Improvement of n-type OTFT electrical stability by gold electrode modification

N-type organic thin film transistors (OTFT) containing modified gold electrodes have been fabricated to investigate the influence of the self assembled monolayer on the transistor characteristics. We report on the effect of drain/source modification by thiol derivatives on the performances, electrical parameters uniformity and electrical stability of C₆₀ transistors. In the literature, electrical instability is often attributed to organic semiconductor (OSC), OSC-insulator interface and insulator. We found here that OSC-metal interfaces affect dramatically the operational stability for bottom gate/bottom contact structure. These effects have been attributed to morphological evolution at the interface metal-OSC induced by the self-assembled monolayers.     

Tunable permittivity in polymer composites filled with Si-based semiconductors by regulating induced polarization

Induced polarization shows a significant influence on dielectric permittivity of 0–3 polymer composites containing Si-based semi-conductive fillers. The nature of induced polarization is the increased electric conductivity or decreased band gap in Si-based semi-conductive fillers. In this work, the dependence of induced polarization onto particle size of α-SiC filler together with polarity of polymer matrix and Si-based semi-conductive filler has been elaborately investigated by detecting the permittivity of composites. It was found that increasing the grain size of SiC filler, improving the polarity of polymer matrix and reducing the band-gap of Si-based semi-conductive filler could favor the enhancement of the overall induced polarity in the composites. As a result, the significantly improved dielectric permittivity of composites higher than both of the neat polymer and filler was observed depending on the constituents of the composites. The highest dielectric permittivity of ~215@1 kHz was achieved in poly(vinyl alcohol) based composite filled with 60 vol% of 12 µm SiC particles. The dielectric permittivity of these 0–3 composites could be well tuned in a wide range through altering their constituents. This work might open a facile route to obtain the promising high-performance dielectric composite materials by regulating the degree of induced polarization.     

Design of and experiment on the polarization dehazing imaging system

In view of the requirement of image quality, integration level and real-time application of the imaging systems under fog weather, this paper reports a polarization imaging system with a dehazing ability. The differential signal is converted by FPGA, and a highly integrated CMOS imaging circuit is built based on the internal PLL of the image sensor and the CamLink protocol. The obtained image is inversed by stokes equations, and the real-time dehazing algorithm is realized by the built-in DSP module. The total size of the polarization imaging system is 117mm×117mm×126mm, and the weight of the system is 1.2kg. An imaging experiment was made under fog weather, and the dehazing ability of the imaging system is proved by the contrast of the original image and the dehazed image's histogram and RGB distribution. Experimental results show that the imaging system can stably obtain a color dehazed image at 2048×2048@180Hz.     

Resistance Analyses for Ultrafiltration in Tubular Membrane Module

Abstract

The resistance analyses for ultrafiltration of macromolecular solutions by the resistances-in-series model and the modified gel-polarization model, respectively, have been extended to the turbulent ultrafiltration system in this study. The experiments are carried out by ultrafiltrating dextran T500 solutions in a tubular membrane module with membrane material of ZrO₂-TiO₂/carbon. It is found that the permeate fluxes are predicted very well by these models for both laminar and turbulent systems, and the resistance caused by the concentration polarization/gel layer (R _p) can be reduced by increasing the crossflow velocity on the membrane surface. Analysis by the resistances-in-series model showed that, R _p decreases with flow velocity with exponents of 0.49 and 0.99 for the laminar system and the turbulent system, respectively.     

Investigation on the inhibition effect of aspartic acid and Zn2+ ions on carbon steel surface in aqueous solution

A protective film has been formed on the surface of carbon steel in aqueous environment using a synergistic mixture of an environment-friendly inhibitor, aspartic acid, and Zn²⁺. The synergistic effect of aspartic acid (AS) in controlling corrosion of carbon steel has been investigated by gravimetric studies in the presence of Zn²⁺. The formulation consisting of AS and Zn²⁺ has an excellent inhibition efficiency. The results of potentiodynamic polarization revealed that the formulations are of mixed-type inhibitor. Impedance studies of the metal/solution interface indicated that the surface film is highly protective against the corrosion of carbon steel in the aqueous environment. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic analysis of the protective film showed the presence of the elements iron, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and zinc. The spectra of these elements in the surface film showed the presence of oxides/hydroxides of iron(III), Zn(OH)₂, and [Fe(III)/Fe(II)–Zn(II)-AS] complex. Further, surface characterization techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy are used to ascertain the nature of the protective film formed on the carbon steel surface.     

Growth of iron diselenide nanorods on graphene oxide nanosheets as advanced electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Advanced electrocatalysts for the fabrication of sustainable hydrogen from water splitting are innermost to energy research. Herein, we report the growth of iron diselenide (FeSe₂) nanorods on graphene oxide (GO) sheets using two-step process viz., simple hydrothermal reduction and followed by wet chemical process. The orthorhombic phase of FeSe₂ incorporated GO nanosheet was developed as a low-cost and efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by water splitting. The phase purity, crystalline structure, surface morphology and elemental composition of the synthesized samples have been investigated by UV–visible absorption spectroscopy (UV–vis), fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS). Voltammetry and Tafel polarization methods have been utilized to assess the performance of various weight ratio of GO nanosheet in FeSe₂ nanorods towards H₂ evolution. Detailed electrochemical investigations revealed that the 30% FeSe₂/GO composite showed a tremendous electrocatalytic HER activity in acidic medium with high cathodic current density of 9.68 mA/cm² at η = 250 mV overpotential and with a Tafel slope of 64 mV/dec. The 30% FeSe₂/GO composite offers a high synergistic effect towards HER activity, which is mainly due to high electrochemical active catalytic sites, low charge-transfer resistance and enhanced electrocatalytic performances of H₂ production. The present analysis revealed the possible application of FeSe₂/GO composite as a promising low-cost alternative to platinum based electrocatalysts for H₂ production.     

Annular‐ring slot antenna designs with circular polarization radiation

The design of a microstrip‐fed annular‐ring slot antenna (ARSA) with circular polarization (CP) radiation is initially studied. To obtain CP radiation with broad 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth that can cover the WiMAX 2.3 GHz (2305–2320 MHz, 2345–2360 MHz) and WLAN 2.4 GHz (2400–2480 MHz) bands, a novel technique of extending an inverted L‐shaped slot from the bottom section of the annular‐ring is proposed. To suppress the harmonic modes induced by the CP ARSA, the technique of integrating a defected ground structure into the annular‐ring slot is further introduced. From the measured results, 10‐dB impedance bandwidth and 3‐dB AR bandwidth of 44.86 and 9.68% were achieved by the proposed harmonic suppressed CP ARSA. Furthermore, average gain and radiation efficiency of ～4.7 dBic and 71%, respectively, were also exhibited across the bands of interest. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:337–345, 2015.