Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences Technical Sciences

An integrated Z-source inverter for the single-phase single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic system is proposed in this paper. The inverter integrates three functional blocks including maximum-power-point-tracking, step-up/down DC-side voltage and output grid-connected current. According to the non-minimum-phase characteristic presented in DC-side and the functional demands of the system, two constant-frequency sliding-mode controllers with integral compensation are proposed to guarantee the system robustness. By using two controllers, the effects caused by the non-minimum-phase characteristic are mitigated. Under the circumstance of that the input voltage or the grid-connected current changes suddenly, the notches/protrusions following the over-shoot/ under-shoot of the DC-bus voltage are eliminated. The quality of grid-connected current is ensured. Also, a small-signal modelling method is employed to analyze the close-loop system. A 300W prototype is built in the laboratory. A solar-array simulator (SAS) is used to verify the systematic responses in the experiment. The correctness and validity of the inverter and proposed control algorithm are proved by simulation and experimental results.

This article presents combined approach to analog electronic circuits testing by means of evolutionary methods (genetic algorithms) and using some aspects of information theory utilisation and wavelet transformation. Purpose is to find optimal excitation signal, which maximises probability of fault detection and location. This paper focuses on most difficult case where very few (usually only input and output) nodes of integrated circuit under test are available.

Methane (CH4) sensitivity of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film has been studied in the present work. The sensor element comprises

of a chemically fabricated ZnO semiconducting layer and a layer of palladium (Pd) as catalyst. The catalyst layer was formed on the surface of semiconducting ZnO following a wet chemical process from palladium chloride (PdCl2) solution. Fundamental features of a sensor element e.g. sensitivity, response time and recovery process has been studied. The effect of operating temperature on performance of the sensor material has been investigated and a choice of optimum temperature was made at around 200oC. The sensor element exhibited reasonable sensitivity of about 86% at this temperature in presence of 1 vol% methane (CH4) in air.

The presented article is a report on progress in photovoltaic devices and material processing. A cadmium telluride solar cell as one of the most attractive option for thin-film polycrystalline cell constructions is presented. All typical manufacturing steps of this device, including recrystalisation and junction activation are explained. A new potential field of application for this kind of device - the BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) is named and discussed. All possible configuration options for this application, according to material properties and exploitation demands are considered. The experimental part of the presented paper is focused on practical implementation of the high- temperature polymer foil as the substrate of the newly designed device by the help of ICSVT (Isothermal Close Space Vapour Transport) technique. The evaluation of the polyester and polyamide foils according to the ICSVT/CSS manufacturing process parameters is described and discussed. A final conclusion on practical verification of these materials is also given.

In this work synthesis, sintering processes and properties of three groups of perovskite-type ceramics utilized in chosen electronic applications are briefly described. The first group includes high permittivity dielectrics based on relaxor ferroelectrics and new leadfree ceramics, destined for bulk and thick film capacitors. The second group comprises ceramics for low and high temperature thermistors and the third one nonstoichiometric conducting compounds containing doped SrMnO3 and SrCoO3, tested as electrode materials for solid state cells.

The paper deals with the problem of electromagnetic field analysis for linear, cylindrical and spherical electromechanical converters at synchronous state of work. There are considered synchronous motor with windings on moving part (rotor, carriage) and with permanent magnets thereon. The electromagnetic field is determined analytically with the help of separation method proposed for each problem. The boundary conditions are formulated for electromechanical converters linear, cylindrical and spherically shaped. The results obtained can be used as benchmark for electromagnetic field numerical analysis and force/torque calculations.

The influence of bandwidth of OPA on frequency characteristics was investigated in this paper. The analysis of frequency properties was carried out for two exemplary structures. For operational amplifier it was assumed a typical frequency macromodel with 1-pole characteristic. Deformation of the frequency characteristic and the structure bandwidth in dependence on amplifiers bandwidth were analyzed. It was proved that shape of the characteristic to some degree depends on some elements values. The procedure was proposed for optimal choice of the values of (RC) elements, that ensures the characteristic is most approached to ideal one. Optimal values of these (RC) elements ensure that the characteristic of structures do not have any distortion in all frequencies, and these structures can be used in high frequency applications.

The paper deals with circuits, composed of bipolar transistors, diodes, resistors and independent voltage sources, having multiple DC solutions. An algorithm for tracing temperature characteristics, expressing the output signal in terms of the chip temperature, is developed. It is based on the efficient method for finding all the DC solutions sketched in this paper. The algorithm gives complete characteristics which are multivalued and usually composed of disconnected branches. On the other hand the characteristics provided by SPICE are fragmentary, lose some branches or exhibit apparent hysteresis.

We propose a novel magnetic field sensitive semiconductor device, viz., Horizontally-Split-Drain Magnetic-Field Sensitive Field-Effect Transistor (HSDMAGFET) which can be used to measure or detect steady or variable magnetic fields. Operating principle of the transistor is based on one of the galvanomagnetic phenomena and a Gradual Channel Detachment Effect (GCDE) and is very similar to that of Popovic and Baltes's SDMAGFET. The predicted absolute sensitivity of the new sensor can reach as high value as 1000 V/T. Furthermore, due to its original structure, the spatial resolution of the new MAGFET is very high which makes this device especially useful in reading magnetically encoded data or magnetic pattern recognition.