The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the ultimate ground-based radio telescope. It is constructed in the Atacama Desert of Chile in South America, 5,000 m above sea level. ALMA is a partnership among East Asia, Europe, and North America. This paper briefly introduces the telescope, and describes the development of ALMA Band 10 (0.78-0.95 THz frequency band) receivers, which have the best performance in the world, and which are being installed in the total of 66 parabola antennas that compose ALMA. Some successful results related to the Band 10 receivers are also shown.
To guarantee the reliability of non-volatile memory, it is essential to establish a model. We clarified that control of the oxygen defect concentration in the conductive filament is necessary for maintaining desirable data from the resistive RAM. In addition, in order to keep a high concentration of oxygen defects even with low-current operations, we believed that it was necessary to scale down the conductive filament by using the load characteristics of the TaOx layer. By doing so, we were successful in obtaining a desirable data retention of 1000 hours or longer at 150°C with low-current operation at 80µA.
We study semiconductor devices for space science missions. Physical phenomena and device/circuit responses observed in radiation environments are reviewed. Radiation hardening techniques for advanced SOI devices such as an MPU are also shown.
Printable Pb perovskite solar cells have attracted interest because of a high power conversion efficiency that can reach 17%. However, the light harvesting region has been limited in the visible region to 800 nm. In order to increase the power conversion efficiency further, device structures harvesting energy from the near infrared area are desired. We have succeeded in harvesting light up to 1000 nm by using Sn/Pb cocktail perovskite materials. HOMO-LUMO energy levels were tunable and the stability in air was improved by changing the Sn/Pb ratio. When this was compared to a Pb perovskite solar cell with 14.3% efficiency, the decrease in shunt resistance was remarkable. In order to increase the efficiency further, a design for the charge separation interface that avoids charge recombination is needed.