Designing a Stable Cathode with Multiple Layers to Improve the Operational Lifetime of Polymer Light‐Emitting Diodes

The short device lifetime of blue polymer light‐emitting diodes (PLEDs) is still a bottleneck for commercialization of self‐emissive full‐color displays. Since the cathode in the device has a dominant influence on the device lifetime, a systematic design of the cathode structure is necessary. The operational lifetime of blue PLEDs can be greatly improved by introducing a three‐layer (BaF₂/Ca/Al) cathode compared with conventional two‐layer cathodes (BaF₂/Al and Ba/Al). Therefore, the roles of the BaF₂ and Ca layers in terms of electron injection, luminous efficiency, and device lifetime are here investigated. For efficient electron injection, the BaF₂ layer should be deposited to the thickness of at least one monolayer (～3 nm). However, it is found that the device lifetime does not show a strong relation with the electron injection or luminous efficiency. In order to prolong the device lifetime, sufficient reaction between BaF₂ and the overlying Ca layer should take place during the deposition where the thickness of each layer is around that of a monolayer.     

Nanostructured Bulk Silicon as an Effective Thermoelectric Material

Thermoelectric power sources have consistently demonstrated their extraordinary reliability and longevity for deep space missions and small unattended terrestrial systems. However, more efficient bulk materials and practical devices are required to improve existing technology and expand into large‐scale waste heat recovery applications. Research has long focused on complex compounds that best combine the electrical properties of degenerate semiconductors with the low thermal conductivity of glassy materials. Recently it has been found that nanostructuring is an effective method to decouple electrical and thermal transport parameters. Dramatic reductions in the lattice thermal conductivity are achieved by nanostructuring bulk silicon with limited degradation in its electron mobility, leading to an unprecedented increase by a factor of 3.5 in its performance over that of the parent single‐crystal material. This makes nanostructured bulk (nano‐bulk) Si an effective high temperature thermoelectric material that performs at about 70% the level of state‐of‐the‐art Si_0.8Ge_0.2 but without the need for expensive and rare Ge.     

Energy Loss Mechanism in Organic and Inorganic Light-Emitting Diodes

We report that there exists a similar energy loss mechanism in fluorescent/phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (F/P OLEDs) and inorganic semiconductor optoelectronic devices [1310-nm InGaAsP-InP superluminescent diodes (SLDs)]. The loss of energy in inorganic SLDs based on thickness-altered asymmetric multiple quantum-well (QW) structures occurs depending sensitively on the sequence of QWs, an analogous behavior also observed in F/P OLEDs depending on the sequence of phosphorescent dopants for different colors. It is shown that such an energy (power) loss is evitable by placing long-wavelength QWs near the p-side in inorganic SLDs and similarly long-wavelength phosphors near the hole-transporting layer in F/P OLEDs.     

Analysis of Failure Mechanism in Anisotropic Conductive and Non-Conductive Film Interconnections

Failure behaviors of anisotropic conductive film (ACF) and non-conductive film (NCF) interconnects were investigated by measuring the connection resistance. The four-point probe method was used to measure the connection resistance of the adhesive joints constructed with Au bump on Si chip and Cu pad on flexible printed circuit. The interconnection reliability was evaluated by multiple reflow process. The connection resistance of the ACF joints was markedly higher than that of NCF joints, mainly due to the constriction of the current flow and the intrinsic resistance of the conductive particles in ACF joints. The connection resistances of both interconnections decreased with increasing bonding force, and subsequently converged to about 10 and 1 mOmega at a bonding force of 70 and 80 N, for the ACF and NCF joints, respectively. During the reflow process, two different conduction behaviors were observed: increased connection resistance and the termination of Ohmic behavior. The former was due to the decreased contact area caused by z-directional swelling of the adhesives, whereas the latter was caused by either contact opening in the adhesive joints or interface cracking.     

End-to-end BER analysis for dual-hop OSTBC transmissions over Rayleigh fading channels

In this letter, a BER study is presented for the end- to-end performance of dual-hop wireless communication systems employing transmit diversity with orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBCs), where a nonregenerative or regenerative relay is equipped with a single antenna operating over flat Rayleigh fading channels. More specifically, we provide probability density functions (PDFs) and moment generating functions (MGFs) for the end-to-end SNR of the dual-hop OSTBC transmissions and then present its BER performance over M-ary QAM and PSK modulations, respectively. Numerical investigation shows that the analytic BER provided in the letter makes an exact match with the simulation result in various multiple-antenna transmission scenarios. The result also shows how the number of antennas equipped at the source and destination affects the end-to-end performance.     

Reliable Wavelength-Division-Multiplexed Passive Optical Network Using Novel Protection Scheme

A novel, reliable wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) with self-protection capability is proposed. By utilizing the routing characteristics of N x N arrayed waveguide grating, the proposed architecture can provide automatic protection against any fiber cut between central office and optical network unit (ONU). Compared with the conventional schemes, this scheme adopts colorless ONUs, thus leading to a decrease in the costs of operation, administration, and maintenance, as well as the production cost. Without the performance degradation, the proposed WDM-PON scheme can offer a reliable network service. In the experiment, the protection performance was demonstrated in the carrier-distributed 1.25-Gb/s WDM transmission over 20-km single-mode fiber.     

Full constellation phase detector for carrier recovery in high-order QAM systems

A full constellation phase detector that improves carrier acquisition performance in high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is proposed. The weighting function of the phase detector is mathematically derived, and simulated phase detector characteristics are presented for 256QAM. The results of an experimental evaluation are also reported, which show that the carrier recovery loop based on the proposed phase detector has a large frequency acquisition range and low phase tracking error in high-order QAM.     

Emerging Wearable Sensors for Plant Health Monitoring

Emerging plant diseases, caused by pathogens, pests, and climate change, are critical threats to not only the natural ecosystem but also human life. To mitigate crop loss due to various biotic and abiotic stresses, new sensor technologies to monitor plant health, predict, and track plant diseases in real time are desired. Wearable electronics have recently been developed for human health monitoring. However, the application of wearable electronics to agriculture and plant science is in its infancy. Wearable technologies mean that the sensors will be directly placed on the surfaces of plant organs such as leaves and stems. The sensors are designed to detect the status of plant health by profiling various trait biomarkers and microenvironmental parameters, transducing bio-signals to electric readout for data analytics. In this perspective, the recent progress in wearable plant sensors is summarized and they are categorized by the functionality, namely plant growth sensors, physiology, and microclimate sensors, chemical sensors, and multifunctional sensors. The design and mechanism of each type of wearable sensors are discussed and their applications to address the current challenges of precision agriculture are highlighted. Finally, challenges and perspectives for the future development of wearable plant sensors are presented.