Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

The Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program (OCSEAP) is a multidisciplinary environmental study that is designed to provide timely inputs which are needed for decisions on off-shore oil and gas development. Approximately 100 projects in the Program address six tasks that are universal to environmental prediction and assessment. These include determination of predevelopment contamination, anticipation of future contaminants, transport of contaminants through the environment to receptors, location and character of biological populations, and the effects on organisms of exposure to a contaminant. The sixth task identifies and characterizes the various physical hazards which the environment poses to human safety, installations, and oil and gas operations.

It is possible to produce environmental assessments in an efficient, economical manner by the careful advance specification of future information needs, the collection of the pertinent data into a single set of sectoral reports, and subsequent analysis of the information on a case-by-case basis as individual projects arise. The procedure for this, in six main steps, can be as follows:

A development scenario is produced that is a description of the chronological sequence of economic, industrial, and agricultural, activities. The scenario is studied to identify potential issues and conflicts. A list of basic questions and more specific sub-questions that follow from the issues and conflicts is then derived. The data to answer those questions are then collected and organized into sectoral reports. Later, as each assessment need arises, these sectoral reports will be found to contain the information that is required. Finally, the assessment is produced from the sectoral reports and leads to a decision on which action is taken.

The mechanics of the above procedure include: surveys of a wide range of information sources, each survey using sources which are appropriate to the step that is being taken; use of a standing core assessment group; use of common base-maps and formats; and well-planned interdisciplinary meetings.

As well as producing assessments at short notice, the procedure can be expected to provide priorities for research, and eventually to lead to due insertion of environmental considerations into national planning during the planning stage itself.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2009 in Richmond, Virginia, USA, July 26 – July 30, 2009

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, August 5 – August 9, 2007

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, July 30 – August 3, 2005

CoSi2 has emerged as the silicide of choice for 0.18μm CMOS technologies and below. Robustness and scaling-performance of an integrated CoSi2-module, however, is shown to critically depend upon careful optimization of each individual process-step. The impact of surface-preparation, capping layer, initial Co-thickness and thermal processing will be discussed. The scalability of an optimized process meeting all major requirements for application to ULSI devices is demonstrated for gate-length down to 60nm.

The effect of Ar sputtering, in combination with different dielectric cappings, on the disordering of AlGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum wells was studied. It was found that the combination of Ar sputter etch and SiO2 capping provided the strongest enhancement in disordering. This effect generates enough change in refractive index to produce an index guided laser.