Hiroshi Onoda

The COVID‐19 crisis has had a great impact on Japanese society. The author is rapidly going online and trying to make the transition to a new way of life. This study discusses the topics before and after the COVID‐19 pandemic in Japan. Then, smart approaches to waste management for post‐COVID‐19 smart cities in Japan are described by illustrating the results of the author's research group. Specifically, the author states that virtual reality can be an effective solution for remote education. The

Formation of aluminum-silicon (Al-Si) alloy/titanium nitride (TiN) layered structures and their electromigration (EM) performance have been investigated. The crystallographic structure of the TiN film changes with the sputter-deposition conditions. A large negative substrate bias in reactive sputtering induces a structural transition in the TiN film. The crystal orientation normal to the film surface is easily controlled from the 〈111〉 to the 〈200〉 direction. The crystallographic orientation of

Forests cover two-thirds of Japan’s land area, and woody biomass is attracting attention as one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the country. The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Act came into effect in 2012, and since then, woody biomass power generation has spread rapidly. Gasification power generation, which can generate electricity on a relatively small scale, has attracted a lot of attention. However, the technical issues of this technology remain poorly defined. This paper aims to cla

Interfacial reactions in Al-alloy/Ti/borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG)/Si-substrate structures have been investigated up to the annealing temperature of 550° C. The interfacial reaction changes according to the annealing temperature. Below 500° C, a reaction between Al alloy and Ti occurs, and the main reaction product is Al 3 Ti. The underlying BPSG film remains almost inert. At 550° C, the substrate BPSG film is no longer inert and a reaction between Al alloy, Ti and underlying BPSG film takes

Effects of insulator surface roughness on the overlying aluminum alloy film properties and electromigration performance in Al alloy/Ti insulator layered interconnects have been investigated. Insulator surface roughness changes the roughness and crystallographic orientation of Al/Ti layered films formed on the insulator. In particular, the effect is prominent in the case of high-temperature sputtering of Al alloy films. A rough insulator surface deteriorates the roughness and crystallographic ori

Low-voltage computed tomographic angiography (CTA) is a highly effective technique to reduce contrast media volume. We sought to examine the suitability of low tube voltage CTA with a reduced contrast media volume protocol using third-generation 192-slice dual-source CT in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). CTA was performed to aid TAVI planning for 40 consecutive patients with severe aortic stenosis. For the first 10 patients (120/100 kV group), we used a conven

Si-gate CMOS inverter chains and 1/8 dynamic frequency dividers have been fabricated on a Si/CaF <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> /Si structure. A high-quality heteroepitaxial Si/CaF <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> /Si structure was formed by successive molecular-beam epitaxy of CaF <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www

Effects of insulator surface roughness on the overlying aluminum-alloy film crystallographic orientation in Al-alloy/Ti/insulator layered structures have been studied. Tetra-ethyl-ortho-silicate- O 3 ( TEOS-O 3 ) based SiO 2 and its chemical-mechanical-polished (CMP) films have been used in order to change the surface roughness of underlying insulators. Ti(002) and (011) peak intensities in X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra increase when the underlying insulator has a smooth surface, and this orie