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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9

Projection multiplex recording of computer-synthesised one-dimensional Fourier holograms for holographic memory systems: mathematical and experimental modelling

A multiplex method of recording computer-synthesised one-dimensional Fourier holograms intended for holographic memory devices is proposed. The method potentially allows increasing the recording density in the previously proposed holographic memory system based on the computer synthesis and projection recording of data page holograms. (holographic memory)

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Orientation Relationships upon the Structural Transformation of Monoclinic and Cubic Phases in Silver Sulfide

The orientation relationships between the low-temperature monoclinic semiconductor acanthite α-Ag{sub 2}S and the high-temperature body-centered argentite β-Ag{sub 2}S are determined based on high-temperature X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) data on silver sulfide. It is found that, in contrast to acanthite, the possible distances between silver atoms in cubic argentite are too small to allow Ag atoms to occupy metal sublattice sites with a probability of 1. It is shown that the (010) and (001) atomic planes of acanthite are parallel to the (1 1-bar 0) and (221) planes of argentite, respectively. The found orientation relationships between acanthite and argentite are important for understanding the physical operation of the Ag{sub 2}S/Ag heteronanostructure, which is considered as a potential basis for designing resistive switches and nonvolatile memory devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Influence of ultraviolet irradiation on data retention characteristics in resistive random access memory

With increasing density of memory devices, the issue of generating soft errors by cosmic rays is becoming more and more serious. Therefore, the irradiation resistance of resistance random access memory (ReRAM) to cosmic radiation has to be elucidated for practical use. In this paper, we investigated the data retention characteristics of ReRAM against ultraviolet irradiation with a Pt/NiO/ITO structure. Soft errors were confirmed to be caused by ultraviolet irradiation in both low- and high-resistance states. An analysis of the wavelength dependence of light irradiation on data retention characteristics suggested that electronic excitation from the valence to the conduction band and to the energy level generated due to the introduction of oxygen vacancies caused the errors. Based on a statistically estimated soft error rates, the errors were suggested to be caused by the cohesion and dispersion of oxygen vacancies owing to the generation of electron-hole pairs and valence changes by the ultraviolet irradiation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A 128K-bit CCD buffer memory system

A prototype system was implemented to demonstrate that CCD's can be applied advantageously to the problem of low power digital storage and particularly to the problem of interfacing widely varying data rates. 8K-bit CCD shift register memories were used to construct a feasibility model 128K-bit buffer memory system. Peak power dissipation during a data transfer is less than 7 W., while idle power is approximately 5.4 W. The system features automatic data input synchronization with the recirculating CCD memory block start address. Descriptions are provided of both the buffer memory system and a custom tester that was used to exercise the memory. The testing procedures and testing results are discussed. Suggestions are provided for further development with regards to the utilization of advanced versions of CCD memory devices to both simplified and expanded memory system applications.

Siemens, K. H.↗

Non-Volatile, Low Power, and High Density SiC Memory For Future Venus Missions

Long lived memory would transform Venus landers & missions. Venus durable memory demonstrated in earlier HOTTech with impractically high power and low bit capacity. This project seeks to develop and demonstrate the world’s first Venus-durable low power memory device (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM) to enhance extended Venus surface missions.

silicon carbide↗

Josephson Thermal Memory

In this work, we propose a superconducting thermal memory device that exploits the thermal hysteresis in a flux-controlled temperature-biased superconducting quantum-interference device (SQUID). This system reveals a flux-controllable temperature bistability, which can be used to define two well-distinguishable thermal logic states. We discuss a suitable writing-reading procedure for these memory states. The time of the memory writing operation is expected to be on the order of approximately 0.2 ns for a Nb-based SQUID in thermal contact with a phonon bath at 4.2 K. We suggest a noninvasive readout scheme for the memory states based on the measurement of the effective resonance frequency of a tank circuit inductively coupled to the SQUID. The proposed device paves the way for a practical implementation of thermal logic and computation. The advantage of this proposal is that it represents also an example of harvesting thermal energy in superconducting circuits.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Effect of Synthesis Temperature on Structural, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of ZnO Nanoparticles Synthesized by Combustion Method

ZnO nanoparticles at different temperatures were synthesized by using the combustion method. The effect of synthesis temperature on the properties of the nanoparticles was studied by using XRD, FESEM, EDS, TEM, photoluminescence (PL), Raman, diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS), and VSM characterization techniques. The XRD results reveal that the grown nanoparticles have a hexagonal wurtzite structure without any impurities and agreed with EDS results. FESEM and TEM micrographs show that the ZnO nanoparticles possess a spherical shape with agglomeration free, and the size increases with increase of synthesis temperature. From DRS studies, it was noticed that the band gap decreases with increase of synthesis temperature. In PL studies, blue peak at 465 nm may be due to defect-related transitions. A sharp intense peak in Raman spectra at 485 cm{sup −1} represents E{sub 2}H mode is a characteristic of a hexagonal wurtzite structure. The magnetic studies show that the magnetization decreases from 0.0172 to 0.0042 emu/g as the synthesis temperature increases from 400 to 550 °C. ZnO synthesized at 500 °C has a large squareness ratio. These materials are potential candidates for memory devices.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Low-frequency noise properties in Pt-indium gallium zinc oxide Schottky diodes

The low-frequency noise properties of Pt-indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) Schottky diodes at different forward biases are investigated. The IGZO layer and Pt contact were deposited by RF sputtering at room temperature. The diode showed an ideality factor of 1.2 and a barrier height of 0.94 eV. The current noise spectral density exhibited 1/f behavior at low frequencies. The analysis of the current dependency of the noise spectral density revealed that for the as-deposited diode, the noise followed Luo's mobility and diffusivity fluctuation model in the thermionic-emission-limited region and Hooge's empirical theory in the series-resistance-limited region. A low Hooge's constant of 1.4 × 10{sup −9} was found in the space-charge region. In the series-resistance-limited region, the Hooge's constant was 2.2 × 10{sup −5}. After annealing, the diode showed degradation in the electrical performance. The interface-trap-induced noise dominated the noise spectrum. By using the random walk model, the interface-trap density was obtained to be 3.6 × 10{sup 15 }eV{sup −1 }cm{sup −2}. This work provides a quantitative approach to analyze the properties of Pt-IGZO interfacial layers. These low noise properties are a prerequisite to the use of IGZO Schottky diodes in switch elements in memory devices, photosensors, and mixer diodes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Hydrogen doping in HfO{sub 2} resistance change random access memory

The structures and energies of hydrogen-doped monoclinic hafnium dioxide were calculated using density-functional theory. The electronic interactions are described within the LDA + U formalism, where on-site Coulomb corrections are applied to the 5d orbital electrons of Hf atoms and 2p orbital electrons of the O atoms. The effects of charge state, defect-defect interactions, and hydrogenation are investigated and compared with experiment. It is found that hydrogenation of HfO{sub 2} resistance-change random access memory devices energetically stabilizes the formation of oxygen vacancies and conductive vacancy filaments through multiple mechanisms, leading to improved switching characteristic and device yield.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Engineering helimagnetism in MnSi thin films

Magnetic skyrmion materials have the great advantage of a robust topological magnetic structure, which makes them stable against the superparamagnetic effect and therefore a candidate for the next-generation of spintronic memory devices. Bulk MnSi, with an ordering temperature of 29.5 K, is a typical skyrmion system with a propagation vector periodicity of ∼18 nm. One crucial prerequisite for any kind of application, however, is the observation and precise control of skyrmions in thin films at room-temperature. Strain in epitaxial MnSi thin films is known to raise the transition temperature to 43 K. Here we show, using magnetometry and x-ray spectroscopy, that the transition temperature can be raised further through proximity coupling to a ferromagnetic layer. Similarly, the external field required to stabilize the helimagnetic phase is lowered. Transmission electron microscopy with element-sensitive detection is used to explore the structural origin of ferromagnetism in these Mn-doped substrates. Our work suggests that an artificial pinning layer, not limited to the MnSi/Si system, may enable room temperature, zero-field skyrmion thin-film systems, thereby opening the door to device applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

MAC: Memory Access Coalescer for 3D-Stacked Memory

Emerging data-intensive applications, such as graph analytics and data mining, exhibit irregular memory access patterns. Research has shown that with these memory-bound applications, traditional cache-based processor architectures, which exploit locality and regular patterns to mitigate the memory-wall issue, are inefficient. Meantime, novel 3D-stacked memory devices, such as Hybrid Mem- ory Cube (HMC) and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), promise significant increases in bandwidth that appear extremely appealing for memory-bound applications. However, conventional memory interfaces designed for cache-based architectures and JEDEC DDR devices fit poorly with the 3D-stacked memory, which leads to significant under-utilization of the promised high bandwidth. As a response to these issues, in this paper we propose MAC (Memory Access Coalescer), a coalescing unit for the 3D-stacked memory. We discuss the design and implementation of MAC, in the context of a custom designed cache-less architecture targeted at data-intensive, irregular applications. Through a custom simulation infrastructure based on the RISC-V toolchain, we show that MAC achieves a coalescing efficiency of 52.85% on average. It improves the performance of the memory system by 60.73% on average for a large set of irregular workloads.

Wang, Xi↗

Effect of Zr{sup 4+} substitution on ferroelectric and dielectric properties of BaTiO{sub 3} ceramics

A lead-free system, BaTi{sub (1−x)}Zr{sub x}O{sub 3}, with x varying from 0.00 to 0.15 (in steps of 0.05), were prepared by solid state reaction method. X-ray diffraction study confirms the perovskite-type tetragonal structure with, a = 4.003 Å and c = 3.998 Å for pure BaTiO{sub 3} and a = 4.027 Å and c = 4.023 Å for pure BaTi{sub 0.85}Zr{sub 0.15}O{sub 3}. Microstructure changes, with Zr{sup 4+} in BaTi{sub (1−x)}Zr{sub x}O{sub 3}, are studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Dielectric constant measurements show the maximum dielectric constant value (~ 9445) for a composition, BaTi{sub 0.85}Zr{sub 0.15}O{sub 3}. P-E loop measurements support ferroelectric nature for all the samples and maximum polarization value (~10.55 µC/cm{sup 2}) with squareness ratio ~0.6, at electric field 7.11 kV/cm, is obtained for BaTi{sub 0.85}Zr{sub 0.15}O{sub 3} composition. All the measured properties suggest that the BaTi{sub 0.85}Zr{sub 0.15}O{sub 3} may be suitable for memory device applications.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Probing electron density across Ar{sup +} irradiation-induced self-organized TiO{sub 2−x} nanochannels for memory application

The variation of electron density in TiO{sub 2−x} nanochannels, exhibiting resistive switching phenomenon, produced by Ar{sup +} ion-irradiation at the threshold fluence of 5 × 10{sup 16} ions/cm{sup 2} is demonstrated by X-ray reflectivity (XRR). The transmission electron microscopy reveals the formation of nanochannels, while the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy confirms Ti enrichment near the surface due to ion-irradiation, in consistent with the increase in electron density by XRR measurements. Such a variation in Ti concentration indicates the evolution of oxygen vacancies (OVs) along the TiO{sub 2−x} nanochannels, and thus paves the way to explain the operation and performance of the Pt/TiO{sub 2−x}/Pt-based memory devices via OV migration.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

IRIS: A Performance-Portable Framework for Cross-Platform Heterogeneous Computing

From edge to exascale, computer architectures are becoming more heterogeneous and complex. The systems typically have fat nodes, with multicore CPUs and multiple hardware accelerators such as GPUs, FPGAs, and DSPs. This complexity is causing a crisis in programming systems and performance portability. Several programming systems are working to address these challenges, but the increasing architectural diversity is forcing software stacks and applications to be specialized for each architecture. As we show, all of these approaches critically depend on their software framework for discovery, execution, scheduling, and data orchestration. To address this challenge, we believe that a more agile and proactive software framework is essential to increase performance portability and improve user productivity. To this end, we have designed and implemented IRIS: a performance-portable framework for cross-platform heterogeneous computing. IRIS can discover available resources, manage multiple diverse programming platforms (e.g., CUDA, Hexagon, HIP, Level Zero, OpenCL, OpenMP) simultaneously in the same execution, respect data dependencies, orchestrate data movement proactively, and provide for user-configurable scheduling. To simplify data movement, IRIS introduces a shared virtual device memory with relaxed consistency among different heterogeneous devices. IRIS also adds an automatic kernel workload partitioning technique using the polyhedral model so that it can resize kernels for a wide range of devices. Our evaluation on three architectures, ranging from Qualcomm Snapdragon to a Summit supercomputer node, shows that IRIS improves portability across a wide range of diverse heterogeneous architectures with negligible overhead.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Radiation-Hardened Solid-State Drive

A method is provided for a radiationhardened (rad-hard) solid-state drive for space mission memory applications by combining rad-hard and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) non-volatile memories (NVMs) into a hybrid architecture. The architecture is controlled by a rad-hard ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) or a FPGA (field programmable gate array). Specific error handling and data management protocols are developed for use in a rad-hard environment. The rad-hard memories are smaller in overall memory density, but are used to control and manage radiation-induced errors in the main, and much larger density, non-rad-hard COTS memory devices. Small amounts of rad-hard memory are used as error buffers and temporary caches for radiation-induced errors in the large COTS memories. The rad-hard ASIC/FPGA implements a variety of error-handling protocols to manage these radiation-induced errors. The large COTS memory is triplicated for protection, and CRC-based counters are calculated for sub-areas in each COTS NVM array. These counters are stored in the rad-hard non-volatile memory. Through monitoring, rewriting, regeneration, triplication, and long-term storage, radiation-induced errors in the large NV memory are managed. The rad-hard ASIC/FPGA also interfaces with the external computer buses.

Sheldon, Douglas J.↗

Reliability Characterization of TaOx-Based Commercial ReRAM in Combination with Radiation

We present reliability data combined with total dose gamma radiation for one of the first commercially available resistive memory devices. These Tantalum Oxide (TaOX)-based resistive memory chips demonstrate operation in dynamic program and erase testing up to ~130 Krad(Si) of 60Co gamma dose. In static and unbiased conditions, the stored data in the memory cells were able to withstand up to 50Mrad(Si) of exposure. The access circuitry, though, seemed less robust to gamma radiation and was able to operate only up to a total dose of 3Mrad(Si). Post exposure reliability as indicated by endurance, cycling error rate, and data retention tests showed no detectable impact from the combination with prior gamma irradiation. Overall, the total dose radiation tolerance of the commercial TaOx-based resistive memory chip appears to be higher than flash memory chips and in agreement with prior tests conducted with single cell resistive memories.

total ionizing dose↗

Data migration schedule prediction using machine learning

Various embodiments provide for one or more processor instructions and memory instructions that enable a memory sub-system to predict a schedule for migrating data between memory devices, which can be part of a memory sub-system.

Roberts, David Andrew↗

Influence of surface adsorption on MoS 2 memtransistor switching kinetics

Sulfur-deficient polycrystalline two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) memtransistors exhibit gate-tunable memristive switching to implement emerging memory operations and neuromorphic computing paradigms. Grain boundaries and sulfur vacancies are critical for memristive switching; however, the underlying physical mechanisms are not fully understood. Furthermore, the adsorption of water and gaseous species strongly perturbs electronic transport in monolayer MoS 2 , and little work has been done to explore the influence of surface interactions on defect-related kinetics that produces memristive switching. Here, we study the switching kinetics of back-gated MoS 2 memtransistors using current transient measurements in a controlled atmosphere chamber. Here, we observe that adsorbed water molecules lead to suppression of the electronic trap-filling processes concomitant with the resistive switching process, resulting in altered kinetics of the resistive switching. Additionally, using the transient response from “bunched” drain voltage pulse trains performed as a function of temperature, we extract the energy of the affected trap state and find that it places the trap roughly midgap [E T = E C – 0.7 (±0.4) eV]. Our results highlight the importance of controlling for surface interactions that may affect switching kinetics in 2D memtransistors, synaptic transistors, and related memory devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗