Organic Light‐Emitting Diode Sensing Platform: Challenges and Solutions

The organic light‐emitting diode (OLED)‐based sensing platform is gaining momentum due to unique attributes of the compact OLEDs that are used as excitation sources. This paper, however, points to issues related to this sensing platform that will affect many (bio)chemical sensing applications, in particular in photoluminescence (PL)‐based sensors operated in the advantageous time domain, where pulsed OLEDs are utilized. The issues are related to the post‐pulse electroluminescence (EL) profile, i.e., transient EL, which depends on the OLED materials and structure, and to the long‐wavelength tail of the typically broad‐band EL spectrum. Depending on materials and device structure, the transient EL may exhibit spikes peaking at ～100–200 ns and μs‐long tails. As shown, these interfere with the determination of PL decay times (that are related to analyte concentrations) of sensing elements. The results also indicate that the long‐wavelength tail of the EL spectrum contributes to the interfering post‐pulse μs‐long EL tail. Hence, it is shown that the choice of OLED materials, the use of microcavity (μC) OLEDs with tunable, narrower EL bands, and the use of UV OLEDs alleviate these issues, resulting in more reliable data analysis. Furthermore, a 2‐D uniform 2 μm‐pitch microlens array that was previously used for improving light extraction from the OLEDs (J.‐M. Park et al., Optics Express 2011 , 19, A786) is used for directional PL scattering toward the photodetector, which leads to a ～2.1–3.8 fold enhancement of the PL signal. This behavior is shown for oxygen sensing, which is the basis for sensing of bioanalytes such as glucose, lactate, ethanol, cholesterol, and uric acid.     

Photovoltaic Devices: Highly Conductive PEDOT:PSS Electrode with Optimized Solvent and Thermal Post‐Treatment for ITO‐Free Organic Solar Cells (Adv. Funct. Mater. 6/2011)

Highly conductive poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) films as stand‐alone electrodes for organic solar cells have been optimized using a solvent post‐treatment method. The treated PEDOT:PSS films show enhanced conductivities up to 1418 S cm^?1, accompanied by structural and chemical changes. The effect of the solvent treatment on PEDOT:PSS has been investigated in detail and is shown to cause a reduction of insulating PSS in the conductive polymer layer. Using these optimized electrodes, ITO‐free, small molecule organic solar cells with a zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc):fullerene C₆₀ bulk heterojunction have been produced on glass and PET substrates. The system was further improved by pre‐heating the PEDOT:PSS electrodes, which enhanced the power conversion efficiency to the values obtained for solar cells on ITO electrodes. The results show that optimized PEDOT:PSS with solvent and thermal post‐treatment can be a very promising electrode material for highly efficient flexible ITO‐free organic solar cells.     

Spectrum sensing scheduling for group spectrum sharing in cognitive radio networks

This paper addresses the issues on spectrum sharing in a cognitive radio network consisting of a primary user and a group of cognitive users. Each cognitive user may occupy a non‐overlapped sub‐band of the primary spectrum, but it needs to perform spectrum sensing independently before accessing the sub‐band. To reduce the complexity of spectrum sensing and thus energy consumption, this paper proposes a scheduled spectrum sensing scheme. First, we consider a single spectrum sensing scenario where only one cognitive user is elected to perform spectrum sensing, and then it broadcasts its sensing results to the other cognitive users. The scheduled spectrum sensing scheme works in both network‐centric and user‐centric ways. Next, the scheduled spectrum sensing scheme is further generalized to work in a multiple spectrum sensing scenario. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed schemes compared with the traditional schemes where all cognitive users may perform spectrum sensing at the same time. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wide‐Band Fine‐Resolution DCO with an Active Inductor and Three‐Step Coarse Tuning Loop

This paper presents a wide‐band fine‐resolution digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) with an active inductor using an automatic three‐step coarse and gain tuning loop. To control the frequency of the DCO, the transconductance of the active inductor is tuned digitally. To cover the wide tuning range, a three‐step coarse tuning scheme is used. In addition, the DCO gain needs to be calibrated digitally to compensate for gain variations. The DCO tuning range is 58% at 2.4 GHz, and the power consumption is 6.6 mW from a 1.2 V supply voltage. An effective frequency resolution is 0.14 kHz. The phase noise of the DCO output at 2.4 GHz is –120.67 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset.     

Open‐Ended Waveguide Antenna Using a Single Split‐Ring Resonator

This letter proposes an open‐ended waveguide antenna with a single split‐ring resonator. In contrast to the waveguide antennas incorporating multiple rings reported in a previous study, which exhibited narrow bandwidth, the proposed antenna uses only one ring to achieve broader bandwidth while keeping the aperture small. A single ring has a relatively low quality factor compared to multiple rings. The simulated and measured fractional bandwidth was 4.13% and 4.03%, respectively, which is much broader than the fractional bandwidth of about 1% demonstrated in a previous study. This simple technique can be used in many applications that require small apertures including near‐field probes and array elements.     

Coexistence of OFDM‐Based IMT‐Advanced and FM Broadcasting Systems

Coexistence analysis is extremely important in examining the possibility for spectrum sharing between orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM)‐based international mobile telecommunications (IMT)‐Advanced and other wireless services. In this letter, a new closed form method is derived based on power spectral density analysis in order to analyze the coexistence of OFDM‐based IMT‐Advanced systems and broadcasting frequency modulation (FM) systems. The proposed method evaluates more exact interference power of IMT‐Advanced systems in FM broadcasting systems than the advanced minimum coupling loss (A‐MCL) method. Numerical results show that the interference power is 1.3 dB and 3 dB less than that obtained using the A‐MCL method at cochannel and adjacent channel, respectively. This reduces the minimum separation distance between the two systems, which eventually saves spectrum resources.     

Synthetic Crystals of Silver with Carbon: 3D Epitaxy of Carbon Nanostructures in the Silver Lattice

Only minimum amounts of carbon can be incorporated into silver, gold, and copper in a thermodynamically stable form. Here, the structure of stable silver carbon alloys is described, which are produced by thermoelectrically charging molten silver with carbon ions. Transmission electron microscopy and Raman scattering are combined to establish that large amount of carbon is accommodated in the form of epitaxial graphene‐like sheets. The carbon bonds covalently to the silver matrix as predicted from density functional theory (DFT) calculations with bond energies in the range 1.1–2.2 eV per atom or vacancy. Graphitic‐like sheets embedded in the crystal lattice of silver form 3D epitaxial structures with the host metal with a strain of ≈13% compared to equilibrium graphene. The carbon nanostructures persist upon remelting and resolidification. A DFT‐based analysis of the phonon density of states confirms the presence of intense vibration modes related to the Ag? C bonds observed in the Raman spectra of the alloy. The solid silver–high carbon alloy, termed “Ag‐covetic,” displays room temperature electrical conductivity of 5.62 × 10⁷ S m^?1 even for carbon concentrations of up to ≈6 wt% (36 at%). This process of incorporation of carbon presents a new paradigm for electrocharging assisted bulk processing.     

High‐Performance Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Photodetectors Enhanced by Self‐Assembled Monolayer Doping

Most doping research into transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has been mainly focused on the improvement of electronic device performance. Here, the effect of self‐assembled monolayer (SAM)‐based doping on the performance of WSe₂‐ and MoS₂‐based transistors and photodetectors is investigated. The achieved doping concentrations are ≈1.4 × 10¹¹ for octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) p‐doping and ≈10¹¹ for aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) n‐doping (nondegenerate). Using this SAM doping technique, the field‐effect mobility is increased from 32.58 to 168.9 cm² V^?1 s in OTS/WSe₂ transistors and from 28.75 to 142.2 cm² V^?1 s in APTES/MoS₂ transistors. For the photodetectors, the responsivity is improved by a factor of ≈28.2 (from 517.2 to 1.45 × 10⁴ A W^?1) in the OTS/WSe₂ devices and by a factor of ≈26.4 (from 219 to 5.75 × 10³ A W^?1) in the APTES/MoS₂ devices. The enhanced photoresponsivity values are much higher than that of the previously reported TMD photodetectors. The detectivity enhancement is ≈26.6‐fold in the OTS/WSe₂ devices and ≈24.5‐fold in the APTES/MoS₂ devices and is caused by the increased photocurrent and maintained dark current after doping. The optoelectronic performance is also investigated with different optical powers and the air‐exposure times. This doping study performed on TMD devices will play a significant role for optimizing the performance of future TMD‐based electronic/optoelectronic applications.     

Advanced Concentration Gradient Cathode Material with Two‐Slope for High‐Energy and Safe Lithium Batteries

Li[Ni_0.65Co_0.13Mn_0.22]O₂ cathode with two‐sloped full concentration gradient (TSFCG), maximizing the Ni content in the inner part of the particle and the Mn content near the particle surface, is synthesized via a specially designed batch‐type reactor. The cathode delivers a discharge capacity of 200 mAh g^?1 (4.3 V cutoff) with excellent capacity retention of 88% after 1500 cycles in a full‐cell configuration. Overall electrochemical performance of the TSFCG cathode is benchmarked against conventional cathode (CC) with same composition and commercially available Li[Ni_0.8Co_0.15Al_0.05]O₂ (NCA). The TSFCG cathode exhibits the best cycling stability, rate capability, and thermal stability of the three electrodes. Transmission electron microscopy analysis of the cycled TSFCG, CC, and NCA cathodes shows that the TSFCG electrode maintains both its mechanical and structural integrity whereas the NCA electrode nearly pulverizes due to the strain during cycling.