High‐Performance n‐Channel Thin‐Film Field‐Effect Transistors Based on a Nanowire‐Forming Polymer

A new electrontransport polymer, poly{[N,N′‐dioctylperylene‐3,4,9,10‐bis(dicarboximide)‐1,7(6)‐diyl]‐alt‐[(2,5‐bis(2‐ethyl‐hexyl)‐1,4‐phenylene)bis(ethyn‐2,1‐diyl]} (PDIC8‐EB), is synthesized. In chloroform, the polymer undergoes self‐assembly, forming a nanowire suspension. The nanowire's optical and electrochemical properties, morphological structure, and field‐effect transistor (FET) characteristics are investigated. Thin films fabricated from a PDIC8‐EB nanowire suspension are composed of ordered nanowires and ordered and amorphous non‐nanowire phases, whereas films prepared from a homogeneous PDIC8‐EB solution consist of only the ordered and amorphous non‐nanowire phases. X‐ray scattering experiments suggest that in both nanowires and ordered phases, the PDIC8 units are laterally stacked in an edge‐on manner with respect to the film plane, with full interdigitation of the octyl chains, and with the polymer backbones preferentially oriented within the film plane. The ordering and orientations are significantly enhanced through thermal annealing at 200 °C under inert conditions. The polymer film with high degree of structural ordering and strong orientation yields a high electron mobility (0.10 ± 0.05 cm² V^?1 s^?1), with a high on/off ratio (3.7 × 10⁶), a low threshold voltage (8 V), and negligible hysteresis (0.5 V). This study demonstrates that the polymer in the nanowire suspension provides a suitable material for fabricating the active layers of high‐performance n‐channel FET devices via a solution coating process.     

Unavailability due to rain of VSAT networks operating in Ka and Ku bands in Brazil

The unavailability due to rain of VSAT star networks operating on Ku and Ka bands in Brazil is analysed in this paper. A large number of simulations performed over the Earth–space links resulting from combinations of four (real and hypothetical) satellites with six Brazilian Earth stations provide a good characterization of the rain unavailability in tropical and equatorial regions subject to heavy rainfall and thunderstorms. The simulations also compare the influence on the estimated unavailability of the use of two different ITU‐R rain attenuation models and two values (calculated and measured) for the rainfall rate exceeded during 10^?2% of the time, the climatic parameter in the models, in addition to the link polarization employed. The results obtained point to VSAT star networks as a practical solution to provide telecommunications services to remote communities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multifunctional Mo–N/C@MoS2 Electrocatalysts for HER,OER, ORR,and Zn–Air Batteries

Replacement of noble‐metal platinum catalysts with cheaper, operationally stable, and highly efficient electrocatalysts holds huge potential for large‐scale implementation of clean energy devices. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and metal dichalcogenides (MDs) offer rich platforms for design of highly active electrocatalysts owing to their flexibility, ultrahigh surface area, hierarchical pore structures, and high catalytic activity. Herein, an advanced electrocatalyst based on a vertically aligned MoS₂ nanosheet encapsulated Mo–N/C framework with interfacial Mo–N coupling centers is reported. The hybrid structure exhibits robust multifunctional electrocatalytic activity and stability toward the hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction, and oxygen reduction reaction. Interestingly, it further displays high‐performance of Zn–air batteries as a cathode electrocatalyst with a high power density of ≈196.4 mW cm^?2 and a voltaic efficiency of ≈63 % at 5 mA cm^?2, as well as excellent cycling stability even after 48 h at 25 mA cm^?2. Such outstanding electrocatalytic properties stem from the synergistic effect of the distinct chemical composition, the unique three‐phase active sites, and the hierarchical pore framework for fast mass transport. This work is expected to inspire the design of advanced and performance‐oriented MOF/MD hybrid‐based electrocatalysts for wider application in electrochemical energy devices.     

1‐Ethynyl Ethers as Efficient Thermal Crosslinking System for Hole Transport Materials in OLEDs

A new crosslinking concept based on a thermally activated one‐component building block with thermally initiated crosslinkable ynol ether is introduced. For polystyrene matrices with glass transition temperatures below the reaction temperature, full conversion is reached within 30 min at 160 °C without employing any catalysts or co‐reactants. The ynol ethers are chemically inert toward a variety of reaction conditions (e.g., radicals and strong bases) and consequently applicable to a wide range of materials for organic electronics. The crosslinkable solid compounds are bench‐stable over more than a year. The broad applicability is demonstrated with a liquid model compound and a specifically designed crosslinking monomer introduced successfully as building block into polystyrenes with pending hole transporting groups. A detailed study of crosslinking kinetics by infrared measurements as well as an alternative method of crosslinker content determination utilizing differential scanning calorimetry is presented. The crosslinkable polymer and the corresponding noncrosslinkable molecule tris(4‐(3,6‐dibutoxy‐9H‐carbazol‐9‐yl)phenyl)amine (BuO₆TCTA) are synthesized and investigated as hole transport layers (HTLs) in phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs with crosslinked and noncrosslinked HTLs show efficiencies around 80 cd A^?1, indicating negligible influence of the crosslinking process on the device performance while yielding better HTL durability against solvent rinsing.     

Dynamic triangular neural controller for stepper motor trajectorytracking

We present a novel neural controller for a stepper motor. This controller is developed as follows. Modifying published results for nonlinear identification using dynamic neural networks (NNs), an NN identifier of triangular form is implemented. Then, based on this mode, a control law using sliding modes is derived. This neural identifier and the proposed control law allow trajectory tracking for stepping motors. Applicability of the approach is tested via simulations     

Implantation angle periphery effects on non-alloyed Si-implanted ohmic contacts for AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

We report on the effect of implantation angle on contact resistance of non-alloyed ohmic contacts to selectively implanted source/drain regions in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) heterostructures. Three different components of contact resistance are observed for such contacts: (i) contact resistance between the metal and the semiconductor, (ii) resistance of the implanted region and (iii) an additional resistance attributed to a transition region between implanted and non-implanted region. This third component varies strongly with implantation angle. The variation with implantation angle shows that the ratio of lateral implantation damage to penetration depth is critical for implantation of AlGaN/GaN HEMT source/drain contact regions. Our results also show that increasing the implantation angle in combination with reducing the implantation width can reduce contact resistance.     

Constrained registration for motion compensation in atrial fibrillation ablation procedures

Fluoroscopic overlay images rendered from preoperative volumetric data can provide additional anatomical details to guide physicians during catheter ablation procedures for treatment of atrial fibrillation (AFib). As these overlay images are often compromised by cardiac and respiratory motion, motion compensation methods are needed to keep the overlay images in sync with the fluoroscopic images. So far, these approaches have either required simultaneous biplane imaging for 3-D motion compensation, or in case of monoplane X-ray imaging, provided only a limited 2-D functionality. To overcome the downsides of the previously suggested methods, we propose an approach that facilitates a full 3-D motion compensation even if only monoplane X-ray images are available. To this end, we use a training phase that employs a biplane sequence to establish a patient specific motion model. Afterwards, a constrained model-based 2-D/3-D registration method is used to track a circumferential mapping catheter. This device is commonly used for AFib catheter ablation procedures. Based on the experiments on real patient data, we found that our constrained monoplane 2-D/3-D registration outperformed the unconstrained counterpart and yielded an average 2-D tracking error of 0.6 mm and an average 3-D tracking error of 1.6 mm. The unconstrained 2-D/3-D registration technique yielded a similar 2-D performance, but the 3-D tracking error increased to 3.2 mm mostly due to wrongly estimated 3-D motion components in X-ray view direction. Compared to the conventional 2-D monoplane method, the proposed method provides a more seamless workflow by removing the need for catheter model re-initialization otherwise required when the C-arm view orientation changes. In addition, the proposed method can be straightforwardly combined with the previously introduced biplane motion compensation technique to obtain a good trade-off between accuracy and radiation dose reduction.     

Laser-Induced Creation of Antiferromagnetic 180-Degree Domains in NiO/Pt Bilayers

The antiferromagnetic order in heterostructures of NiO/Pt thin films can be modified by optical pulses. After the irradiation with laser light, the optically induced creation of antiferromagnetic domains can be observed by imaging the created domain structure utilizing the X-ray magnetic linear dichroism effect. The effect of different laser polarizations on the domain formation can be studied and used to identify a polarization-independent creation of 180° domain walls and domains with 180° different Néel vector orientation. By varying the irradiation parameters, the switching mechanism can be determined to be thermally induced. This study demonstrates experimentally the possibility to optically create antiferromagnetic domains, an important step towards future functionalization of all optical switching mechanisms in antiferromagnets.     

Multidimensional, mapping-based complex wavelet transforms.

Although the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is a powerful tool for signal and image processing, it has three serious disadvantages: shift sensitivity, poor directionality, and lack of phase information. To overcome these disadvantages, we introduce multidimensional, mapping-based, complex wavelet transforms that consist of a mapping onto a complex function space followed by a DWT of the complex mapping. Unlike other popular transforms that also mitigate DWT shortcomings, the decoupled implementation of our transforms has two important advantages. First, the controllable redundancy of the mapping stage offers a balance between degree of shift sensitivity and transform redundancy. This allows us to create a directional, nonredundant, complex wavelet transform with potential benefits for image coding systems. To the best of our knowledge, no other complex wavelet transform is simultaneously directional and nonredundant. The second advantage of our approach is the flexibility to use any DWT in the transform implementation. As an example, we exploit this flexibility to create the complex double-density DWT: a shift-insensitive, directional, complex wavelet transform with a low redundancy of (3M - 1)/(2M - 1) in M dimensions. No other transform achieves all these properties at a lower redundancy, to the best of our knowledge. By exploiting the advantages of our multidimensional, mapping-based complex wavelet transforms in seismic signal-processing applications, we have demonstrated state-of-the-art results.     

The Effect of Poly(3‐hexylthiophene) Molecular Weight on Charge Transport and the Performance of Polymer:Fullerene Solar Cells

The time‐of‐flight method has been used to study the effect of P3HT molecular weight (M_n = 13–121 kDa) on charge mobility in pristine and PCBM blend films using highly regioregular P3HT. Hole mobility was observed to remain constant at 10^?4 cm²V^?1s^?1 as molecular weight was increased from 13–18 kDa, but then decreased by one order of magnitude as molecular weight was further increased from 34–121 kDa. The decrease in charge mobility observed in blend films is accompanied by a change in surface morphology, and leads to a decrease in the performance of photovoltaic devices made from these blend films.