To mitigate the effects of wind variability on power output, hybrid systems that combine offshore wind with other renewables are a promising option. In this work we explore the potential of combining offshore wind and solar power through a case study in Asturias (Spain)—a region where floating solutions are the only option for marine renewables due to the lack of shallow water areas, which renders bottom-fixed wind turbines inviable. Offshore wind and solar power resources and production are assessed based on high-resolution data and the technical specifications of commercial wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Relative to a typical offshore wind farm, a combined offshore wind–solar farm is found to increase the capacity and the energy production per unit surface area by factors of ten and seven, respectively. In this manner, the utilization of the marine space is optimized. Moreover, the power output is significantly smoother. To quantify this benefit, a novel Power Smoothing (PS) index is introduced in this work. The PS index achieved by combining floating offshore wind and solar PV is found to be of up to 63%. Beyond the interest of hybrid systems in the case study, the advantages of combining floating wind and solar PV are extensible to other regions where marine renewable energies are being considered.

This work presents a detailed study of the photothermal ablation of Kapton^® polyimide by a laser diode targeting its electrical conductivity enhancement. Laser-treated samples were structurally characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), as well as Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy. The results show that the laser-assisted ablation constitutes a simple one-step and environmental friendly method to induce graphene-derived structures on the surface of polyimide films. The laser-modified surface was also electrically characterized through the Transmission Line Method (TLM) aiming at the improvement of the conductivity of the samples by tuning the laser power and the extraction of the contact resistance of the electrodes. Once the laser-ablation process is optimized, the samples increase their conductivity up to six orders of magnitude, being comparable to that of graphene obtained by chemical vapor deposition or by the reduction of graphene-oxide. Additionally, we show that the contact resistance can be decreased down to promising values of ∼2 $\mathsf{\Omega }$ when using silver-based electrodes.

Finding an inexpensive and scalable method for the mass production of memristors will be one of the key aspects for their implementation in end-user computing applications. Herein, we report pioneering research on the fabrication of laser-lithographed graphene oxide memristors. The devices have been surface-fabricated through a graphene oxide coating on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate followed by a localized laser-assisted photo-thermal partial reduction. When the laser fluence is appropriately tuned during the fabrication process, the devices present a characteristic pinched closed-loop in the current-voltage relation revealing the unique fingerprint of the memristive hysteresis. Combined structural and electrical experiments have been conducted to characterize the raw material and the devices that aim to establish a path for optimization. Electrical measurements have demonstrated a clear distinction between the resistive states, as well as stable memory performance, indicating the potential of laser-fabricated graphene oxide memristors in resistive switching applications.

We report the fabrication and characterization of A2RAM capacitorless memory cell on silicon-on-insulator (SOI). Holes and electrons are separated in two superposed p- and n-channel regions. The retrograde p-n doping in a 36-nm-thick body has been successfully tailored by epitaxial regrowth, without any alteration of the CMOS/SOI process. We document the detailed device operation and its attractive performance in terms of current margin, retention time, and variability.

In 1971, Prof. L. Chua theoretically introduced a new circuit element, which exhibited a different behavior from that displayed by any of the three known passive elements: the resistor, the capacitor or the inductor. This element was called memristor, since its behavior corresponded to a resistor with memory. Four decades later, the concept of mem-elements was extended to the other two circuit elements by the definition of the constitutive equations of both memcapacitors and meminductors. Since then, the non-linear and non-volatile properties of these devices have attracted the interest of many researches trying to develop a wide range of applications. However, the lack of solid-state implementations of memcapacitors and meminductors make it necessary to rely on circuit emulators for the use and investigation of these elements in practical implementations. On this basis, this review gathers the current main alternatives presented in the literature for the emulation of both memcapacitors and meminductors. Different circuit emulators have been thoroughly analyzed and compared in detail, providing a wide range of approaches that could be considered for the implementation of these devices in future designs.