Plasma processing plays an important role in manufacturing leading-edge electronic devices. Fine patterns with anisotropic features can be achieved in metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) using reactive ion etching (RIE). However, RIE degrades the performance and reliability of MOSFETs, generating defects in materials such as crystalline Si substrates and dielectric films. This negative aspect is defined as plasma process-induced damage (PID), which is primarily categorized into three mechanisms—physical, electrical, and photon-irradiation interactions. This article provides a brief overview of PID modeling and characterization techniques, focusing on the physical interactions and offering future perspectives. As pointed out, electrical characterizations employing specifically designed devices can help obtain an understanding of PID mechanisms and design future electronic devices.

In the Japanese Island, typhoons, heavy rains, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural phenomena occur frequently. Thus, protection from natural phenomena requires an understanding of past disaster situations, to assess potential disaster risks and raise disaster prevention awareness. Knowing the characteristics of natural phenomena that cause disasters is useful, necessitating analytical techniques for a scientific understanding. To characterize the extent of active faults that cause inland earthquakes, this paper introduces technologies that clarify when, where, and how far they occurred. Specifically, these technologies include radiocarbon dating, tephra analysis, luminescence dating, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) laser survey, methane gas measurement, ground-penetrating radar exploration, and magnetic susceptibility measurement.

The development of a solution-based atmospheric pressure functional thin-film fabrication method has attracted attention from the viewpoint of energy conservation. In particular, mist chemical vapor deposition (CVD) can synthesize various thin films, including thin films that are difficult to synthesize using conventional methods. Researchers and research institutes using mist CVD are not limited to Japan but are deployed around the world. This research introduction describes mist CVD and discusses research on the state of mist droplets in a reactor. This report informs readers about one area where mist CVD can be used effectively, which can only be understood by understanding the principles of mist CVD and considering its characteristics.

Water ice has been regarded as a “p-type semiconductor,” with the excess protons in ice serving as the positive charge carrier. Although ice is considered to be an insulator at very low temperatures, we recently found that ice has electrical conductivity via negative charge delivery even at temperatures around 10 K when simultaneously irradiated with ultraviolet photons and electrons, indicating that ice serves as an “n-type semiconductor” as well. Based on experimental and theoretical investigations, we propose that the carrier of the negative charge conductivity is the OH⁻ ion, called the proton-hole, and OH⁻ moves toward the interior of ice by repeated proton abstractions from neighboring H₂O molecules, namely the proton-hole transfer mechanism.