Vertical Phase Separation in Small Molecule:Polymer Blend Organic Thin Film Transistors Can Be Dynamically Controlled

Blending of small‐molecule organic semiconductors (OSCs) with amorphous polymers is known to yield high performance organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). Vertical stratification of the OSC and polymer binder into well‐defined layers is crucial in such systems and their vertical order determines whether the coating is compatible with a top and/or a bottom gate OTFT configuration. Here, we investigate the formation of blends prepared via spin‐coating in conditions which yield bilayer and trilayer stratifications. We use a combination of in situ experimental and computational tools to study the competing effects of formulation thermodynamics and process kinetics in mediating the final vertical stratification. It is shown that trilayer stratification (OSC/polymer/OSC) is the thermodynamically favored configuration and that formation of the buried OSC layer can be kinetically inhibited in certain conditions of spin‐coating, resulting in a bilayer stack instead. The analysis reveals here that preferential loss of the OSC, combined with early aggregation of the polymer phase due to rapid drying, inhibit the formation of the buried OSC layer. The fluid dynamics and drying kinetics are then moderated during spin‐coating to promote trilayer stratification with a high quality buried OSC layer which yields unusually high mobility >2 cm² V^?1 s^?1 in the bottom‐gate top‐contact configuration.     

Wireless distributed computing in cognitive radio networks

Individual cognitive radio nodes in an ad-hoc cognitive radio network (CRN) have to perform complex data processing operations for several purposes, such as situational awareness and cognitive engine (CE) decision making. In an implementation point of view, each cognitive radio (CR) may not have the computational and power resources to perform these tasks by itself. In this paper, wireless distributed computing (WDC) is presented as a technology that enables multiple resource-constrained nodes to collaborate in computing complex tasks in a distributed manner. This approach has several benefits over the traditional approach of local computing, such as reduced energy and power consumption, reduced burden on the resources of individual nodes, and improved robustness. However, the benefits are negated by the communication overhead involved in WDC. This paper demonstrates the application of WDC to CRNs with the help of an example CE processing task. In addition, the paper analyzes the impact of the wireless environment on WDC scalability in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments. The paper also proposes a workload allocation scheme that utilizes a combination of stochastic optimization and decision-tree search approaches. The results show limitations in the scalability of WDC networks, mainly due to the communication overhead involved in sharing raw data pertaining to delegated computational tasks.     

Hierarchical quantization indexing for wavelet and wavelet packet image coding

In this paper, we introduce the quantization index hierarchy, which is used for efficient coding of quantized wavelet and wavelet packet coefficients. A hierarchical classification map is defined in each wavelet subband, which describes the quantized data through a series of index classes. Going from bottom to the top of the tree, neighboring coefficients are combined to form classes that represent some statistics of the quantization indices of these coefficients. Higher levels of the tree are constructed iteratively by repeating this class assignment to partition the coefficients into larger subsets. The class assignments are optimized using a rate-distortion cost analysis. The optimized tree is coded hierarchically from top to bottom by coding the class membership information at each level of the tree. Context-adaptive arithmetic coding is used to improve coding efficiency. The developed algorithm produces PSNR results that are better than the state-of-art wavelet-based and wavelet packet-based coders in literature.     

Data broadcasting strategies for cognitive radio based AMI networks

Wireless Networks - Communication systems play an important role in smart grid (SG). Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is hybrid architecture in smart grid comprising of smart meters and...     

Low loss optical waveguide crossing based on octagonal resonant cavity coupling

A waveguide crossing utilizing a high index contrast material system is presented. The structure is based on coupling with an octagonal resonant cavity inserted at the waveguide junction. It also employs four identical square metal strips placed at the four comers of the waveguide crossing. The spectral response of the structure calculated using the method of line numerical technique, in general, shows a high power transmission in the forward arm with sufficiently low crosstalk and fraction of radiated power.     

具有双绝缘层和修饰电极的薄膜场效应晶体管

研究了具有OTS/SiO2双绝缘层结构及MoO3/Al电极结构的有机薄膜晶体管.器件是以热生长的Si02作为有机薄膜晶体管的栅绝缘层,酞菁铜作为有源层的.OTS/SiO2双绝缘层的结构提高了器件的场效应迁移率和开关电流比,降低了阈值电压.实验表明在同样的栅极电压下,具有MoO3/Al电极的器件和金电极的器件有着相似的源漏输出电流.结果显示具有OTS/SiO2双绝缘层及MoO3/Al电极结构的器件能有效改进有机薄膜晶体管的性能.     

High‐Performance Piezoelectric,Pyroelectric, and Triboelectric Nanogenerators Based on P(VDF‐TrFE) with Controlled Crystallinity and Dipole Alignment

Poly(vinylidenefluoride‐co‐trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF‐TrFE)), as a ferroelectric polymer, offers great promise for energy harvesting for flexible and wearable applications. Here, this paper shows that the choice of solvent used to dissolve the polymer significantly influences its properties in terms of energy harvesting. Indeed, the P(VDF‐TrFE) prepared using a high dipole moment solvent has higher piezoelectric and pyroelectric coefficients and triboelectric property. Such improvements are the result of higher crystallinity and better dipole alignment of the polymer prepared using a higher dipole moment solvent. Finite element method simulations confirm that the higher dipole moment results in higher piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric potential distributions. Furthermore, P(VDF‐TrFE)‐based piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric nanogenerators (NGs) experimentally validate that the higher dipole moment solvent significantly enhances the power output performance of the NGs; the improvement is about 24% and 82% in output voltage and current, respectively, for piezoelectric NG; about 40% and 35% in output voltage and current, respectively, for pyroelectric NG; and about 65% and 75% in output voltage and current for triboelectric NG. In brief, the approach of using a high dipole moment solvent is very promising for high output P(VDF‐TrFE)‐based wearable NGs.     

The influence of defects on device performance of MBE-grown Si homojunction and strained Si1-xGex/Si heterostructures

Different Si homojunction and strained Si_1-xGe_x/Si heterojunction diodes and bipolar transistors have been fabricated by Si-MBE. The effect of annealing on Si homojunction diodes and transistors are studied. It is found that annealing generally improves the Si device performance, such as the ideality factor and breakdown characteristics. The influence of⁶⁰Co γ irradiation on the Si_1-xGe_x/Si diode performances are investigated by studying the temperature dependence of their electrical characteristics, and the results are correlated with the quality of the MBE-films. γ irradiation causes a drop in material conductivity due to the generation of atom-displacement defects in the whole volume of the wafers and increases the defect density at hetero-interfaces. The forward I-V curves of Si_1-xGe_x/Si devices may shift towards lower or higher voltages, depending on the film quality and the irradiation dose. The increase of defect density in strained Si_1-xGe_x/Si films appears to occur easier for the films with lower quality. Electrical measurements and calculations show that the defect-associated tunneling process is important in current transport for these MBE grown Si homojunction and strained Si_1-xGe_x/Si heterojunction devices, which have initially medium film quality or have been treated by irradiation.     

Quality of experience (QoE) driven adaptation scheme for?voice/video over IP

Network quality of service (NQoS) of IP networks is unpredictable and impacts the quality of networked multimedia services. Adaptive voice and video schemes are therefore vital for the provision of voice over IP (VoIP) services for optimised quality of experience (QoE). Traditional adaptation schemes based on NQoS do not take perceived quality into consideration even though the user is the best judge of quality. Additionally, uncertainties inherent in NQoS parameter measurements make the design of adaptation schemes difficult and their performance suboptimal. This paper presents a QoE-driven adaptation scheme for voice and video over IP to solve the optimisation problem to provide optimal QoE for networked voice and video applications. The adaptive VoIP architecture was implemented and tested both in NS2 and in an Open IMS Core network to allow extensive simulation and test-bed evaluation. Results show that the scheme was optimally responsive to available network bandwidth and congestion for both voice and video and optimised delivered QoE for different network conditions, and is friendly to TCP traffic.     

Thermoelectric Polymer Aerogels for Pressure–Temperature Sensing Applications

The evolution of the society is characterized by an increasing flow of information from things to the internet. Sensors have become the cornerstone of the internet‐of‐everything as they track various parameters in the society and send them to the cloud for analysis, forecast, or learning. With the many parameters to sense, sensors are becoming complex and difficult to manufacture. To reduce the complexity of manufacturing, one can instead create advanced functional materials that react to multiple stimuli. To this end, conducting polymer aerogels are promising materials as they combine elasticity and sensitivity to pressure and temperature. However, the challenge is to read independently pressure and temperature output signals without cross‐talk. Here, a strategy to fully decouple temperature and pressure reading in a dual‐parameter sensor based on thermoelectric polymer aerogels is demonstrated. It is found that aerogels made of poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) can display properties of semiconductors lying at the transition between insulator and semimetal upon exposure to high boiling point polar solvents, such as dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO). Importantly, because of the temperature‐independent charge transport observed for DMSO‐treated PEDOT‐based aerogel, a decoupled pressure and temperature sensing can be achieved without cross‐talk in the dual‐parameter sensor devices.