Indium tin oxide-free semi-transparent inverted polymer solar cells using conducting polymer as both bottom and top electrodes

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is investigated as a transparent cathode to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) in inverted polymer solar cells. Increasing the thickness of the PEDOT:PSS electrode leads to a reduction in transparency and sheet resistance which lowers the photocurrent but increases the fill factor of the solar cells. The offset of photocurrent and fill factor as the thickness is increased leads to a saturation of the power conversion efficiency to 3%. These electrodes were applied to flexible substrates showing similar device performance to glass based devices. Cyclic bending test of these flexible polymer electrodes show improved conversion efficiency retention (92%) when compared to flexible ITO based electrodes (50%) after 300 bend cycles. In addition to using PEDOT:PSS as a cathode replacement for ITO in inverted solar cells, its use as a semi-transparent anode replacement to Ag is also examined. Semi-transparent inverted solar cells fabricated with ITO as the cathode and PEDOT:PSS as the top anode electrode were demonstrated showing efficiencies of 2.51% while replacement of both ITO and Ag with PEDOT:PSS as both the cathode and anode show efficiencies of 0.47%.     

Adaptive joint beamforming and B‐MMSE detection for CDMA signal reception under multipath interference

The combination of antenna array beamforming with multiuser detection can effectively improve the detection efficiency of a wireless system under multipath interference, especially in a fast‐fading channel. This paper studies the performance of an adaptive beamformer incorporated with a block‐wise minimum mean square error(B‐MMSE) detector, which works on a unique signal frame characterized by training sequence preamble and data blocks segmented by zero‐bits. Both beam‐former weights updating and B‐MMSE detection are carried out by either least mean square (LMS) or recursive least square (RLS) algorithm. The comparison of the two adaptive algorithms applied to both beamformer and B‐MMSE detector will be made in terms of convergence behaviour and estimation mean square error. Various multipath patterns are considered to test the receiver's responding rapidity to changing multipath interference. The performance of the adaptive B‐MMSE detector is also compared with that of non‐adaptive version (i.e. through direct matrix inversion). The final performance in error probability simulation reveals that the RLS/B‐MMSE scheme outperforms non‐adaptive B‐MMSE by 1–5 dB, depending on the multipath channel delay profiles of concern. The obtained results also suggest that adaptive beamformer should use RLS algorithm for its fast and robust convergence property; while the B‐MMSE filter can choose either LMS or RLS algorithm depending on antenna array size, multipath severity and implementation complexity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Radiation studies with accelerator generated fast neutrons

Electronic devices are tested, on occasion, to determine their resistance to exposure to fast neutron fluences in the 10¹²-to 10¹⁴-n/cm² range. Usually these tests utilize neutrons from a nuclear reactor. Reactor neutron fluences frequently carry unwanted admixtures of gamma rays and of slow neutrons. These conditions have led us to develop an accelerator based neutron source which is largely free of unwanted radiations. In the present paper we examine the effects of gamma rays and of slow neutrons upon electronic devices, we describe our neutron source, and we review various forms of fast neutron dosimetry we use. The results we obtain suggest that our source should be considered as a fast neutron standard.     

Mesostructured Arrays of Nanometer‐spaced Gold Nanoparticles for Ultrahigh Number Density of SERS Hot Spots

A novel one‐trough synthesis via an air‐water interface is demonstrated to provide hexagonally packed arrays of densely spaced metallic nanoparticles (NPs). In the synthesis, a mesostructured polyoxometalate (POM)‐silicatropic template (PSS) is first self‐assembled at the air‐water interface; upon UV irradiation, anion exchange cycles enable the free‐floating PSS film to continuously uptake gold precursors from the solution subphase for diffusion‐controlled and POM‐site‐directed photoreduction inside the silica channels. NPs ≈ 2 nm can hence be homogeneously formed inside the silica‐surfactant channels until saturation. As revealed via X‐ray diffraction, small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS), grazing incidence SAXS, and transmission electron microscopy, the Au NPs directed by the PSS template are arrayed into a 2D hexagonal lattice with inter‐channel spacing of 3.2 nm and a mean along‐channel NP spacing of 2.8 nm. This corresponds to an ultra‐high number density (≈10¹⁹ NPs cm^?3) of narrowly spaced Au NPs in the Au‐NP@PSS composite, leading to 3D densely deployed hot‐spots along and across the mesostructured POM‐silica channels for surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Consequently, the Au‐NP@PSS composite exhibits prominent SERS with 4‐mercaptobenzoic acid (4‐MBA) adsorbed onto Au NPs. The best 4‐MBA detection limit is 5 nm , with corresponding SERS enhancement factors above 10⁸.     

Systematic Doping Control of CVD Graphene Transistors with Functionalized Aromatic Self‐Assembled Monolayers

Recent reports have shown that self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) can induce doping effects in graphene transistors. However, a lack of understanding persists surrounding the quantitative relationship between SAM molecular design and its effects on graphene. In order to facilitate the fabrication of next‐generation graphene‐based devices it is important to reliably and predictably control the properties of graphene without negatively impacting its intrinsic high performance. In this study, SAMs with varying dipole magnitudes/directions are utilized and these values are directly correlated to changes in performance seen in graphene transistors. It is found that, by knowing the z‐component of the SAM dipole, one can reliably predict the shift in graphene charge neutrality point after taking into account the influence of the metal electrodes (which also play a role in doping graphene). This relationship is verified through density functional theory and comprehensive device studies utilizing atomic force microscopy, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electrical characterization of graphene transistors. It is shown that properties of graphene transistors can be predictably controlled with SAMs when considering the total doping environment. Additionally, it is found that methylthio‐terminated SAMs strongly interact with graphene allowing for a cleaner graphene transfer and enhanced charge mobility.     

A source authentication scheme based on message recovery digital signature for multicast

The source authentication is an important issue for the multicast applications because it can let the receiver know whether the multicast message is sent from a legal source or not. However, the previously related schemes did not provide the confidentiality for data packets. In addition, the communication costs of these schemes are still high for real‐time applications in the multicast environments. To solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a new source authentication scheme based on message recovery signature for multicast in this paper. In the proposed scheme, the encrypted data can be embedded in the digital signature, so the communication loads can be greatly reduced. In addition, the digital signature contains the encrypted data, and thus the confidentiality of data packets can be well protected. According to the aforementioned advantages, the proposed scheme is securer and more efficient than the related works for the real‐time applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Study of copper drift during TDDB of intermetal dielectrics by using fully passivated MOS capacitors as test vehicle

A fully passivated Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) capacitor [T?kei Zs. Barrier integrity and reliability in copper low-k interconnects. ISTC 2005; 386–95] is used to study the intrinsic properties of a barrier between copper and dielectric in Back-End-Of-Line interconnects. Several barriers are studied and compared to each other. The test vehicle is also used to thoroughly investigate the role of thermal diffusion or field assisted ionic copper drift during Time-Dependent-Dielectric Breakdown (TDDB) by investigating the breakdown of dielectrics without a barrier at very low voltages.Comparing different barriers revealed that a “standard” PVD-based Ta barrier has a significantly better TDDB-performance compared to an 8 nm SiCN-barrier.For samples without barrier, it was found that long thermal anneals without the application of a stress voltage changes the distribution of failure times. Furthermore, the possibility of a bimodal distribution was argued when stressing these devices at a wide range of fields. A corollary is that, in presence of copper, both the E-model and the root-E-model do not apply for describing the experimental data obtained on these samples without barrier.     

Differentiated Service Provision in Optical CDMA Network Using Power Control

A simple scheme to use power control for differentiated service provision is proposed for the optical code-division multiple-access network. The main advantages of this scheme are: 1) Interference from other users can be eliminated theoretically. 2) The decoder with simple configuration can be used as compared to that in a previous power control scheme. 3) The design procedure of various service requirements in one network is simplified.      

Complex-valued ICA utilizing signal-subspace demixing for robust DOA estimation and blind signal separation

This paper deals with direction of arrival (DOA) estimation and blind signal separation (BSS) based on independent component analysis (ICA) with robust capabilities. An efficient demixing procedure of complex-valued ICA is presented here, which combines the signal-subspace demixing procedure exploiting individual signal-subspace projection and Newton’s iteration algorithm based on maximization of the approximate negentropy of non-Gaussian signal for array signal processing. It resolves the problems of order ambiguity and identifiability of traditional ICA for time-domain BSS. The proposed method could be directly applied to radar, sonar, radio surveillance, and communications systems for separating signals and estimating relative DOAs of signals. Several computer simulation examples for perturbations to the array manifold, unknown noise environments, and Rayleigh fading channel are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

A Versatile Fluoro‐Containing Low‐Bandgap Polymer for Efficient Semitransparent and Tandem Polymer Solar Cells

The versatility of a fluoro‐containing low band‐gap polymer, poly[2,6‐(4,4‐bis(2‐ethylhexyl)‐4H‐cyclopenta[2,1‐b;3,4‐b’]dithiophene)‐alt‐4,7‐(5‐fluoro‐2,1,3‐benzothia‐diazole)] (PCPDTFBT) in organic photovoltaics (OPVs) applications is demonstrated. High boiling point 1,3,5‐trichlorobenzene (TCB) is used as a solvent to manipulate PCPDTFBT:[6,6]‐phenyl‐C₇₁‐butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM) active layer morphology to obtain high‐performance single‐junction devices. It promotes the crystallization of PCPDTFBT polymer, thus improving the charge‐transport properties of the active layer. By combining the morphological manipulation with interfacial optimization and device engineering, the single‐junction device exhibits both good air stability and high power‐conversion efficiency (PCE, of 6.6%). This represents one of the highest PCE values for cyclopenta[2,1‐b;3,4‐b’]dithiophene (CPDT)‐based OPVs. This polymer is also utilized for constructing semitransparent solar cells and double‐junction tandem solar cells to demonstrate high PCEs of 5.0% and 8.2%, respectively.