Remote‐Controllable Molecular Knob in the Mesomorphic Helical Superstructures

A programed light‐responsive chiral liquid crystal (LC) containing four photochromic azobenzene moieties covalently connected to a central bicyclic chiral core (abbreviated as AZ₄ICD) is newly designed, precisely synthesized, and efficiently applied as a remote‐controllable molecular knob for the optically tunable thin film. First of all, phase evolutions and ordered structures of AZ₄ICD are systematically investigated by a combination of thermal, microscopic, scattering, and simulation techniques. Wide‐angle X‐ray diffractions of oriented AZ₄ICD samples indicate that the AZ₄ICD molecule itself basically forms layer structures: one is a low‐ordered chiral smectic A LC phase (SmA*) with 5.61 nm layer periodicity at high temperatures, and two highly ordered smectic crystal (SmCr₁ and SmCr₂) phases are subsequently formed at lower temperatures with the anticlinically tilted molecular packing structures. The helical superstructures of chiral nematic LC phase (N*) can be spontaneously constructed by doping AZ₄ICD chiral agents into the achiral nematic molecules. Due to the bent conformational geometry of AZ₄ICD, the thermal window of blue LC phase (BP) is expanded by stabilizing the double twisted cylindrical building blocks. Remote‐controllable phase transformations in the mesomorphic helical superstructures are demonstrated by tuning the wavelength of light.     

Efficient Charge Injection in Organic Field‐Effect Transistors Enabled by Low‐Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition of Ultrathin VOx Interlayer

Charge injection at metal/organic interface is a critical issue for organic electronic devices in general as poor charge injection would cause high contact resistance and severely limit the performance of organic devices. In this work, a new approach is presented to enhance the charge injection by using atomic layer deposition (ALD) to prepare an ultrathin vanadium oxide (VO_x) layer as an efficient hole injection interlayer for organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs). Since organic materials are generally delicate, a gentle low‐temperature ALD process is necessary for compatibility. Therefore, a new low‐temperature ALD process is developed for VO_x at 50 °C using a highly volatile vanadium precursor of tetrakis(dimethylamino)vanadium and non‐oxidizing water as the oxygen source. The process is able to prepare highly smooth, uniform, and conformal VO_x thin films with precise control of film thickness. With this ALD process, it is further demonstrated that the ALD VO_x interlayer is able to remarkably reduce the interface contact resistance, and, therefore, significantly enhance the device performance of OFETs. Multiple combinations of the metal/VO_x/organic interface (i.e., Cu/VO_x/pentacene, Au/VO_x/pentacene, and Au/VO_x/BOPAnt) are examined, and the results uniformly show the effectiveness of reducing the contact resistance in all cases, which, therefore, highlights the broad promise of this ALD approach for organic devices applications in general.     

Treatment of Malignant Brain Tumor by Tumor‐Triggered Programmed Wormlike Micelles with Precise Targeting and Deep Penetration

The efficient and specific drug delivery to brain tumor is a crucial challenge for successful systemic chemotherapy. To overcome these limitations, here a tumor‐triggered programmed wormlike micelle is reported with precise targeting and deep penetration to treat malignant gliomas, which is composed of pH‐responsive mPEG‐b‐PDPA copolymer and bioreducible cyclic RGD peptide targeted cytotoxic emtansine (DM1) conjugates (RGD‐DM1). The RGD‐DM1 loaded nanoscaled wormlike micelles (RNW) exhibit nanometer‐sized wormlike assemblies with the transverse diameter of 21.3±1.8 nm and length within 60–600 nm, and the RGD targeting peptide in RNW is 4.2% in weight. RNW can be dissociated at intracellular acidic environments to release RGD‐DM1, and be further degraded into DM1 by cleavage of disulfide bonds in the reductive milieu. In particular, by exploiting the unique wormlike structure and the RGD targeting peptide modification, RNW can be endowed with obviously enhanced drug delivery to brain, precise targeting to brain tumor, deep penetration into tumor mass, and efficient internalization into glioma cells in a programmed manner, thereby surprisingly leading to an 88.9% inhibition on tumor progression in an orthotopic brain tumor model. Therefore, the properly designed RNW can provide a promising delivery platform for systemic chemotherapy of brain tumor.     

Applied Voltage and Near‐Infrared Light Enable Healing of Superhydrophobicity Loss Caused by Severe Scratches in Conductive Superhydrophobic Films

The fabrication of self‐healing/healable superhydrophobic films that can conveniently and repeatedly restore the loss of superhydrophobicity caused by severe mechanical damage, such as deep and wide surface scratches, remains challenging. In the present work, conductive superhydrophobic films that are healable by means of an applied voltage or near infrared (NIR) light irradiation are fabricated by depositing a layer of Ag nanoparticles and Ag nanowires (AgNPs‐AgNWs) on a thermally healable polycaprolactone (PCL)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) composite film, followed by the deposition of 1H,1H,2H,2H‐perfluorodecanethiol. The AgNPs‐AgNWs layer not only provides micro‐ and nanoscaled hierarchical structures in support of superhydrophobicity but also serves as an electrothermal or photothermal heater to enable healing of the underlying PCL/PVA film under the assistance of a low applied voltage or low‐power NIR light irradiation. Because of the strong adhesion between the PCL/PVA film and the AgNPs‐AgNWs layer, the healability of the PCL/PVA film is successfully conveyed to the conductive superhydrophobic layer, which can rapidly and repeatedly restore the loss of superhydrophobicity caused by cuts several hundreds of micrometers wide. The combined electrothermal and superhydrophobic properties endow the healable conductive superhydrophobic films with improved durability and usefulness as self‐cleaning, antiicing, and snow‐removing surfaces.     

Efficient single layer RGB phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

We report efficient single layer red, green, and blue (RGB) phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) using a “direct hole injection into and transport on triplet dopant” strategy. In particular, red dopant tris(1-phenylisoquinoline)iridium [Ir(piq)₃], green dopant tris(2-phenylpyridine)iridium [Ir(ppy)₃], and blue dopant bis(3,5-difluoro-2-(2-pyridyl)phenyl-(2-carboxypyridyl)iridium [FIrpic] were doped into an electron transporting 1,3,5-tris(N-phenylbenzimidazole-2-yl)benzene (TPBi) host, respectively, to fabricate RGB single layer devices with indium tin oxide (ITO) anode and LiF/Al cathode. It is found that the maximum current efficiencies of the devices are 3.7, 34.5, and 6.8 cd/A, respectively. Moreover, by inserting a pure dopant buffer layer between the ITO anode and the emission layer, the efficiencies are improved to 4.9, 43.3, and 9.8 cd/A, respectively. It is worth noting that the current efficiency of the green simplified device was as high as 34.6 cd/A, even when the luminance was increased to 1000 cd/m² at an extremely low applied voltage of only 4.3 V. A simple accelerated aging test on the green device also shows the lifetime decay of the simplified device is better than that of a traditional multilayered one.     

同质缓冲层对ZnO薄膜光学性质的影响

利用射频磁控溅射技术,在单晶硅衬底上生长出高质量(0002)晶面取向的ZnO外延薄膜。通过XRD、AFM、吸收光谱、光致荧光发光谱的实验研究,发现加入适当厚度的、低温生长的ZnO同质缓冲层,可有效降低晶格失配和因热膨胀系数不同引起的晶格畸变。在衬底温度200℃、沉积时间5min的ZnO缓冲层上,以450℃衬底温度溅射ZnO薄膜主层,得到的ZnO样品的晶体结构、表面形貌和光学性质均有较明显的改善。     

In Situ Synthesis of Titanium Nickel Intermetallic Compounds Layer and TiN Coating By Laser Cladding

1 Introduction Laser cladding technology has been widely used in ma- terial processing and tool repairing because it causes little distortion and leads to high quality coatings [1]. Since the appearance ofhigh power diode lasers, the laser cladding is more efficient, economical and flexible[2￣5]. Titanium nickel alloys have excellent properties such as low density, high strength, and high chemical stability, which have promoted their applications in the aerospace, chemical, petrochemical and …     

Highly conductive buried n+ layers in lnp:fe created by MeV energy Si,S, and Si/S implantation for application to microwave devices

To obtain highly conductive buried layers in InP:Fe, MeV energy Si, S, and Si/ Simplantations are performed at 200°C. The silicon and sulfer implants gave 85 and 100 percent activation, respectively, for a fluence of 8 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻². The Si/S co-implantation also gave almost 100 percent donor activation for a fluence of 8 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻² of each species. An improved silicon donor activation is observed in the Si/S co-implanted material compared to the material implanted with silicon alone. The peak carrier concentration achieved for the Si/S co-implant is 2 × 10¹⁹ cm³. The lattice damage on the surface side of the profile is effectively removed after rapid thermal annealing. Multiple-energy silicon and sulfur implantations are performed to obtain thick and buried n⁺ layers needed for microwave devices and also hyper-abrupt profiles needed for varactor diodes.     

瞬态电荷收集法研究a—Si：H／a—SiN：H界面处的电子积累＊

本文介绍一种研究a-Si:H/a-SiN:H界面层电子积累特性的新方法,所用样品为Cr/a-SiN:H/a-Si:H/(n+)a-Si:H/AI.测试表明,a-Si:H/a-SiN:H界面是一个电子积累层,其电子面密度为3.2×10~(11)/cm~2,并且界面层中的电子面密度随外加电压的增加而线性增加。实验结果与理论分析相一致。