Fiber Bragg Gratings in Small-Core Ge-Doped Photonic Crystal Fibers

This paper reports fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） inscribed in a small-core Ge-doped photonic crystal fibers with a UV laser and a Talbot interferometer. The responses of such FBGs to temper- ature, strain, bending, and transverse-loading were systematically investigated. The Bragg wavelength of the FBGs shifts toward longer wavelengths with increasing temperature, tensile strain, and transverse-loading. The bending and transverse- loading properties of the FBGs are sensitive to the fiber orientations.     

Relaxor/Ferroelectric Composites: A Solution in the Quest for Practically Viable Lead‐Free Incipient Piezoceramics

Recently developed lead‐free incipient piezoceramics are promising candidates for off‐resonance actuator applications with their exceptionally large electromechanical strains. Their commercialization currently faces two major challenges: high electric field required for activating the large strains and large strain hysteresis. It is demonstrated that design of a relaxor/ferroelectric composite provides a highly effective way to resolve both challenges. Experimental results in conjunction with numerical simulations provide key parameters for the development of viable incipient piezoceramics.     

High Precision,Electrochemical Detection of Reversible Binding of Recombinant Proteins on Wide Bandgap GaN Electrodes Functionalized with Biomembrane Models

We report a novel hybrid charge sensor realized by the deposition of phospholipid monolayers on highly doped n‐GaN electrodes. To detect the binding of recombinant proteins with histidine‐tags, lipid vesicles containing chelator lipids were deposited on GaN electrodes pre‐coated with octadecyltrimethoxysilane monolayers. Owing to its optical transparency, GaN allows the confirmation of the fluidity of supported membranes by fluorescence recovery after photo‐bleaching (FRAP). The electrolyte‐(organic) insulator‐semiconductor (EIS) setup enables one to transduce variations in the surface charge density ΔQ into a change in the interface capacitance ΔC _p and, thus, the flat‐band potential ΔU _FB. The obtained results demonstrate that the membrane‐based charge sensor can reach a high sensitivity to detect reversible changes in the surface charge density on the membranes by the formation of chelator complexes, docking of eGFP with histidine tags, and cancellation by EDTA. The achievable resolution of ΔQ ≥ 0.1 μC/cm² is better than that obtained for membrane‐functionalized p‐GaAs, 0.9 μC/cm², and for ITO coated with a polymer supported lipid monolayer, 2.2 μC/cm². Moreover, we examined the potential application of optically active InGaN/GaN quantum dot structures, for the detection of changes in the surface potential from the photoluminescence signals measured at room temperature.     

Diindenoperylene derivatives: A model to investigate the path from molecular structure via morphology to solar cell performance

Efficient organic electronic devices require a detailed understanding of the relation between molecular structure, thin film growth, and device performance, which is only partially understood at present. Here, we show that small changes in molecular structure of a donor absorber material lead to significant changes in the intermolecular arrangement within organic solar cells. For this purpose, phenyl rings and propyl side chains are fused to the diindenoperylene (DIP) molecule. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry turned out to be a powerful combination to gain detailed information about the thin film growth. Planar and bulk heterojunction solar cells with C60 as acceptor and the DIP derivatives as donor are fabricated to investigate the influence of film morphology on the device performance. Due to its planar structure, DIP is found to be highly crystalline in pristine and DIP:C60 blend films while its derivatives grow liquid-like crystalline. This indicates that the molecular arrangement is strongly disturbed by the steric hindrance induced by the phenyl rings. The high fill factor (FF) of more than 75% in planar heterojunction solar cells of the DIP derivatives indicates excellent charge transport in the pristine liquid-like crystalline absorber layers. However, bulk heterojunctions of these materials surprisingly result in a low FF of only 54% caused by a weak phase separation and thus poor charge carrier percolation paths due to the lower ordered thin film growth. In contrast, crystalline DIP:C60 heterojunctions lead to high FF of up to 65% as the crystalline growth induces better percolation for the charge carriers. However, the major drawback of this crystalline growth mode is the nearly upright standing orientation of the DIP molecules in both pristine and blend films. This arrangement results in low absorption and thus a photocurrent which is significantly lower than in the DIP derivative devices, where the liquid-like crystalline growth leads to a more horizontal molecular alignment. Our results underline the complexity of the molecular structure-device performance relation in organic semiconductor devices.     

Flexible organic P3HT:PCBM bulk-heterojunction modules with more than 1 year outdoor lifetime

Flexible organic solar cells and modules based on P3ht:PCBM bulk-heterojunctions were fabricated and their lifetime was investigated under laboratory and outdoor conditions. In the laboratory cells were exposed to 1 sun illumination at 65 °C in order to accelerate the degradation. The outdoor behavior of modules was investigated at the Konarka rooftop testing setup in Lowell, MA (USA). We show that these flexible polymer solar cells have a good light stability, passing 1000 h under accelerated light soaking conditions in the laboratory, and that flexible modules survived over 1 year of outdoor exposure without performance losses.     

Analysis of an Improved Split-Step Algorithm for Simulating Optical Transmission Systems

The standard Split-Step algorithm for calculating the signal transmission through optical fibres is significantly accelerated without relevant loss of accuracy by applying IIR filters as well as Fourier transformations for the linear operator. Depending on the system topology, high speed-up factors can be achieved by switching back and forth between time and frequency domain algorithms for the linear operator. Two different IIR filters are applied for calculating linear and parabolic dispersion. The efficiency of this algorithm in combination with an innovative step-size allocation method is evaluated.     

Accelerated Ionic Motion in Amorphous Memristor Oxides for Nonvolatile Memories and Neuromorphic Computing

Memristive devices based on mixed ionic–electronic resistive switches have an enormous potential to replace today's transistor‐based memories and Von Neumann computing architectures thanks to their ability for nonvolatile information storage and neuromorphic computing. It still remains unclear however how ionic carriers are propagated in amorphous oxide films at high local electric fields. By using memristive model devices based on LaFeO₃ with either amorphous or epitaxial nanostructures, we engineer the structural local bonding units and increase the oxygen‐ionic diffusion coefficient by one order of magnitude for the amorphous oxide, affecting the resistive switching operation. We show that only devices based on amorphous LaFeO₃ films reveal memristive behavior due to their increased oxygen vacancy concentration. We achieved stable resistive switching with switching times down to microseconds and confirm that it is predominantly the oxygen‐ionic diffusion character and not electronic defect state changes that modulate the resistive switching device response. Ultimately, these results show that the local arrangement of structural bonding units in amorphous perovskite films at room temperature can be used to largely tune the oxygen vacancy (defect) kinetics for resistive switches (memristors) that are both theoretically challenging to predict and promising for future memory and neuromorphic computing applications.     

Implementation of electron beam grey scale lithography and proximity effect correction for silicon nanowire device fabrication

An electron beam lithography exposure strategy combining efficient proximity effect correction (PEC) with multi-pass grey scale is compared with a more conventional strategy based on a single-pass exposure without PEC. Exposure results for different types of nanowire structures are presented. Line edge and line width roughness (LER and LWR) values for both approaches are determined. The novel exposure strategy presented in this work reduced LER by ∼25% and LWR by ∼40%.     

Inverted Organic Solar Cells with Sol–Gel Processed High Work‐Function Vanadium Oxide Hole‐Extraction Layers

For large‐scale and high‐throughput production of organic solar cells (OSCs), liquid processing of the functional layers is desired. We demonstrate inverted bulk‐heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs) with a sol–gel derived V₂O₅ hole‐extraction‐layer on top of the active organic layer. The V₂O₅ layers are prepared in ambient air using Vanadium(V)‐oxitriisopropoxide as precursor. Without any post‐annealing or plasma treatment, a high work function of the V₂O₅ layers is confirmed by both Kelvin probe analysis and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Using UPS and inverse photoelectron spectroscopy (IPES), we show that the electronic structure of the solution processed V₂O₅ layers is similar to that of thermally evaporated V₂O₅ layers which have been exposed to ambient air. Optimization of the sol gel process leads to inverted OSCs with solution based V₂O₅ layers that show power conversion efficiencies similar to that of control devices with V₂O₅ layers prepared in high‐vacuum.     

Gallium gradients in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin‐film solar cells

The gallium gradient in Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) layers, which forms during the two industrially relevant deposition routes, the sequential and co‐evaporation processes, plays a key role in the device performance of CIGS thin‐film modules. In this contribution, we present a comprehensive study on the formation, nature, and consequences of gallium gradients in CIGS solar cells. The formation of gallium gradients is analyzed in real time during a rapid selenization process by in situ X‐ray measurements. In addition, the gallium grading of a CIGS layer grown with an in‐line co‐evaporation process is analyzed by means of depth profiling with mass spectrometry. This gallium gradient of a real solar cell served as input data for device simulations. Depth‐dependent occurrence of lateral inhomogeneities on the µm scale in CIGS deposited by the co‐evaporation process was investigated by highly spatially resolved luminescence measurements on etched CIGS samples, which revealed a dependence of the optical bandgap, the quasi‐Fermi level splitting, transition levels, and the vertical gallium gradient. Transmission electron microscopy analyses of CIGS cross‐sections point to a difference in gallium content in the near surface region of neighboring grains. Migration barriers for a copper‐vacancy‐mediated indium and gallium diffusion in CuInSe₂ and CuGaSe₂ were calculated using density functional theory. The migration barrier for the In_Cu antisite in CuGaSe₂ is significantly lower compared with the Ga_Cu antisite in CuInSe₂, which is in accordance with the experimentally observed Ga gradients in CIGS layers grown by co‐evaporation and selenization processes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.