Low band gap poly-thienopyrazines for solar cells—Introducing the 11-thia-9,13-diaza-cyclopenta[b]triphenylenes

The chemistry of the thienopyrazines has been explored with the aim of producing new low band gap polymers. 5,7-Di-(thiophen-2-yl)-thieno[3,4-b]pyrazines substituted in the pyrazine ring with alkyl groups, aryl groups and fused aromatic rings have been prepared and characterized. The electronic spectra show a great variation in the longest wavelength absorption band as a consequence of this substitution. A special case is the 11-thia-9,13-diaza-cyclopenta[b]triphenylene prepared by condensation of 3′,4′-diamino-[2,2′,5′,2″]terthiophene with phenanthrene-9,10-quinone. Alkyl substitution of the most promising monomers were carried out using the Kumada coupling and these were copolymerized with either 2,5-bis(trimethylstannyl)thiophene or 3-(3,7,11-trimethyl-dodecyl)-2,5-bis-trimethylstannyl-thiophene to form six new low band gap polymers: RISO-GREEN 1–3 and RISO-BROWN 1–3. The band gaps of these polymers were estimated from the UV–visible absorption spectra and found to be ca. 1.3 eV. Preliminary results from photovoltaic device fabrication with mixtures of the six polymers with either [60]PCBM or [70]PCBM gave modest efficiencies of max 0.2% with open circuit voltages V_oc of 0.3 V and short circuit currents J_sc (1000 Wm⁻² AM1.5) in the range of 2 mA cm⁻².     

PowerForms: Declarative client-side form field validation

All uses of HTML forms may benefit from validation of the specified input field values. Simple validation matches individual values against specified formats, while more advanced validation may involve interdependencies of form fields. There is currently no standard for specifying or implementing such validation. Today, CGI programmers often use Perl libraries for simple server-side validation or program customized JavaScript solutions for client-side validation. We present PowerForms, which is an add-on to HTML forms that allows a purely declarative specification of input formats and sophisticated interdependencies of form fields. While our work may be seen as inspiration for a future extension of HTML, it is also available for CGI programmers today through a preprocessor that translates a PowerForms document into a combination of standard HTML and JavaScript that works on all combinations of platforms and browsers. The definitions of PowerForms formats are syntactically disjoint from the form itself, which allows a modular development where the form is perhaps automatically generated by other tools and the formats and interdependencies are added separately. PowerForms has a clean semantics defined through a fixed-point process that resolves the interdependencies between all field values. Text fields are equipped with status icons (by default traffic lights) that continuously reflect the validity of the text that has been entered so far, thus providing immediate feed-back for the user. For other GUI components the available options are dynamically filtered to present only the allowed values. PowerForms are integrated into the system for generating interactive Web services, but is also freely available in an Open Source distribution as a stand-alone package.     

On‐Chip Detection of Rolling Circle Amplified DNA Molecules from Bacillus Globigii Spores and Vibrio Cholerae

For the first time DNA coils formed by rolling circle amplification are quantified on‐chip by Brownian relaxation measurements on magnetic nanobeads using a magnetoresistive sensor. No external magnetic fields are required besides the magnetic field arising from the current through the sensor, which makes the setup very compact. Limits of detection down to 500 Bacillus globigii spores and 2 pM of Vibrio cholerae are demonstrated, which are on the same order of magnitude or lower than those achieved previously using a commercial macro‐scale AC susceptometer. The chip‐based readout is an important step towards the realization of field tests based on rolling circle amplification molecular analyses.     

Stability of polymer solar cells

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) evolve in an exponential manner in the two key areas of efficiency and stability. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) has in the last decade been increased by almost a factor of ten approaching 10%. A main concern has been the stability that was previously measured in minutes, but can now, in favorable circumstances, exceed many thousands of hours. This astonishing achievement is the subject of this article, which reviews the developments in stability/degradation of OPVs in the last five years. This progress has been gained by several developments, such as inverted device structures of the bulk heterojunction geometry device, which allows for more stable metal electrodes, the choice of more photostable active materials, the introduction of interfacial layers, and roll-to-roll fabrication, which promises fast and cheap production methods while creating its own challenges in terms of stability.     

Unmixing of Hyperspectral Images using Bayesian Non-negative Matrix Factorization with Volume Prior

Hyperspectral imaging can be used in assessing the quality of foods by decomposing the image into constituents such as protein, starch, and water. Observed data can be considered a mixture of underlying characteristic spectra (endmembers), and estimating the constituents and their abundances requires efficient algorithms for spectral unmixing. We present a Bayesian spectral unmixing algorithm employing a volume constraint and propose an inference procedure based on Gibbs sampling. We evaluate the method on synthetic and real hyperspectral data of wheat kernels. Results show that our method perform as good or better than existing volume constrained methods. Further, our method gives credible intervals for the endmembers and abundances, which allows us to asses the confidence of the results.     

Resonant surface roughness interactions in planar superlenses

Simulations were performed to investigate how various spatial frequencies of surface roughness, in planar superlenses, affect superlens performance. Resonant behaviour was observed and increases between 110% and 267%, in image line-edge roughness (LER), were observed at the peaks relative to the average image LER observed outside these resonant frequencies. This investigation suggests that the position of these resonance peaks is dependent upon the periodic character of the object being imaged, implying that a resonant coupling between shadow mask features and surface roughness takes place. These results present additional considerations for future studies within the field of superlensing.     

Non‐destructive lateral mapping of the thickness of the photoactive layer in polymer‐based solar cells

Non‐destructive lateral mapping of the thickness of the photoactive layer in poly(3‐hexyl‐thiophene) : 1‐(3‐methoxy‐carbonyl)propyl‐1‐phenyl‐(6,6)C₆₁ (P3HT : PCBM) solar cells is demonstrated. The method employs a spatially resolved (XY) recording of ultraviolet‐visible spectra in reflection geometry at normal incidence, using a dense raster defined by a circular probe spot of 800‐µm diameter. The evaluation of the thickness of the photoactive layer at each raster point employs an algorithm‐driven comparison of the measured absorption spectrum with spectral features, as compiled from the corresponding simulated spectrum. For the robustness of the applied algorithm toward noise in the recorded absorption data to be increased, a new minimum finder algorithm is described and implemented. The thickness evaluation relies on the correct assignment of extrema in the experimental absorption spectra to the corresponding extrema in the simulated absorption spectra, and a new algorithm for this is also implemented and described. For a level of confidence for the method to be established, first thickness mapping is performed for a set of reference samples consisting of P3HT : PCBM spin‐coated on indium tin oxide‐coated float glass substrates. After this, two application examples for solar cells processed either by spin coating or slot die coating of the P3HT : PCBM layer follow. The spin‐coated solar cells have glass as the substrate with the P3HT : PCBM spun at different spinning speeds. The slot die‐coated solar cells were processed on polyethylene terephthalate foil in a roll‐to‐roll experiment involving a continuously changing P3HT : PCBM concentration along the printing direction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Roll‐to‐Roll Printed Silver Nanowire Semitransparent Electrodes for Fully Ambient Solution‐Processed Tandem Polymer Solar Cells

Silver nanowires (AgNWs) and zinc oxide (ZnO) are deposited on flexible substrates using fast roll‐to‐roll (R2R) processing. The AgNW film on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) shows >80% uniform optical transmission in the range of 550–900 nm. This electrode is compared to the previously reported and currently widely produced indium‐tin‐oxide (ITO) replacement comprising polyethylene terephthalate (PET)|silver grid|poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)|ZnO known as Flextrode. The AgNW/ZnO electrode shows higher transmission than Flextrode above 490 nm in the electromagnetic spectrum reaching up to 40% increased transmission at 750 nm in comparison to Flextrode. The functionality of AgNW electrodes is demonstrated in single and tandem polymer solar cells and compared with parallel devices on traditional Flextrode. All layers, apart from the semitransparent electrodes which are large‐scale R2R produced, are fabricated in ambient conditions on a laboratory roll‐coater using printing and coating methods which are directly transferrable to large‐scale R2R processing upon availability of materials. In a single cell structure, Flextrode is preferable with active layers based on poly‐3‐hexylthiophene(P3HT):phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid methylester (PCBM) and donor polymers of similar absorption characteristics while AgNW/ZnO electrodes are more compatible with low band gap polymer‐based single cells. In tandem devices, AgNW/ZnO is more preferable resulting in up to 80% improvement in PCE compared to parallel devices on Flextrode.     

冰山住宅

冰山住宅的外形轮廓清晰、线条分明,11个白色的峰顶为奥尔胡斯天际线增添了浓墨重彩的一笔,无论从向陆面还是从临海面看去都是如此.项目地理位置优越,位于奥尔胡斯新区的黄金地段——奥尔胡斯东岸最远端的港湾区,共包含208间公寓.正如许多其他日益破败的工业港口区一样,先前的奥尔胡斯集装箱港正逐渐被改造成为一个充满活力的新社区,各种各样的居住、教育机构、办公、零售、运动和休闲功能单元一应俱全。     

The effect of forming stresses on the sintering of ultra-fine Ce0.9Gd0.1O2−δ powders

The effect of particle and pore arrangement on sintering and densification of ultra-fine (～130 nm) Ce_0.9Gd_0.1O_2?δ powder was evaluated. The common understanding that higher initial density of a ceramic network leads to a higher sintered density is not valid for fine powders, which have extremely good sinterability when there is a favourable particle packing. The effect of the applied stresses during forming (which produce different particle packing arrangements) was investigated by forging green bodies by different shaping techniques, including casting, and cold isostatic pressing. Samples formed with techniques that apply low levels of stress had a particle arrangement which significantly enhanced sintering at low temperature, compared to those prepared by high stress techniques. The sample geometry, heat treatment for organic removal and the initial density of the green body had a negligible effect on the final density when the ratio of the pore size to particle size was around 1.