“Radioisotope Thin-Film Powered Microsystems” describes high energy density microbatteries required for compact long lifetime wireless sensor Microsystems. These microbatteries are presented alongside theories employing high energy density radioisotope thin films in actuating novel electromechanical energy converters. Also discussed are novel wireless sensor architectures that enable long lifetime wireless sensors Microsystems with minimal amounts of radioisotope fuel used. Ultra low-power beta radiation counting clocks are described in order to illustrate the application of radioisotope thin films in realizing the deployment of various components of Microsystems. “Radioisotope Thin-Film Powered Microsystems” also presents the latest work on 3D silicon electrovoltaic converters and energy density microbatteries required for high-power Microsystems.

This unique resource provides a detailed understanding of the options for harvesting energy from localized, renewable sources to supply power to autonomous wireless systems. You are introduced to a variety of types of autonomous system and wireless networks and discover the capabilities of existing battery-based solutions, RF solutions, and fuel cells. The book focuses on the most promising harvesting techniques, including solar, kinetic, and thermal energy. You also learn the implications of the energy harvesting techniques on the design of the power management electronics in a system. This in-depth reference discusses each energy harvesting approach in detail, comparing and contrasting its potential in the field.

Porous silicon is rapidly attracting increasing interest from various fields, including optoelectronics, microelectronics, photonics, medicine, sensor and energy technologies, chemistry, and biosensing. This nanostructured and biodegradable material has a range of unique properties that make it ideal for many applications. This book, the third of a

Augmented Materials and Smart Objects investigates the issues required to ensure technology platforms capable of being seamlessly integrated into everyday objects. In particular, it deals with the requirements for integrated computation and MEMs sensors, system-in-a-package solutions, and multi-chip modules. On top of this, the publication’s 500 pages cover the impact of the trend towards embedded microelectronic electronics sub-systems, novel assembly techniques for autonomous MEMs sensors, and practical performance issues that are key to the AmI concept.

The book addresses the need to investigate new approaches to lower energy requirement in multiple application areas and serves as a guide into emerging circuit technologies. It explores revolutionary device concepts, sensors, and associated circuits and architectures that will greatly extend the practical engineering limits of energy-efficient computation. The book responds to the need to develop disruptive new system architecutres, circuit microarchitectures, and attendant device and interconnect technology aimed at achieving the highest level of computational energy efficiency for general purpose computing systems. Features Discusses unique technologies and material only available in specialized journal and conferences Covers emerging applications areas, such as ultra low power communications, emerging bio-electronics, and operation in extreme environments Explores broad circuit operation, ex. analog, RF, memory, and digital circuits Contains practical applications in the engineering field, as well as graduate studies Written by international experts from both academia and industry

The author is ready to assert that practically none of the readers of this book will ever happen to deal with large doses of radiation. But the author, without a shadow of a doubt, claims that any readers of this book, regardless of gender, age, financial situation, type of professional activity, and habits, are actually exposed to low doses of radiation throughout their life. This book is devoted to the effect of small doses on the body. To understand the basic effects of radiation on humans, the book contains the necessary information from an atomic, molecular and nuclear physics, as well as from biochemistry and biology. Special attention is paid to the issues that are either not considered or discussed very briefly in existing literature. Examples include the ionization of inner atomic shells that play an essential role in radiological processes, and the questions of transformation of the energy of ionizing radiation in matter. The benefits of ionizing radiation to mankind is reflected in a wide range of radiation technologies used in science, industry, agriculture, culture, art, forensics, and, what is the most important application, medicine. Radiation: Fundamentals, Applications, Risks and Safety provides information on the use of radiation in modern life, its usefulness and indispensability. Experiments on the effects of small doses on bacteria, fungi, algae, insects, plants and animals are described. Human medical experiments are inhuman and ethically flawed. However, during the familiarity of mankind with ionizing radiation, a large number of population groups were subject to accumulation, exposed to radiation at doses of small but exceeding the natural background radiation. This book analyzes existing, real-life radiation results from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and examines studies of radiation effect on patients, radiologists, crews of long-distant flights and astronauts, on miners of uranium copies, on workers of nuclear industry and on militaries, exposed to ionizing radiation on a professional basis, and on the population of the various countries receiving environmental exposure. The author hopes that this book can mitigate the impact of radiation phobia, which prevails in the public consciousness over the last half century. - Explores the science of radiation and the effects of radiation technologies and biological processes - Analyzes the elementary processes of ionization and excitation - Summarizes information about inner shells ionization and its impact on matter and biological structures - Discusses quantum concepts in biology and clarifies the importance of epigenetics in radiological processes - Includes case studies focusing on humans irradiated by low doses of radiation and its effects