Stable Light-Emitting Electrochemical Cells Using Hyperbranched Polymer Electrolyte

The choice of an adequate electrolyte is a fundamental aspect in polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs) as it provides the in situ electrochemical doping and influences the performance of these devices. In this study, a hyperbranched polymer (Hybrane DEO750 8500) blended with a Li salt is used as a novel electrolyte in state-of-the-art Super Yellow (a polyphenylenevinylene) based LECs. Due to the desirable properties of the hyperbranched polymer and the homogeneous and smooth films that it forms with the emitting polymer, PLEC with excellent electroluminescent properties are obtained using a pulsed current bias scheme. The devices are very stable, with lifetimes in excess of 2000 h with initial luminance values above 450 cd m⁻², a peak efficiency of 12.6 lm W⁻¹, and sub-minute turn-on times. The stability of the devices is also studied by measuring the photoluminescence (PL) of the semiconductor during electroluminescent operation. The findings suggest that it is possible to observe the quenching of the PL in vertically stacked devices due to the advancement of the doped fronts in the film and an immediate PL recovery when the bias is removed.     

A shaped dual-reflector antenna with a tilting flat subreflectorfor scanning applications

A scanning dual-offset reflector antenna using the simple motion of a flat subreflector to illuminate different parts of a shaped main reflector is presented. A particular case having a 20-degree linear field-of-view (for a DBS application) with a 30λ aperture diameter is explored. The main reflector surface is shaped to minimize the phase aberrations across the field-of-view. Once the main reflector surface is designed, the subreflector parameters are determined to ensure optimum focusing across the field-of-view     

A 90-nm CMOS, 8-bit pipeline ADC with 60-MHz bandwidth and 125-MS/s or 250-MS/s sampling frequency

In this paper a dual operating mode 8-bit, 1.1-V pipeline ADC for Gigabit Ethernet applications is presented. In the two operating modes, the ADC features different sampling frequency (125 and 250 MHz) and power consumption (9.4 and 22.8 mW). Considering a signal bandwidth of 60 MHz in both operating modes, as required by the Gigabit Ethernet standard, the ADC achieves a SNDR always larger than 39.4 dB at 125 MHz and 38.7 dB at 250 MHz (6.25-bit and 6.13-bit ENOB, respectively), with a FoM of 0.84 pJ/conv at 125 MHz and 2.2 pJ/conv at 250 MHz. The ENOB achieved is mainly limited by clock jitter. The ADC is fabricated with a 90-nm CMOS technology, with an active area of 1.25 × 0.65 mm².     

Design of Lanthanide‐Based OLEDs with Remarkable Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence

Organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) able to directly emit circularly polarized (CP) electroluminescence (CP‐OLEDs) are rapidly gaining much interest, due to their possible applications in displays with antiglare filters and 3D displays. Development of more efficient CP‐OLEDs can open their use also in point‐of‐care and personalized diagnostic tools, since CP light alteration can be related to health state of irradiated tissues. In this work it is shown that the performance of chiral europium complex‐based CP‐OLEDs can be improved both in terms of external quantum efficiency (measured on all the Eu bands) and degree of polarization of emitted photons (as measured by the dissymmetry factor g _EL), by proper active layer formulation and through a fine tuning of the architecture of the device. Polarization performances (g _EL = ?1) are obtained about three times higher than for any other CP‐OLED reported so far. Moreover, for the first time, it is shown that the position of the recombination zone (RZ) plays a major role on the polarization outcomes. In order to rationalize these results the level of light polarization is related to the position of the RZ allied with the reflection on the cathode through a simple mathematical model. The values predicted by this model are in qualitative agreement with the experimental ones.     

In-Flight Synthesis of Core–Shell Mg/Si–SiOx Particles with Greatly Reduced Ignition Temperature

Magnesium is a promising candidate as a solid fuel for energetic applications, however, the diffusion-controlled oxidation mechanism impedes its reaction with an oxidizer, often resulting in diminished performance. In this study, non-thermal plasma processing is implemented to modify the surface of magnesium nanoparticles with silicon in-flight, in the gas-phase to enhance the rate of interfacial reactions and tune the ignition pathways. Allowing the silicon coating to partially oxidize provides direct contact between the fuel and oxidizer, resulting in a nanostructured thermite system at the single particle level. The proximal distance between oxidizer and fuel directly impacts the ignition temperature and, therefore, the combustion kinetics. An intermetallic reaction occurs within the magnesium/silicon system to supplement the heating of the magnesium fuel to initiate its reaction with the oxidizer, resulting in highly reduced ignition thresholds. The ignition temperature is lowered significantly from ≈740 °C for magnesium particles with a native oxide layer to ≈520 °C for particles coated via the in-flight plasma process.     

From irradiance to output power fluctuations: the PV plant as a low pass filter

The power generated by large grid‐connected photovoltaic (PV) plants depends greatly on the solar irradiance. This paper studies the effects of the solar irradiance variability analyzing experimental 1‐s data collected throughout a year at six PV plants, totaling 18 MWp. Each PV plant was modeled as a first order filter function based on an analysis in the frequency domain of the irradiance data and the output power signals. An empiric expression which relates the filter parameters and the PV plant size has been proposed. This simple model has been successfully validated precisely determining the daily maximum output power fluctuation from incident irradiance measurements. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characterization and exploitation of heterogeneous OFDM primary users in cognitive radio networks

The fundamental features of cognitive radio (CR) systems are their ability to adapt to the wireless environment where they operate and their opportunistic occupation of the licensed spectrum bands assigned to the primary network. CR users in CR systems should not cause any interference to primary users (PUs) of the primary network. For this purpose, CR users need to accurately estimate the features and activities of the primary users. In this paper, a novel characterization of heterogeneous PUs and a novel reconfigurability solution in CR networks are introduced. The characterization of PUs consists of a detector and classifier that distinguishes between heterogenous PUs. The PU characteristics stored in radio environmental maps are utilized by an interference/throughput adapter for the optimization of CR parameters. The performance of the proposed solutions is evaluated by showing false alarm and missed detection probabilities of the detector/classifier in a multipath fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise. Moreover, the impact of the PU characteristics on the CR throughput is analyzed.     

Joint optimization of delay and congestion in wavelength-routed optical networks using genetic algorithms

A new multipurpose genetic algorithm, based on Pareto optimality, is proposed to design logical topologies for wavelength-routed optical networks with the aim of minimizing both the congestion and the end-to-end delay. Simulation results show its efficiency when compared with other previously proposed algorithms, achieving in most cases optimal or near-optimal solutions, and in less time than other methods. Moreover, since the algorithm relies on Pareto optimality, not only does it obtain a single logical topology but a set of them, so that the network designer can easily select the most appropriate one according to the current network requirements.     

Variational algorithms to remove stationary noise: applications to microscopy imaging

A framework and an algorithm are presented in order to remove stationary noise from images. This algorithm is called variational stationary noise remover. It can be interpreted both as a restoration method in a Bayesian framework and as a cartoon+texture decomposition method. In numerous denoising applications, the white noise assumption fails. For example, structured patterns such as stripes appear in the images. The model described here addresses these cases. Applications are presented with images acquired using different modalities: scanning electron microscope, FIB-nanotomography, and an emerging fluorescence microscopy technique called selective plane illumination microscopy.     

A design methodology for high-order class-D audio amplifiers

This paper presents a design methodology for high-order class-D amplifiers, based on their similarity with sigma–delta ( $\Upsigma\Updelta$ ) modulators, for which established theory and toolboxes are available. The proposed methodology, which covers the entire design flow, from specifications to component sizing, is validated with three design examples, namely a second-order, a third-order, and a fourth-order class-D amplifier. Moreover, the third-order class-D amplifier has been integrated on silicon and characterized, further confirming the validity of the whole design flow. The achieved results demonstrate that high-order class-D amplifiers can achieve total-harmonic-distortion (THD) performance compatible with the specifications of high-end audio applications (THD  ≈ 90 dB), which would be unfeasible with conventional first-order class-D amplifiers.