Nanosphere lithography is an inexpensive, simple, high-throughput nanofabrication process. NSL can be done in different ways, such as drop coating, spin coating or by means of tilted evaporation. Nitride-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are applied in different places, such as liquid crystal displays and traffic signals. The characteristics of gallium nitride (GaN)-based LEDs can be enhanced by fabricating nanopatterns on the top surface of the LEDs. In this work, we created differently sized (420, 320 and 140 nm) nanopatterns on the upper surfaces of GaN-based LEDs using a modified nanosphere lithography technique. This technique is quite different from conventional NSL. The characterization of the patterned GaN-based LEDs revealed a dependence on the size of the holes in the pattern created on the LED surface. The depths of the patterns were 80 nm as confirmed by AFM. Both the photoluminescence and electroluminescence intensities of the patterned LEDs were found to increase with an increase in the size of holes in the pattern. The light output power of the 420-nm hole-patterned LED was 1.16 times higher than that of a conventional LED. Moreover, the current-voltage characteristics were improved with the fabrication of differently sized patterns over the LED surface using the proposed nanosphere lithography method.

With an increased production of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) in electronic equipment, the consumption of solder alloys is growing globally. Recently, increasing importance of recycling solder scrap has been recognized. Generally, solder scrap contains many impurities such as plastics and other metals. Hazardous components must be eliminated for recycling solder scrap. The present work studied pretreatment for reuse of solder scrap alloys. An experiment was conducted to enhance the cleanliness of solder scrap melt and eliminate impurities, especially lead. Physical separation with sieving and magnetic force was made along with pyrometallurgical methods. A small decrease in lead concentration was found by high temperature treatment of solder scrap melt. The impurities were removed by filtration of the solder scrap melt, which resulted in improvement of the melt cleanliness. A very low concentration of lead was achieved by a zone melting treatment with repeated passage. This study reports on a pretreatment process for the reuse of solder scrap that is lead free.

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped ZnO thin films were deposited using a sol-gel process. In this study, the important deposition parameters were investigated thoroughly to determine the appropriate procedures to grow large area thin films with low resistivity and high transparency at low cost for device applications. The doping concentration of aluminum was adjusted in a range from 1 to 4 mol% by controlling the precursor concentration. The annealing temperatures for the pre-heat treatment and post-heat treatment was 250˚C and 400-600˚C, respectively. The SEM images show that Al doped and undoped ZnO films were quite uniform and compact. The XRD pattern shows that the Al doped ZnO film has poorer crystallinity than the undoped films. The crystal quality of Al doped ZnO films was improved with an increase of the annealing temperature to 600˚C. Although the structure of the aluminum doped ZnO films did not have a preferred orientation along the (002) plane, these films had high transmittance (> 87%) in the visible region. The absorption edge was observed at approximately 370 nm, and the absorption wavelength showed a blue-shift with increasing doping concentration. The ZnO films annealed at 500˚C showed the lowest resistivity at 1 mol% Al doping.

In order to provide the mechanism of nozzle clogging, recovered nozzles for high strength steel grade were examined carefully after continuous casting. The thickness of clogged material in SEN is increased in the following order: from the bottom to the top of the nozzle, upper part of slag line, and the pouring hole. Nozzle clogging material begins to form due the adhesion of metal to nozzle wall, the decarburization, and reduction of oxide in the refractory by Al and Ti in the melt. The reduction of oxide in the refractory by Al and Ti improves the wettability of the melt on the refractory and forms a thin Al-Ti-O layer. Metal containing micro alumina inclusions is solidified on the Al-Ti-O layer, and the solid layer grows due to the heat evolution through the nozzle wall. Thermodynamic calculation has been made for the related reactions. The effect of superheat to the nozzle clogging is discussed on ultra low carbon steel and low carbon steel.

Growth behavior of InGaN/GaN self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) was investigated with respect to different growth parameters in low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Locally formed examples of three dimensional InGaN islands were confirmed from the surface observation image with increasing indium source ratio and growth time. The InGaN/GaN QDs were formed in Stranski-Krastanow (SK) growth mode by the continuous supply of metalorganic (MO) sources, whereas they were formed in the Volmer-Weber (V-W) growth mode by the periodic interruption of the MO sources. High density InGaN QDs with 1~2nm height and 40~50nm diameter were formed by the S-K growth mode. Dome shape InGaN dots with 200~400nm diameter were formed by the V-W growth mode. InN content in InGaN QDs was estimated to be reduced with the increase of growth temperature. A strong peak between 420-460 nm (2.96-2.70 eV) was observed for the InGaN QDs grown by S-K growth mode in photoluminescence spectrum together with the GaN buffer layer peak at 362.2 nm (3.41 eV).