Low‐Threshold Distributed‐Feedback Lasers Based on Pyrene‐Cored Starburst Molecules with 1,3,6,8‐Attached Oligo(9,9‐Dialkylfluorene) Arms

Here, a detailed characterization of the optical gain properties of sky‐blue‐light‐emitting pyrene‐cored 9,9‐dialkylfluorene starbursts is reported; it is shown that these materials possess encouragingly low laser thresholds and relatively high thermal and environmental stability. The materials exhibit high solid‐state photoluminescence (PL) quantum efficiencies (>90%) and near‐single‐exponential PL decay transients with excited state lifetimes of ～1.4 ns. The thin‐film slab waveguide amplified spontaneous emission (ASE)‐measured net gain reaches 75–78 cm^?1. The ASE threshold energy is found to remain unaffected by heating at temperatures up to 130 °C, 40 to 50 °C above T_g. The ASE remained observable for annealing temperatures up to 170 or 200 °C. 1D distributed feedback lasers with 75% fill factor and 320 nm period show optical pumping thresholds down to 38–65 Wcm^?2, laser slope efficiencies up to 3.9%, and wavelength tuning ranges of ～40 nm around 471–512 nm. In addition, these lasers have relatively long operational lifetimes, with N_1/2 ≥ 1.1 × 10⁵ pulses for unencapsulated devices operated at ten times threshold in air.     

Red,Green, and Blue Light‐Emitting Polyfluorenes Containing a Dibenzothiophene‐S,S‐Dioxide Unit and Efficient High‐Color‐Rendering‐Index White‐Light‐Emitting Diodes Made Therefrom

A series of blue (B), green (G) and red (R) light‐emitting, 9,9‐bis(4‐(2‐ethyl‐hexyloxy)phenyl)fluorene (PPF) based polymers containing a dibenzothiophene‐S,S‐dioxide (SO) unit (PPF‐SO polymer), with an additional benzothiadiazole (BT) unit (PPF‐SO‐BT polymer) or a 4,7‐di(4‐hexylthien‐2‐yl)‐benzothiadiazole (DHTBT) unit (PPF‐SO‐DHTBT polymer) are synthesized. These polymers exhibit high fluorescence yields and good thermal stability. Light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) using PPF‐SO25, PPF‐SO15‐BT1, and PPF‐SO15‐DHTBT1 as emission polymers have maximum efficiencies LE_max = 7.0, 17.6 and 6.1 cd A^?1 with CIE coordinates (0.15, 0.17), (0.37, 0.56) and (0.62, 0.36), respectively. 1D distributed feedback lasers using PPF‐SO30 as the gain medium are demonstrated, with a wavelength tuning range 467 to 487 nm and low pump energy thresholds (≥18 nJ). Blending different ratios of B (PPF‐SO), G (PPF‐SO‐BT) and R (PPF‐SO‐DHTBT) polymers allows highly efficient white polymer light‐emitting diodes (WPLEDs) to be realized. The optimized devices have an attractive color temperature close to 4700 K and an excellent color rendering index (CRI) ≥90. They are relatively stable, with the emission color remaining almost unchanged when the current densities increase from 20 to 260 mA cm^?2. The use of these polymers enables WPLEDs with a superior trade‐off between device efficiency, CRI, and color stability.     

Premixed flamelet modelling: Factors influencing the turbulent heat release rate source term and the turbulent burning velocity

A flamelet approach is adopted in a study of the factors affecting the volumetric heat release source term in turbulent combustion. This term is expressed as the product of an instability enhanced burning rate factor, Pbi, and the mean volumetric heat release rate in an unstretched laminar flamelet of the mixture. Included in the expression for Pbi are a pdf of the flame stretch rate and a flame stretch factor. Fractal considerations link the turbulent burning velocity normalised by the effective rms turbulent velocity to Pbi. Evaluation of this last parameter focuses on problems of (i) the pdfs of the flame stretch rate, (ii) the effects of flame stretch rate on the burning rate, (iii) the effects of any flamelet instability on the burning rate, (iv) flamelet extinctions under positive and negative flame stretch rates, and (v) the effects of the unsteadiness of flame stretch rates. The Markstein number influences both the rate of burning and the possibility of flamelet instabilities developing which, through their ensuing wrinkling, increase the burning rate. The flame stretch factor is extended to embrace potential Darrieus-Landau thermo-diffusive flamelet instabilities. A major limitation is the insufficient understanding of the effects of negative stretch rates that might cause flame extinction. The influences of positive and negative Markstein numbers are considered separately. For the former, a computed theoretical relationship for turbulent burning velocity, normalised by the effective rms velocity, is developed which, although close to that measured experimentally, tends to be somewhat lower at the higher values of the Karlovitz stretch factor. This might be attributed to reduced flame extinction and reduced effective Markstein numbers when the increasingly nonsteady conditions reduce the ability of the flame to respond to changes in flame stretch rates. As the pressure increases, Markstein numbers decrease. For negative Markstein numbers the predicted values of Pbi and turbulent burning velocity are significantly increased above the values for positive Markstein numbers. This is confirmed experimentally and these values are close to those predicted theoretically. The increased values are due to the greater stretch rate required for flame extinction, the increased burning rate at positive values of flame stretch rate, and, in some instances, the development of flame instabilities. At lower values of turbulence than those covered by these computations, burning velocities can be enhanced by flame instabilities, as they are with laminar flames, particularly at negative Markstein numbers.     

Magnetically Driven Silver‐Coated Nanocoils for Efficient Bacterial Contact Killing

The increasing threat of multidrug‐resistant bacterial strains against conventional antibiotic therapies represents a significant worldwide health risk and intensifies the need for novel antibacterial treatments. In this work, an effective strategy to target and kill bacteria using silver‐coated magnetic nanocoils is reported. The coil palladium (Pd) nanostructures are obtained by electrodeposition and selective dealloying, and subsequently coated with nickel (Ni) and silver (Ag) for magnetic manipulation and antibacterial properties, respectively. The efficiency of the nanocoils is tested in the treatment of Gram‐negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram‐positive methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), both of which represent the leading multidrug‐resistant bacterial pathogens. The nanocoils show highly effective bacterial killing activity at low concentrations and in relatively short durations of treatment time. Three different investigation techniques, LIVE/DEAD assay, colony‐forming unit counting, and scanning electron microscope, reveal that the antibacterial activity is a result of bacterial membrane damage caused by direct contact with the nanocoil. The low cytotoxicity toward fibroblast cells along with the capability of precise magnetic locomotion makes the proposed nanocoil an ideal candidate to combat multidrug‐resistant bacteria in the field of biomedical and environmental applications.     

The Effect of Polymer Optoelectronic Properties on the Performance of Multilayer Hybrid Polymer/TiO2 Solar Cells

We report a study of the effects of polymer optoelectronic properties on the performance of photovoltaic devices consisting of nanocrystalline TiO₂ and a conjugated polymer. Three different poly(2‐methoxy‐5‐(2′‐ethylhexoxy)‐1,4‐phenylenevinylene) (MEH‐PPV)‐based polymers and a fluorene–bithiophene copolymer are compared. We use photoluminescence quenching, time‐of‐flight mobility measurements, and optical spectroscopy to characterize the exciton‐transport, charge‐transport, and light‐harvesting properties, respectively, of the polymers, and correlate these material properties with photovoltaic‐device performance. We find that photocurrent is primarily limited by the photogeneration rate and by the quality of the interfaces, rather than by hole transport in the polymer. We have also studied the photovoltaic performance of these TiO₂/polymer devices as a function of the fabrication route and device design. Including a dip‐coating step before spin‐coating the polymer leads to excellent polymer penetration into highly structured TiO₂ networks, as was confirmed through transient optical measurements of the photoinduced charge‐transfer yield and recombination kinetics. Device performance is further improved for all material combinations studied, by introducing a layer of poly(ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) doped with poly(styrene sulfonic acid) (PSS) under the top contact. Optimized devices incorporating the additional dip‐coated and PEDOT:PSS layers produced a short‐circuit current density of about 1 mA cm^–2, a fill factor of 0.50, and an open‐circuit voltage of 0.86 V under simulated AM 1.5 illumination (100 mW cm^–2, 1 sun). The corresponding power conversion efficiency under 1 sun was ≥ 0.4 %.     

Conjugate phase MRI reconstruction with spatially variant sample density correction

A new image reconstruction method to correct for the effects of magnetic field inhomogeneity in non-Cartesian sampled magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is proposed. The conjugate phase reconstruction method, which corrects for phase accumulation due to applied gradients and magnetic field inhomogeneity, has been commonly used for this case. This can lead to incomplete correction, in part, due to the presence of gradients in the field inhomogeneity function. Based on local distortions to the k-space trajectory from these gradients, a spatially variant sample density compensation function is introduced as part of the conjugate phase reconstruction. This method was applied to both simulated and experimental spiral imaging data and shown to produce more accurate image reconstructions. Two approaches for fast implementation that allow the use of fast Fourier transforms are also described. The proposed method is shown to produce fast and accurate image reconstructions for spiral sampled MRI.     

Electroluminescence and Laser Emission of Soluble Pure Red Fluorescent Molecular Glasses Based on Dithienylbenzothiadiazole

Soluble molecular red emitters 1a / 1b are synthesized by Stille coupling from 2‐(3,5‐di(1‐naphthyl)phenyl)thiophene precursors. The compounds show emission maxima at ca. 610 nm in CH₂Cl₂ solution and 620 nm in solid films. Replacing the n‐hexyl substituent by 4‐sec‐butoxyphenyl produces a marked increase of glass transition temperature (T_g) from 82 °C to 137 °C and increases the solubility in toluene and p‐xylene, thus improving the film‐forming properties. Cyclic voltammetry shows that the compounds can be reversibly oxidized and reduced around +1.10 and ?1.20 V, respectively. A two‐layered electroluminescent device based on 1b produces a pure red light emission with CIE coordinates (0.646, 0.350) and a maximal luminous efficiency of 2.1 cd A^?1. Furthermore, when used as a solution‐processed red emitter in optically pumped laser devices, compound 1b successfully produces a lasing emission at ca. 650 nm.     

Identification and control of processing variables that affect the quality and safety of fluid milk.

The objective of this study was to increase quality and safety of fluid milk by eliminating postpasteurization contamination as measured by extended shelf life. Milk shelf life was defined as the number of days for standard plate count to reach 20,000 CFU/ml in milk stored at 7 degrees C. Sequential analysis of the fluid milk processing system indicated filling machine and pasteurizer were significant sources of postpasteurization contamination. Aseptically sampled milk from the pasteurizer outlet indicated a maximum shelf life of more than 30 days could be achieved. The pasteurizer can be a source of contamination when inadequately cleaned or maintained. The filling machine was a significant source of contamination. Shelf life of milk in 236-ml containers was reduced 20 days compared with milk sampled before the filling machine. Carton-forming mandrels, filling heads, and airborne microorganisms were sources of contamination within the filling machine. Eliminating sources of postpasteurization contamination and proper cleaning followed by sanitizing with chlorine significantly increased milk shelf life in paperboard containers to 20.4 days from an initial shelf life of 9 days. Changing the sanitizing agent to peroxyacetic acid significantly increased milk shelf life to 33.9 days. Enclosing the filling chamber and adding sterile laminar flowing air significantly improved microbiological quality of air inside the chamber and reduced variance among milk shelf life samples.