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Consumers have shown a willingness to pay a premium for products labeled as "FT" and a preference for retailers that are seen to be more generous to their suppliers/employees. A FT product is essentially a bundle of a base product and a donation to the supplier (e.g., a coffee farmer). An altruistic rational consumer will only choose this bundle if doing so is less expensive than buying the base product and making a direct donation. For FT to be sustainable either in a competitive equilibrium or in a monopolistic environment this bundling must yield an efficiency. This efficiency is generated in the following context. A supplier's investment reduces the retailer's cost or boosts the final product's quality, but this investment is not immediately observable and cannot be enforced, hence there exists a moral hazard problem. In this environment, the altruism of the consumer can facilitate a more efficient contract: by paying the supplier more the retailer can both extract more consumer surplus and increase the level of contracted investment, while preserving the supplier's incentive compatibility constraint. We assess our model in the context of the coffee industry.

The tunable microstrip patch antenna using electrostatic force is presented. The antenna was patterned on the top side of a (poly-ethylene terephthalte) film. When a DC bias voltage is applied between the flexible patch and the fixed ground plane, the flexible patch bends downwards towards the fixed ground plane owing to the electrostatic force of attraction. The bending of the flexible patch decreases the air-gap, and consequently the effective permittivity of the antenna is increased. By increasing effective permittivity, the resonant frequency is shifted downwards. For the tunable microstrip patch antennas of 6, 8 and 10 GHz at DC bias 150 V, the measured tuning ranges were 217.04, 242.58 and 365.63 MHz, respectively.Introduction: In recent years there has been considerable interest in the development of tunable antennas because of the increasing number of global wireless standards [1][2][3]. Multiband antennas are needed in order to achieve miniaturisation in mobile and wireless data communication systems such as PCS, Bluetooth, and wireless local-area network (LAN) applications. In [4], the resonant frequency of the microstrip patch antenna was tuned using a varactor diode at both radiating edges. In [5], tunable microstrip antennas using piezoelectric substrate such as a PZT, LiNbO 3 and quartz were proposed. However, the frequency shifts in these papers are not enough for wireless LAN.In this Letter, we propose a new type of tunable microstrip patch antenna using electrostatic force. The antenna with the air-gap structure was fabricated with a flexible substrate. When the air-gap thickness deforms by applying a DC bias voltage between the patch and the ground plane, the resonant frequency is shifted as well. Measurement and simulation of the frequency shifts were carried out and good agreement has been obtained.

This study examines the effects of bottom electrodes for metal ferroelectric metal (MFM) capacitor applications. We investigated the following parameters of bottom electrodes and Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 (PZT) thin films: substrate temperature, rf power, gas flow rate, Ar/O2 ratio, electrode material, and post-annealing effect. Bottom electrodes grown at 300°C for Pt and 200°C for RuO2 exhibited a film resistivity of 10-4 Ω·cm, had a surface roughness of approximately 55 Å and a preferred crystal orientation. Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatments on a Pt electrode at 600°C for 30 s improved the resistivity to 5×10-6 Ω·cm and generated the (111) preferred crystal orientation. PZT films exhibited a strong PZT (101) peak for an optimized Pt bottom electrode and (111), (200), (112) planes without preferred PZT orientations for the RuO2 electrode. A well-fabricated Pd/PZT/Pt capacitor showed a leakage current density in the order of 6×10-5 A/cm2, a dielectric constant (ε r) of 365, a remanent polarization (P r) of 27 µC/cm2, and a coercive field (E c) of 50.5 kV/cm. This paper discusses the bottom electrode properties as well as their recommended conditions in memory device applications of thin-film PZT capacitors.

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