper, mechanical and thermal properties of SAC305 solder layers with arbitrary voids used in high-power LED CSPs are studied with both finite-element simulations and experiments. The results show that void size and void position within the solder layer are the two most critical issues on the shear strength of interconnection and the chip-on-substrate level thermal distribution in high-power LED CSPs.

Sn58Bi (SnBi) composite solder pastes were fabricated with various amounts of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu (SAC) particles addition by mechanical mixing technic. The microstructure, hardness, and shear behavior of the solder joints were investigated. The experimental results indicate that the addition of SAC particles in the composite solder pastes significantly increases the concentration as well as the grain size of Sn and Bi-rich phase in the microstructure of the SnBi–SAC solder bulks. Meanwhile, the amount of submicron Bi grains increases because of increasing SAC content. The hardness of the solder bulks decreases as the percentage of SAC particles varies from 0 to 8 wt%, but increases when the doped percentage rises from 8 to 15 wt%. The shear force shows an ascending tendency because of the addition of SAC particles into the solder pastes with the range from 0 to 5 wt%. As the concentration of SAC increases to 8 wt% and even 15 wt%, large voids can be observed and the shear force of the solder joints decreases.