We have investigated the effects of electrical conductivity of the constituents on the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of ferroelectric 0-3 composites. The time-dependent internal electric fields are first derived, which can be induced by an applied ac field in dielectric measurement or stress in piezoelectric measurement. Our previously developed model fC. K. Wong, Y. M. Poon, and F. G...

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanowhiskers with attractive electrical and anti-reflection properties were prepared by the glancing-angle electron-beam evaporation technique. Structural and crystalline properties of such nanostructures were examined by scanning transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Their frequency-dependent complex conductivities, refractive indices and absorption coe...

Silicon is a promising alternative to current thermoelectric materials (Bi(2)Te(3)). Silicon nanoparticle based materials show especially low thermal conductivities due to their high number of interfaces, which increases the observed phonon scattering. The major obstacle with these materials is maintaining high electrical conductivity. Surface functionalization with phenylacetylene shows an ele...

In this paper, we present a methodology and a circuit to extract liquid mixtures resistance and capacitance simultaneously from the same output signal using interdigitated sensing electrodes. The principle is based on the triangular waveform voltage signal generation technique where a current square wave is applied to the sensor and results in a triangular output voltage that contains both the ...

The measurement of the impedance of biological tissue can be a non-invasive method to find new data of diagnostic relevance. A system for a noncontact measurement of the electrical impedance of biological tissue is presented. The system consists of an excitation coil and two sensing coils coupled together as a gradiometer. The excitation coil is driven by an alternating current. Due to this alt...

We report a study of the optical and electric properties of Au nanoparticle networks grown on the porous alumina membrane by dry atom sputtering deposition approach. An effective cluster model was developed to evaluate the dielectric function and the electrical conductivities of the nanoparticle networks by taking into account the effects of the Au particle size, the Au volume fraction, and the...

We present a numerical method to find specific composite microstructures with targeted effective properties. The effective properties that may be prescribed are quite diverse and include transport, mechanical, and electromagnetic properties, as well as properties associated with coupled phenomena, such as piezoelectric and thermoelectric coefficients. We formulated the target problem as an opti...

In this paper, the role of finite Electric Double Layer (EDL) conductivity on the Streaming Potential and the resulting Electroviscous effect in pressure-driven nanofluidic ionic transport is investigated. Important dimensionless parameters like the Dukhin number (based on the EDL surface electrical conductivity, the bulk electrical conductivity and the EDL thickness), ratio of the Stern Layer ...

We present a detailed description of a zero temperature phase transition between superconducting and diffusive metallic states in very thin wires due to a Cooper pair breaking mechanism. The dissipative critical theory contains current reducing fluctuations in the guise of both quantum and thermally activated phase slips. A full cross-over phase diagram is computed via an expansion in the inver...

We report the successful preparation of solvent-free metal nanoparticle (NP) fluids with multiple-functionalities, such as rheological properties, magnetism, ionic conductivity, and electrical properties, allowing for facile synthesis and mass production. The gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) used in this study were synthesized using tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOABr) in toluene and then directly phas...