La réflectométrie GNSS (ou GNSS-R) est une technique de télédétection originale et pportuniste qui consiste à analyser les ondes électromagnétiques émises en continu par la soixantaine de satellites des systèmes de positionnement GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, etc.), qui sont captées par une antenne après réflexion sur la surface terrestre. Ces signaux interagissent avec la surface réfléchissante et contiennent donc des informations sur ses propriétés. Au niveau de l'antenne, les ondes réfléchies interfèrent avec celles arrivant directement des satellites. Ces interférences sont particulièrement visibles dans le rapport signal-sur-bruit (SNR, i.e., Signal-to-Noise Ratio), paramètre enregistré par une station GNSS classique. Il est ainsi possible d'inverser les séries temporelles du SNR pour estimer des caractéristiques du milieu réfléchissant. Si la faisabilité et l'intérêt de cette méthode ne sont plus à démontrer, la mise en oeuvre de cette technique pose un certain nombre de problèmes, à savoir quelles précisions et résolutions spatio-temporelles peuvent être atteintes, et par conséquent, quels sont les observables géophysiques accessibles. Mon travail de thèse a pour objectif d'apporter des éléments de réponse sur ce point, et est axé sur le développement méthodologique et l'exploitation géophysique des mesures de SNR réalisées par des stations GNSS classiques. Je me suis focalisé sur l'estimation des variations de hauteur de l'antenne par rapport à la surface réfléchissante (altimétrie) et de l'humidité du sol en domaine continental. La méthode d'inversion des mesures SNR que je propose a été appliquée avec succès pour déterminer les variations locales de : (1) la hauteur de la mer au voisinage du phare de Cordouan du 3 mars au 31 mai 2013 où les ondes de marées et la houle ont pu être parfaitement identifiées ; et (2) l'humidité du sol dans un champ agricole à proximité de Toulouse, du 5 février au 15 mars 2014. Ma méthode permet de s'affranchir de certaines restrictions imposées jusqu'à présent dans les travaux antérieurs, où la vitesse de variation verticale de la surface de réflexion était supposée négligeable. De plus, j'ai développé un simulateur qui m'a permis de tester l'influence de nombreux paramètres (troposphère, angle d'élévation du satellite, hauteur d'antenne, relief local, etc.) sur la trajectoire des ondes réfléchies et donc sur la position des points de réflexion. Mon travail de thèse montre que le GNSS-R est une alternative performante et un complément non négligeable aux techniques de mesure actuelles, en faisant le lien entre les différentes résolutions temporelles et spatiales actuellement atteintes par les outils classiques (sondes, radar, diffusiomètres, etc.). Cette technique offre l'avantage majeur d'être basé sur un réseau de satellites déjà en place et pérenne, et est applicable à n'importe quelle station GNSS géodésique, notamment celles des réseaux permanents (e.g., le RGP français). Ainsi, en installant une chaîne de traitement de ces acquisitions de SNR en domaine côtier, il serait possible d'utiliser les mesures continues des centaines de stations pré-existantes, et d'envisager de réaliser des mesures altimétriques à l'échelle locale, ou de mesurer l'humidité du sol pour les antennes situées à l'intérieur des terres. / GNSS reflectometry (or GNSS-R) is an original and opportunistic remote sensing technique based on the analysis of the electromagnetic waves continuously emitted by GNSS positioning systems satellites (GPS, GLONASS, etc.) that are captured by an antenna after reflection on the Earth's surface. These signals interact with the reflective surface and hence contain information about its properties. When they reach the antenna, the reflected waves interfere with those coming directly from the satellites. This interference is particularly visible in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter recorded by conventional GNSS stations. It is thus possible to reverse the SNR time series to estimate the reflective surface characteristics. If the feasibility and usefulness of thismethod are well established, the implementation of this technique poses a number of issues. Namely the spatio-temporal accuracies and resolutions that can be achieved and thus what geophysical observables are accessible.The aim of my PhD research work is to provide some answers on this point, focusing on the methodological development and geophysical exploitation of the SNR measurements performed by conventional GNSS stations. I focused on the estimation of variations in the antenna height relative to the reflecting surface (altimetry) and on the soil moisture in continental areas. The SNR data inversion method that I propose has been successfully applied to determine local variations of : (1) the sea level near the Cordouan lighthouse (not far from Bordeaux, France) from March 3 to May 31, 2013, where the main tidal periods and waves have been clearly identified ; and (2) the soil moisture in an agricultural plot near Toulouse, France, from February 5 to March 15, 2014. My method eliminates some restrictions imposed in earlier work, where the velocity of the vertical variation of the reflective surface was assumed to be negligible. Furthermore, I developed a simulator that allowed me to assess the influence of several parameters (troposphere, satellite elevation angle, antenna height, local relief, etc.) on the path of the reflected waves and hence on the position of the reflection points. My work shows that GNSS-R is a powerful alternative and a significant complement to the current measurement techniques, establishing a link between the different temporal and spatial resolutions currently achieved by conventional tools (sensors, radar, scatterometer, etc.). This technique offers the major advantage of being based on already-developed and sustainable satellites networks, and can be applied to any GNSS geodetic station, including permanent networks (e.g., the French RGP). Therefore, by installing a processing chain of these SNR acquisitions, data from hundreds of pre-existing stations could be used to make local altimetry measurements in coastal areas or to estimate soil moisture for inland antennas.

Introdução: O ruído é um dos principais agentes de poluição ambiental, que em intensidades elevadas, poderá causar a perda auditiva induzida por níveis de pressão sonora elevadas (PAINPSE). A PAINPSE é o segundo tipo de perda auditiva neurossensorial mais frequente, e considerada uma das principais doenças ocupacionais. Para evitar os prejuízos da exposição ao ruído ocupacional, legislações determinam o monitoramento e o desenvolvimento de ações para reduzir os efeitos da exposição, sendo o uso de dispositivos de proteção auditiva (DPA) a mais empregada. Contudo é comum que o trabalhador relate dificuldades para se comunicar com o DPA, o que pode induzi-lo ao uso inadequado. Os estudos já realizados apresentam discordâncias sobre os efeitos do DPA para a inteligibilidade da fala, além de serem poucos os que compararam participantes com perdas auditivas com normo-ouvintes. Objetivos: Avaliar a inteligibilidade de fala em trabalhadores expostos a ruído durante o uso de DPA. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo transversal, aprovado pelo Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da instituição nº 130/14, com amostra de 36 participantes, todos do sexo masculino e expostos ao ruído. Foram divididos em grupo normo-ouvintes (G1), com 20 participantes e com perda auditiva (G2), com 16 participantes. Todos os participantes realizaram avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala em campo acústico, utilizando listas de monossílabas e sentenças, em situações de uso do DPA no silêncio e no ruído e sem o uso do DPA no ruído. Resultados: Na avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala com DPA utilizando as monossílabas, ambos os grupos apresentaram porcentagens de acertos superiores à 95% na situação de silêncio. Na presença do ruído com o DPA, não foi detectado efeito de interação envolvendo grupo (p>=0,106) e nem efeito de grupo (p=0,182), mas houve efeito de interação entre intensidade de fala e relação sinal/ruído (S/R) (p=0,006). Na avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala no ruído sem o DPA, foi detectado efeito de interação entre uso do DPA e relação S/R (p=0,010) sobre a média das porcentagens de acertos. Na avaliação com listas de sentenças, a porcentagem de acertos com DPA foram superiores a 98% no silêncio; contudo, no ruído houve piora, com efeito de interação entre intensidade de fala e relação S/R (p=0,010) e entre grupo e relação S/R (p=0,039). Na comparação do uso/não uso do DPA, houve efeito de interação entre uso do DPA e as relações S/R (p=0,009) sobre a média das porcentagens de acertos. Conclusões: Para ambos os grupos, houve piora da inteligibilidade de fala com o aumento da intensidade do ruído; contudo, a dificuldade foi maior para o G2. Na comparação das situações com/sem o uso do DPA, o uso dificultou a inteligibilidade de fala, mas não houve diferença significante entre as situações. Por fim, ressalta-se a importância de realizar mais estudos dos efeitos do DPA na comunicação, além de inserir nas avaliações ocupacionais testes que avaliam a fala no ruído, para determinar as dificuldades que podem surgir no ambiente ocupacional, e assim desenvolver medidas que beneficiem os trabalhadores que necessitam se comunicar durante as atividades laborais / Introduction: Noise is one of the main agents of environmental pollution, and at high intensities, it may provoke noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). NIHL is the second most frequent type of sensorineural hearing loss and it is considered one of the main occupational diseases. In order to avoid the effects of the exposition to occupational noise, legislation determines the monitoring and development of actions to reduce the effects of such exposure and one of the most applied measure is the mandatory use of hearing protection devices (HPD). However, workers often report difficulties to communicate when using the HPD, what may induce them to use it improperly. Previous studies showed divergences between the effects of HPD on speech intelligibility; besides, few studies compared participants with hearing loss to those with normal hearing. Purpose: To assess speech intelligibility of workers exposed to noise during the use of HPD. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, approved by the Institution\'s Ethics Committee (nº 130/14) and counted on a sample of 36 participants, all males and exposed to noise. They were distributed into a normal hearing group (G1), with 20 participants and hearing loss group (G2), with 16 participants. All participants were submitted to an assessment of speech intelligibility in free field, using monosyllable and sentence lists, when using the HPD in silence and noise situation, and also without the use of HPD in noise. Results: In the assessment of speech intelligibility with HPD using the monosyllables, both groups presented percentages of correct answers above 95%. In the presence of noise with HPD, there was no interaction effect involving group (p>=0.106) or group effect (p=0.182), but there was found an interaction effect between speech intensity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (p=0.006). In the assessment of speech intelligibility in noise without HPD, an interaction effect between HPD use and SNR (p=0.010) was detected over the mean percentage of correct answers. In the evaluation with lists of sentences, the percentage of correct answers with HPD were superior to 98% in the silence; however, in noise, there was a decrease on the interaction effect between speech intensity and SNR (p = 0.010) and between group and SNR (p = 0.039). In the comparison with/without use of HPD, there was found an interaction effect between hearing protection use and SNR (p = 0.009) on the mean percentage of correct answers. Conclusions: For both groups, it was noticed that speech intelligibility decrease with the increasing of noise intensity; nevertheless, the difficulty was greater for the group with hearing loss. In the comparison of situations with and without the use of HPD, its use made speech intelligibility more challenging, but no significant difference between the situations was found. Finally, it is important to highlight the importance of further studies regarding the effects of HPD on communication and, besides, inserting speech-in-noise tests in occupational examination in order to determine the difficulties that may arise in the occupational environment and thus, develop measures that benefits the workers who need communicate during their labor activities

The aim of this work is to create an automated workplace for measuring the basic parameters of audio amplifiers using a graphical programming environment LabVIEW. Subsequently, the functionality will be verified in practical measurements on the real amplifier.

The main aim of this thesis is to introduce issue of averaging of biological signals. The first part of the thesis deals with the principles of individual averaging methods (constant, floating and exponential window) and describes their basic features. Moreover, the principle of filtered residue, detection of QRS complex, and stretching/shrinking the length of RR-interval to the standardized length are explicated. In the second part of the thesis the outcomes of practically realized (Matlab and GUI) methods of averaging (by final signal-to-noise ratio) are evaluated. Signals from MIT-BIH database are used.

Die Positionsbestimmung von Verkehrsteilnehmern basiert häufig auf der Auswertung von Signalen globaler Navigationssatellitensysteme (GNSS). Dabei werden die Laufzeiten der Signale und darauf beruhend die Entfernungen zwischen den Satelliten und dem Verkehrsteilnehmer ermittelt. Die Positionsbestimmung erfolgt dann nach dem Prinzip der Trilateration. Bei hohen Anforderungen an die Genauigkeit der Position wird hierfür insbesondere die Phase des Trägersignals ausgewertet. Eine besondere Herausforderung stellt dabei die Mehrwegeausbreitung der Signale dar. Hervorgerufen wird diese durch Objekte, wie Bäume, Gebäude oder Fahrzeuge in der Umgebung des Verkehrsteilnehmers. Durch die Mehrwegeausbreitung werden die Laufzeiten der Signale und somit die Position fehlerhaft bestimmt. Es ist daher von großer Bedeutung, die mehrwegebedingten Fehleranteile zu detektieren und sie zu reduzieren. In dieser Arbeit wird dafür der Zusammenhang zwischen dem Trägerphasenmessfehler und der Signalqualität genutzt. Durch Anwendung einer im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwickelten adaptierten Hilbert-Huang-Transformation auf die aus dem Signalqualitätsparameter des Signal-zu-Rauschleistungsdichte-Verhältnis abgeleiteten Signalamplituden können Mehrwegesignale detektiert und der durch sie verursachte Trägerphasenmessfehler berechnet werden. Anhand der Auswertung eines Experimentaldatensatzes sowie Daten von GNSS-Referenzstationen des SAPOS-Netzes kann der Erfolg des Einsatzes der adaptierten Hilbert-Huang-Transformation nachgewiesen werden.

В данной работе представлена разработка схемы управления зеркальными антеннами 600 метрового радиотелескопа на основе цифровой обработки сигналов. Был произведен анализ диаграммы направленности радиотелескопа при цифровом методе формирования, а также оценено влияние фазовых ошибок на диаграмму направленности радиотелескопа, возникающих в процессе оцифровке аналогового сигнала на несущей частоте. Было произведено математическое моделирование и оценка влияния параметров цифровой элементной базы на характеристики диаграммы направленности радиотелескопа, предложено оборудование для построения диаграммообразующей схемы радиотелескопа. / This work contains the development of a control scheme for mirror antennas of a 600-meter radio telescope based on digital signal processing. An analysis was made of the radiation pattern of the radio telescope under the digital method of formation. The influence of phase errors on the radiation pattern of the radio telescope, which arise in the process of digitizing an analog signal at a carrier frequency, was estimated. Mathematical modeling and estimation of the effect of the parameters of the digital element base on the characteristics of the radiation pattern of the radio telescope were made, equipment for constructing a radio telescope was proposed.

A wide range of services and applications become possible when accurate position information for a radio terminal is available. These include: location-based services; navigation; safety and security applications. The commercial, industrial and military value of radio-location is such that considerable research effort has been directed towards developing related technologies, using satellite, cellular or local area network infrastructures or stand-alone equipment. This work studies and investigates two location techniques. The first one presents an implementation scheme for a wideband transmission and direction finding system using OFDM multi-carrier communications systems. This approach takes advantage of delay discrimination to improve angle-of-arrival estimation in a multipath channel with high levels of additive white Gaussian noise. A new methodology is interpreted over the multi carrier modulation scheme in which the simulation results of the estimated channel improves the performance of OFDM signal by mitigating the effect of frequency offset synchronization to give error-free data at the receiver, good angle of arrival accuracy and improved SNR performance. The full system simulation to explore optimum values such as channel estimation and AoA including the antenna array model and prove the operational performance of the OFDM system as implemented in MATLAB. The second technique proposes a low cost-effective method of tracking and monitoring objects (examples: patient, device, medicine, document) by employing passive radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. A multi-tag, (totalling fifty-six tags) with known ID values are attached to the whole patient’s body to achieve better tracking and monitoring precision and higher accuracy. Several tests with different positions and movements are implemented on six patients. The aim is to be able to track the patient if he/she is walking or sitting; therefore, the tests considered six possible movements for the patient including walking, standing, sitting, resting, laying on the floor and laying on the bed, these placements are important to monitor the status of the patient like if he collapsed and fall on the ground so that the help will be quick. The collected data from the RFID Reader in terms of Time Stamp, RSS, Tag ID, and a number of channels are processed using the MATLAB code.

If communicating via a teleconference phone the desired transmitted signal (speech) needs to be crystal clear so that all participants experience a good communication ability. However, there are many environmental conditions that contaminates the signal with background noise, i.e sounds not of interest for communication purposes, which impedes the ability to communicate due to interfering sounds. Noise can be removed from the signal if it is known and so this work has evaluated different ways of estimating the characteristics of the background noise. Focus was put on using speech detection to define the noise, i.e. the non-speech part of the signal, but other methods not solely reliant on speech detection but rather on characteristics of the noisy speech signal were included. The implemented techniques were compared and evaluated to the current solution utilized by the teleconference phone in two ways, firstly for their speech detection ability and secondly for their ability to correctly estimate the noise characteristics. The evaluation process was based on simulations of the methods' performance in various noise conditions, ranging from harsh to mild environments. It was shown that the proposed method showed improvement over the existing solution, as implemented in this study, in terms of speech detection ability and for the noise estimate it showed improvement in certain conditions. It was also concluded that using the proposed method would enable two sources of noise estimation compared to the current single estimation source and it was suggested to investigate how utilizing two noise estimators could affect the performance.

This work focuses on the evaluation of the feasibility to employ silicon (Si) nanowire based parallel arrays of Schottky-barrier field effect transistors (SB-FETs) as transducers for potentiometric biosensors and their overall performance as building blocks for novel functional electronics. Nanowire parallel arrays of SB-FETs were produced and electrically characterized during this work. Nominally undoped Si nanowires with mean diameter of 20nm were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) driven bottom-up growth and subsequently transferred via a printing process to Si/SiO2 chip substrates. Thereby, dense parallel aligned nanowire arrays are created. After dry oxidation of the nanowires, standard photolithography and deposition methods are employed to contact several hundred nanowires with interdigitated Ni electrodes in parallel. A silicidation step is used to produce axially intruded Ni-silicide (metallic) phases with a very abrupt interface to the Si (semiconducting) segment. Acting as front gate dielectric, the chip surface is entirely covered by an Al2O3 layer. For sensor applications, this layer further serves as electrical isolation of the electrodes and protects them from corrosion in electrolytes. Fabricated devices are part of the SOI (Si on insulator) transistor family with top (front) and back gate and exhibit ambipolar rectifying behavior. The top gate exhibits omega geometry with a 20nm thin Al2O3 dielectric, the back gate planar geometry with a 400nm thick SiO2 dielectric. The influence of both gates on the charge transport is summarized in the statistical analysis of transfer and output characteristic for 7 different lengths (for each 20 devices) of the Si conduction channel. A nonlinear scaling of on-currents and transconductance with channel length is revealed. Off-currents are influenced from both p- and n-type conduction at the same time. Increasing lateral electric fields (LEF) lead to a decline of suppression capability of both p- and n-currents by a single gate. This is reflected in a deteriorated swing and higher off-current towards decreasing channel lengths (increasing LEF). However, by individual gating of Schottky junction and channel, p- and n-type currents can be controlled individually. Both charge carrier types, p and n, can be suppressed efficiently at the same time leading to low off-currents and high on/off current ratio for all investigated channel lengths. This is achieved by a combined top and back double gate architecture, for which the back gate controls the Schottky junction resistance. It is demonstrated that a fixed high Schottky junction serial resistance, severely impairs the transconductance. However, the transconductance can be significantly increased by lowering this resistance via the back gate, enhancing the transducer performance significantly. Al2O3 covered SB-FETs were employed as pH sensors to evaluate their performance and signal to noise ratio (SNR). Current modulation per pH was observed to be directly proportional to the transconductance. The transistor related signal to noise ratio (SNR) is thus proportional to the transconductance to current noise ratio. Device noise was characterized and found to limit the SNR already below the peak transconductance regime. Statistical analysis showed that the nanowire SB-FET transconductance and noise both scale proportional with the current. Therefore, the SNR was found to be independent on the nanowire channel lengths under investigation. The high process yield of nanowire SB-FET parallel array fabrication close to hundred percent enables this platform to be used for simple logic and biosensor elements. Because of the low fabrication temperatures needed, the foundation is laid to produce complementary logic with undoped Si on flexible substrates. For previously reported results, the presence of Schottky junctions severely impaired the transconductance, restricting the applicability of SB-FETs as transducers. This work shows, that an electric decoupling of the Schottky junction can reduce these restrictions, making SB-FETs feasible for sensor applications.:Table of contents 11 List of figures 14 Abbreviations 15 Introduction 17 1 Fundamentals 23 1.1 Bottom up growth of Si nanowires 23 1.2 MOS and Schottky barrier transistor theory 25 1.2.1 MOSFET: Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor 25 1.2.2 Gate coupling 27 1.2.3 Oxide charges and flatband voltage 29 1.2.4 Charge trapping and charge-voltage hysteresis 30 1.2.5 Schottky barrier 32 1.2.6 SB-FETs 34 1.3 ISFET and BioFET technology 36 1.3.1 ISFET and BioFET working principle 37 1.3.2 Noise in ISFETs 41 2 Fabrication of Schottky barrier FET parallel arrays 43 2.1 Starting point of device fabrication 43 2.2 Parallel array transistor and sensor devices 44 2.2.1 Gold nano particle deposition 45 2.2.2 Bottom-up growth of Si nanowires 46 2.2.3 Nanowire deposition methods 48 Langmuir-Blodgett 48 Adhesion tape transfer 49 Contact printing/ smearing transfer 49 2.2.4 Nanowire oxidation 50 2.2.5 Chip design 51 2.2.6 UV lithography 53 2.2.7 Oxide removal and metal deposition 54 2.2.8 Nanowire silicidation 54 2.2.9 Ionsensitive, top gate dielectric and contact passivation 56 2.2.10 On chip reference electrode 57 3 Electrical characterization 59 3.1 Electrical characterization methods 59 3.2 Transfer characteristics 60 3.2.1 Silicidation: intruded silicide contacts 62 3.2.2 Scaling of the conduction channel length 63 3.2.3 Flatband voltage, built-in potentials, fixed and trapped oxide charge 71 3.2.4 Surface effects on the channel potential of back gated SB-FETs 72 3.3 Charge traps, hysteresis and Vth drifts 73 3.3.1 Screening of back gate fields by water molecules 74 3.3.2 Native oxides: unipolarity by water promoted charge trapping 76 3.3.3 Hysteresis for thermally grown oxide back and top gate devices 78 3.3.4 Hysteresis reduction by post anneal 79 3.4 Output characteristics 80 3.4.1 Unipolar output characteristics of nanowires with native oxide shell 80 3.4.2 Ambipolar output characteristics of nanowires with dry oxidized shell 82 3.5 Temperature dependence 84 3.6 Transistor noise 86 4 pH measurements 91 4.1 Experimental setup and data analysis method 91 4.2 Transfer function in electrolyte with liquid gate 92 4.3 Sensor response on pH 92 4.4 Sensor signal drifts 96 5 Schottky junction impact on sensitivity 97 5.1 Schottky junction electrostatic decoupling in solution 97 5.1.1 Experimental setup in solution 98 5.1.2 SU8/Al2O3 passivated junctions in electrolyte 98 5.2 Meander shaped gates without Schottky junction overlap 101 5.2.1 Separated gating of Schottky junctions and channel 102 5.2.2 Enhanced transducer performance by reduced Schottky junction resistance 104 6 Summary and Outlook 107 List of publications 111 Bibliography 126 Acknowledgements 127 / Diese Dissertation ist der Bewertung von Silizium (Si) Nanodraht basierten Parallelschaltungen von Schottky-Barrieren-Feld-Effekt-Transistoren (SB-FETs) als Wandler für potentiometrische Biosensoren und deren generelle Leistungsfähigkeit als Bauelement neuartiger funktioneller Elektronik gewidmet. In dieser Arbeit wurden Parallelschaltungen von Nanodraht SB-FETs hergestellt und elektrisch charakterisiert. Nominell undotierte Si Nanodrähte mit durchschnittlichem Durchmesser von 20nm wurden mittels chemischer Dampfphasenabscheidung (CVD) synthetisiert und anschließend durch einen Druckprozess auf ein Si/SiO2 Chip-Substrat transferiert. Damit wurden dicht gepackte, parallel ausgerichtete Nanodraht Schichten erzeugt. Nach Trockenoxidation der Nanodrähte wurden diese mit Standard Lithographie und Abscheidungsmethoden mit interdigitalen Nickel (Ni) Elektroden als Parallelschaltung kontaktiert. Durch einen Temperprozess bilden sich axial eindiffundierte metallische Ni-Silizid-Phasen, mit einer sehr abrupten Grenzfläche zum halbleitenden Si Segments des Nanodrahts. Die Chipoberfläche wird vollständig mit einer Al2O3-Schicht bedeckt, welche als Frontgate-Dielektrikum oder als elektrische Isolation und Korrosionsschutzschicht für Elektroden in Elektrolytlösungen im Falle der Sensoranwendungen dient. Die hier gezeigten Bauelemente sind Teil der SOI (Si on insulator) Transistoren-Familie mit Top- (Front) und Backgate und zeigen ein ambipolares Schaltverhalten. Die Topgates besitzen eine Omega-Geometrie mit 20nm dickem Al2O3 Dielektrikum, das Backgate eine planare Geometrie mit 400nm dickem SiO2 Dielektrikum. Der Einfluss beider Gates auf den Ladungstransport ist in einer statistischen Analyse der Transfer- und Output-Charaktersitiken für 7 unterschiedliche Si-Leitungskanallängen zusammengefasst. Eine nichtlineare Skalierung von Strom und Transkonduktanz mit Leitungskanallänge wurde aufgedeckt. Die Ströme im Aus-Zustand des Transistors sind durch das Vorhandensein gleichzeitiger p- als auch n-Typ Leitung bestimmt. Die Zunahme lateraler elektrischer Felder (LEF) führt zu einem Verlust des gleichzeitigen Ausschaltvermögens von p- und n-Strömen bei Ansteuerung mit einem einzelnen Gate. Dies äußert sich durch einen graduell verschlechterten Swing und höheren Strom im Aus-Zustand bei verringerter Leitungskanallänge (gleichbedeutend mit erhöhten LEF). Durch eine getrennte Ansteuerung von Schottky-Kontakt und Leitungskanal lassen sich p- and n-Leitung jedoch unabhängig voneinander kontrollieren. Beide Ladungsträgertypen können so simultan effizient unterdrückt werden, was zu einem geringen Strom im Aus-Zustand und einem hohen An/Aus- Stromverhältnis für alle untersuchten Kanallängen führt. Dies wird durch eine Gatearchitektur mit kombiniertem Top- und Backgate erreicht, bei der das Backgate den Ladungstransport durch den Schottky-Kontakt und dessen Serienwiderstand kontrolliert. Es wird gezeigt, dass ein konstant hoher Schottky-Kontakt bedingter Serienwiderstand die Transkonduktanz erheblich vermindert. Jedoch kann die Transkonduktanz im höchsten Maße durch eine Herabsetzung des Serienwiderstandes durch das Backgate gesteigert werden. Dies erhöht die Leistungsfähigkeit des SB-FET als Wandler deutlich. Al2O3 oberflächenbeschichtete SB-FETs wurden als pH-Sensoren erprobt, um deren Tauglichkeit und Signal-zu-Rausch-Verhältnis (SNR) zu evaluieren. Die Strommodulation pro pH-Wert konnte als direkt proportional zur Transkonduktanz bestätigt werden. Das Transistor bedingte SNR ist daher proportional zum Verhältnis von Transkonduktanz und Stromrauschen. Bei der Analyse des Transistorrauschens wurde festgestellt, dass dieses das SNR bereits bei einer niedrigeren Transkonduktanz als der maximal Möglichen limitiert. Eine statistische Auswertung zeigte, dass sowohl SB-FET Transkonduktanz als auch Stromrauschen proportional zu dem Transistorstrom skalieren. Somit ist deren Verhältnis unabhängig von der Nanodraht-Leitungskanallänge, im hier untersuchten Rahmen. Die geringe Ausschuss bei der Fabrikation der Nanodraht SB-FET-Parallelschaltungen ermöglicht eine Nutzung dieser Plattform für simple Logik und Biosensorelemente. Durch die geringen Prozesstemperaturen wurde die Grundlage geschaffen, komplementäre Logik mit undotiertem Si auf flexiblen Substraten zu fertigen. Vorangegangene Resultate zeigte eine verminderte Transkonduktanz durch die Präsenz von Schottky-Barrieren, was die Anwendbarkeit von SB-FETs als Wandler einschränkt. Diese Arbeit zeigt, dass eine elekrtische Entkopplung der Schottky-Kontakte zu einer Aufhebung dieser Beschränkung führen kann und somit den Einsatz von SB-FETs als praktikable Wandler für Sensoranwendungen zulässt.:Table of contents 11 List of figures 14 Abbreviations 15 Introduction 17 1 Fundamentals 23 1.1 Bottom up growth of Si nanowires 23 1.2 MOS and Schottky barrier transistor theory 25 1.2.1 MOSFET: Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor 25 1.2.2 Gate coupling 27 1.2.3 Oxide charges and flatband voltage 29 1.2.4 Charge trapping and charge-voltage hysteresis 30 1.2.5 Schottky barrier 32 1.2.6 SB-FETs 34 1.3 ISFET and BioFET technology 36 1.3.1 ISFET and BioFET working principle 37 1.3.2 Noise in ISFETs 41 2 Fabrication of Schottky barrier FET parallel arrays 43 2.1 Starting point of device fabrication 43 2.2 Parallel array transistor and sensor devices 44 2.2.1 Gold nano particle deposition 45 2.2.2 Bottom-up growth of Si nanowires 46 2.2.3 Nanowire deposition methods 48 Langmuir-Blodgett 48 Adhesion tape transfer 49 Contact printing/ smearing transfer 49 2.2.4 Nanowire oxidation 50 2.2.5 Chip design 51 2.2.6 UV lithography 53 2.2.7 Oxide removal and metal deposition 54 2.2.8 Nanowire silicidation 54 2.2.9 Ionsensitive, top gate dielectric and contact passivation 56 2.2.10 On chip reference electrode 57 3 Electrical characterization 59 3.1 Electrical characterization methods 59 3.2 Transfer characteristics 60 3.2.1 Silicidation: intruded silicide contacts 62 3.2.2 Scaling of the conduction channel length 63 3.2.3 Flatband voltage, built-in potentials, fixed and trapped oxide charge 71 3.2.4 Surface effects on the channel potential of back gated SB-FETs 72 3.3 Charge traps, hysteresis and Vth drifts 73 3.3.1 Screening of back gate fields by water molecules 74 3.3.2 Native oxides: unipolarity by water promoted charge trapping 76 3.3.3 Hysteresis for thermally grown oxide back and top gate devices 78 3.3.4 Hysteresis reduction by post anneal 79 3.4 Output characteristics 80 3.4.1 Unipolar output characteristics of nanowires with native oxide shell 80 3.4.2 Ambipolar output characteristics of nanowires with dry oxidized shell 82 3.5 Temperature dependence 84 3.6 Transistor noise 86 4 pH measurements 91 4.1 Experimental setup and data analysis method 91 4.2 Transfer function in electrolyte with liquid gate 92 4.3 Sensor response on pH 92 4.4 Sensor signal drifts 96 5 Schottky junction impact on sensitivity 97 5.1 Schottky junction electrostatic decoupling in solution 97 5.1.1 Experimental setup in solution 98 5.1.2 SU8/Al2O3 passivated junctions in electrolyte 98 5.2 Meander shaped gates without Schottky junction overlap 101 5.2.1 Separated gating of Schottky junctions and channel 102 5.2.2 Enhanced transducer performance by reduced Schottky junction resistance 104 6 Summary and Outlook 107 List of publications 111 Bibliography 126 Acknowledgements 127

Today’s communication systems are in need of spectrally efficient and high throughput techniques more than ever because of high data rate applications and the scarcity and expense of bandwidth. To cope with increased data rate demands, more base stations are needed which is not cost and energy efficient in cellular networks. It has been shown that wireless relay networks can provide higher network throughput and increase power efficiency with low complexity and cost. Furthermore, network resources can be utilized more efficiently by using network coding in relay networks. A wireless relay network in which multiple nodes exchange information with the help of relay node(s) is called a multi-way relay channel (MWRC). MWRCs are expected to be an integral part of next generation wireless standards. The main focus of this dissertation is the investigation of transmission schemes in an MWRC to improve the throughput and error performance. An MWRC with full data exchange is assumed in which a half-duplex relay station (RS) is the enabler of communication. One of the challenges with signal demodulation in MWRCs is the existence of ambiguous points in the received constellation. The first part of this dissertation investigates a transmission scheme for full data exchange in MWRC that benefits from these points and improves its throughput by 33% compared to traditional relaying. Then an MWRC is considered where a RS assists multiple nodes to exchange messages. A different approach is taken to avoid ambiguous points in the superposition of user symbols at the relay. This can be achieved by employing complex field network coding (CFNC) which results in full data exchange in two communication phases. CFNC may lead to small Euclidean distances between constellation points, resulting in poor error performance. To improve this performance, the optimal user precoding values are derived such that the power efficiency of the relay constellation is highest when channel state information is available at the users. The error performance of each user is then analyzed and compared with other relaying schemes. Finally, focusing on the uplink of multi-way relay systems, the performance of an MWRC is studied in which users can employ arbitrary modulation schemes and the links between the users and the relay have different gains, e.g. Rayleigh fading. Analytical expressions for the exact average pairwise error probability of these MWRCs are derived. The probability density function (PDF) and the mean of the minimum Euclidean distance of the relay constellation are closely approximated, and a tight upper bound on the symbol error probability is developed. / Graduate