One can assist to significant changes in the organisation of manufacturing systems during the last years. Lean production, network enterprise or the virtual enterprises are reference concepts of the re-organisation of manufacturing systems. Some authors mention a new enterprise paradigm, of generalisation of intelligent manufacture, organised in networks and assisted by information and communication technologies. The first part of the paper develops a critical approach to the illusion connected to these concepts, calling the attention to the diversity of the type of relationships among firms. If virtual enterprises (VE) are networks of firms with intensive usage of ICT, one can verify a predominance of a technicist perspective. This one considers that the development of VEs is a technological problem, of development and management of information systems, and of entrepreneurial share of different databases. Sociology can be useful, even fundamental in an anthropocentric approach. The last part of the paper is on the Portuguese situation in the automobile sector, approaching the types of entrepreneurial organisation.

In order to understand the kinetics of formation of interface/surface states and its correlation on the final device performance, a preliminary study was performed on MIS structures, before and after surface oxidation/passivation, using different oxidation techniques and oxides: thermal (in air), chemical (in H2O2) and oxygen plasma. The devices used in this work are based on a glass/Cr/a-Si:H(n+)/a-Si:H(i)/SiOx/Pd structures, where the amorphous silicon intrinsic layer (i a-Si:H) with a photosensitivity of 107 was deposited by a modified plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) triode system. The electrical properties of a-Si:H MIS structures were investigated by measuring their diode current-voltage characteristics in the dark and under illumination as well as the spectral response, as a function of the various oxidation techniques. Infrared spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry were used as a complementary tool to characterise the oxidised surface.

Formulas for the total ionization cross section by electron impact based on the binary-encounter-dipole (BED) model and its simpler version, the binary-encounter-Bethe (BEB) model are extended to relativistic incident electron energies. Total ionization cross sections for the hydrogen and helium atoms from the new relativistic formulas are compared to experimental data. Relativistic effects double the total ionization cross section of H and He at incident electron energy 300 keV and dominate the cross section thereafter. A simple modification of the original BED-BEB formulas is proposed for applications to ion targets and inner-shell electrons of neutral atoms and molecules. The relativistic and nonrelativistic BEB cross sections are compared to the K-shell ionization cross sections by electron impact for the carbon, argon, nickel, niobium, and silver atoms. For carbon and argon, the relativistic effects are small, and both forms of the BEB cross sections agree well with available experimental data. For the nickel and heavier atoms, the relativistic increase of cross sections becomes noticeable from about 100 keV and higher in the incident electron energy. The empirical formula by Casnati et al. [J. Phys. B 15, 155 (1982)] after correcting for relativistic effects as shown by Quarles [Phys. Rev. A 13, 1278 (1976)] agrees well with the BEB cross sections for light atoms. However, the peak values of the Casnati cross sections become higher than the relativistic BEB peak cross sections as the atomic number increases. The BEB model is also applied to the total ionization cross section of the xenon atom, and the theory agrees well with experiments at low incident electron energies, but disagrees with experiment at relativistic incident energies.

Large area thin film position sensitive detectors based on amorphous silicon technology have been prepared on polyimide substrates using the conventional plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition. The sensors have been characterized by spectral response, light intensity dependence and linearity measurements in a bent state in order to evaluate the properties in real working conditions. The obtained one-dimensional (1D) position sensors with 10 mm width and 20 mm length present a non-linearity of ±1% which are comparable to the ones produced on glass substrates.

This paper deals with a new design method for the interfaces of a-Si:H pin solar cells that improves the stability and performances of devices deposited in a single batch chamber process. The method consists in removing a deposited sacrificial layer placed between the p/i and/or i/n interfaces by etching. This layer is an absorber of defects and impurities that are introduced in the interfaces, mainly from the chamber walls cross-contamination and the substrate surface. The results achieved increase the device fill factor and short circuit current density, respectively towards 75% and 16.3 mA cm-2, with a final efficiency of about 10%, before light soaking experiments. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Large area thin film position sensitive detectors based on amorphous silicon technology have been prepared on polyimide substrates using the conventional plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique. The sensors have been characterised by spectral response, illuminated I-V characteristics and position detectability measurements. The obtained one dimensional position sensors with 5 mm wide and 60 mm long present a maximum spectral response at 600 nm, an open circuit voltage of 0.6 V° and a position detectability with a correlation of 0.9989 associated to a standard deviation of 1 × 10-2, comparable to those ones produced on glass substrates. The surface of the sensors at each stage of fabrication was investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy.