[en] Yttrium oxide (Y₂O₃) is a promising ceramic material for electronic and optical applications due to its excellent properties. The purpose of this study is to characterize the effects of deposition parameters on the structure and composition of Y₂O₃ films. The films are grown on Si substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering at different substrate temperatures and oxygen pressures. The composition and structure of the films are studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy. It is shown that the Y₂O₃ films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering are mainly cubic phase and polycrystalline. The films are composed of Y-O, Y-O-Si, and Si-O bonds. Increasing substrate temperature induces the monoclinic to cubic phase transition and results in the formation of oxygen vacancies in the film. The preferred growth orientation of Y₂O₃ film is the (110) plane at low temperature, and it changes to the (111) plane at high temperature. The low temperature is preferable for the formation of Y-O bonds. The oxygen pressure influences on the concentration of Y-O bonds significantly. An optimal oxygen partial pressure for the formation of Y-O bonds exists during the film deposition. In addition, the deposited Y₂O₃ films exhibit excellent mechanical properties.

[en] In this paper, we combine the perturbation method in supersymmetric quantum mechanics with the WKB method to restudy an angular equation coming from the wave equations for a Schwarzschild black hole with a straight string passing through it. This angular equation serves as a naive model for our investigation of the combination of supersymmetric quantum mechanics and the WKB method, and will provide valuable insight for our further study of the WKB approximation in real problems, like the one in spheroidal equations, etc. (general)

[en] By using the super-symmetric quantum mechanics (SUSYQM) method, this paper obtains the analytical solutions for the spin-weighted spheroidal wave equation in the case of s = 2. Based on the derived W₀ to W₄ the general form for the n-th-order super-potential is summarized and is proved correct by mathematical induction. Hence the ground eigenvalue problem is completely solved. Particularly, the novel solutions of the excited state are investigated according to the shape-invariance property. (general)

[en] The spin-weighted spheroidal equation in the case of s = 1/2 is thoroughly studied by using the perturbation method from the supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The first-five terms of the superpotential in the series of parameter β are given. The general form for the n-th term of the superpotential is also obtained, which could also be derived from the previous terms W_k, k < n. From these results, it is easy to obtain the ground eigenfunction of the equation. Furthermore, the shape-invariance property in the series of parameter β is investigated and is proven to be kept. This nice property guarantees that the excited eigenfunctions in the series form can be obtained from the ground eigenfunction by using the method from the supersymmetric quantum mechanics. We show the perturbation method in supersymmetric quantum mechanics could completely solve the spin-weight spheroidal wave equations in the series form of the small parameter β. (the physics of elementary particles and fields)

[en] Chipless RFID sensors attract attention to structural health monitoring (SHM) because of its advantages of being low-cost, wireless, passive, and having multiple resonances for sensing. Its application for corrosion sensing, however, receives little attention and faces challenges in terms of sensitivity and reliability. This paper proposes a chipless RFID sensor for corrosion characterization based on frequency selective surface (FSS) and feature fusion. An FSS pattern on a substrate is designed to generate three resonances within 2–6 GHz. The ability of the FSS to characterize corrosion thickness was simulated and validated in the experiments. The experimental results using dedicated corrosion undercoating samples show that the FSS based chipless RFID sensor can be used to characterize corrosion, where the three resonance frequency features provide sensitivity and consistent monotonic relations to the corrosion progression. Furthermore, feature fusion using simple sum and confidence weighted averaging (CWA) can enhance the sensitivity and reliability of the sensor. With the low-profile and printability of the sensor, this work paves the way for smart coatings for corrosion sensing and monitoring on metallic structures. (paper)

[en] We investigate the dynamics of two qubits coupled with a quantum oscillator by using the adiabatic approximation method. We take account of the interaction between the qubits and show how the entanglement is affected by the interaction parameter. The most interesting result is that we can prolong the entanglement time or improve the entanglement degree by using an appropriate interaction parameter. As the generation and preservation of entanglement of qubits are crucial for quantum information processing, our research will be useful. (electromagnetism, optics, acoustics, heat transfer, classical mechanics, and fluid dynamics)

[en] The spin-weighted spheroidal equation in the case of s = 1 is studied. By transforming the independent variables, we make it take the Schrödinger-like form. This Schrödinger-like equation is very interesting in itself. We investigate it by using super-symmetric quantum mechanics and obtain the ground eigenvalue and eigenfunction, which are consistent with the results previously obtained. (general)

[en] In order to extract the information of peaks in different energy from the data of overlapping peaks in environmental gamma spectrometer, a spectrum data Gaussian decomposition software was designed based on least-square Gaussian fitting method. The interface of this software is friendly, it can complete the decomposition of overlapping peaks in gamma spectrometer quickly by the way of man-machines interactive. The result of field measured data decomposed by this software indicates that the Gaussian decomposition software can efficiently extract ¹³⁷Cs spectra from over lapping peaks, which has significance to estimate the human nuclide contamination in the environment. (authors)

[en] In order to extract the information of peaks in different energy from the data of overlapping peaks in environmental gamma spectrometer, a spectrum data Gaussian decomposition soft is designed based on least- square Gaussian fitting method. The interface of this software is friendly, it can complete the decomposition of overlapping peaks in gamma spectrometer quickly by the way of man-machines interactive. The result that applied gamma spectrometry to data analysis in the field measurement indicates that the Gaussian decomposition soft can efficiently extract ¹³⁷Cs from overlapping peaks which has significance to assess the human nuclide contamination of environment. (authors)

[en] The spheroidal wave functions are found to have extensive applications in many branches of physics and mathematics. We use the perturbation method in supersymmetric quantum mechanics to obtain the analytic ground eigenvalue and the ground eigenfunction of the angular spheroidal wave equation at low frequency in a series form. Using this approach, the numerical determinations of the ground eigenvalue and the ground eigenfunction for small complex frequencies are also obtained. (general)