Side-group engineering: The influence of norbornadienyl substituents on the properties of ethynylated pentacene and tetraazapentacene

The chemical modifications of 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS-PEN) and 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)-5,7,12,14-tetraazapentacene (TIPS-TAP) by introduction of a large norbornadienyl substituent at the silyl atom of the side chain were examined and their effect on the charge transport properties in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) was investigated. While the introduction of the norbornadienyl substituent resulted in only small changes in the crystallographic packing of these materials and did not affect the optical and electronic properties, the effect on the charge carrier mobility is significant. The hole mobility for the norbornadienyl substituted pentacene (Nor-PEN) is increased compared to similarly prepared TIPS-PEN devices, reaching up to 0.75 cm²/Vs. On the other hand, the electron mobility of the tetraaza derivative (Nor-TAP) is reduced by an order of magnitude compared to its parent TIPS-TAP. The strong effect of the norbornadienyl substitution on the charge carrier mobilities can be explained by the calculation of the transfer integrals and the microstructure of the resulting films of the Nor-derivatives.     

Female Spectatorship and the Masquerade: Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills

Since the late 1970s Cindy Sherman has been one of the most prominent artists in the USA. She is a cult figure because of her chameleon-like masquerade in a female imagery reminiscent of American and European cinema and western art. Her dramatic metamorphosis began with Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980), in which she acted out a variety of female roles from Hollywood and European movies. In the early 1980s she gradually transformed her image into horrific monsters and decaying matter. In the late 1980s Sherman assumed different male and female personas based on old master paintings. Since then, the subject matter of her pictures has increasingly been taken up by hybrid dolls with surreal or grotesque connotations. This paper attempts to venture back into the terrain of Untitled Film Stills that inaugurated Sherman's artistic career. This series of photographs has become one of the most prominent landmarks of feminist/postmodern art. I will propose a new interpretation against the grain of the established feminist readings of these photographs.     

Effect of reactive sputtered SiOx passivation layer on the stability of InGaZnO thin film transistors

We fabricated the indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) thin film transistor (TFT) with reactive sputtered SiO_x as passivation layer, and investigated the role of the SiO_x passivation layer in the IGZO-TFT under gate bias stress. The bias stability of IGZO-TFT with passivation layer is much better than that of IGZO-TFT without passivation layer. After applying positive bias stress of 20 V for 10000s, the device without passivation layer shows a larger positive V_th shift of 7.3 V. However, the device with passivation layer exhibits a much smaller V_th shift of 1.3 V. It suggests that V_th instability is attributed to the interaction between the exposed IGZO back surface and oxygen in ambient atmosphere during the positive gate voltage stress. The results indicate that reactive sputtered SiO_x passivation layer can effectively improve the bias stability of IGZO-TFT.     

Thermal Oxidation Mechanism of Polyalphaolefin Greases with Lithium Soap and Diurea Thickeners: Effects of the Thickener

In this work, lithium and diurea greases formulated by poly-alpha-olefin were aged up to 1,200 h in an oven at 120°C and periodically taken out for testing. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and infrared (IR) spectra proved that both physical and chemical degradation occurred during the thermal aging process, such as a decrease in apparent viscosity, thickener destruction, and change in chemical species. Diurea grease showed much better anti-oxidation performance during thermal aging than lithium grease. A dual effect of thermal aging on the grease lubricity was observed and analyzed. Results showed that early oxidation might reduce grease lubricity due to the formation of ketones and aldehydes, and the decrease in grease viscosity and oil bleeding due to thickener destruction would contribute to better replenishment.     

Study on the effect of DIC deformation sensor on mechanical property of substrate

The thin epoxy film with micro-scale speckle pattern as a digital image correlation (DIC) deformation sensor has been fabricated or transferred on the surface of sample in the previous study. When the thickness of the film cannot be ignored, it may have an influence on the validity of measurement results. And thus, the influence of the thin epoxy film on mechanical properties of substrates should be investigated. In this study, the mechanical behavior of thin film itself and surface strain of composite structure of thin film and substrate were measured using micro digital image correlation (MDIC) method. And theoretical and simulative results were also analyzed. From the comparison analysis of theoretical, simulative and experimental results, it is concluded that when the ratios of Young’s modulus and thickness between the film and substrate are smaller than 13 and 0.5 respectively, the influence from the thin film can be ignored, and thin epoxy film as DIC sensor can be used to measure the deformation of substrate.     

Studies on thin film based flexible gold electrode arrays for resistivity imaging in electrical impedance tomography

Practical phantoms are essential to assess the electrical impedance tomography (EIT) systems for their validation, calibration and comparison purposes. Metal surface electrodes are generally used in practical phantoms which reduce the SNR of the boundary data due to their design and development errors. Novel flexible and biocompatible gold electrode arrays of high geometric precision are proposed to improve the boundary data quality in EIT. The flexible gold electrode arrays are developed on flexible FR4 sheets using thin film technology and practical gold electrode phantoms are developed with different configurations. Injecting a constant current to the phantom boundary the surface potentials are measured by a LabVIEW based data acquisition system and the resistivity images are reconstructed in EIDORS. Boundary data profile and the resistivity images obtained from the gold electrode phantoms are compared with identical phantoms developed with stainless steel electrodes. Surface profilometry, microscopy and the impedance spectroscopy show that the gold electrode arrays are smooth, geometrically precised and less resistive. Results show that the boundary data accuracy and image quality are improved with gold electrode arrays. Results show that the diametric resistivity plot (DRP), contrast to noise ratio (CNR), percentage of contrast recovery (PCR) and coefficient of contrast (COC) of reconstructed images are improved in gold electrode phantoms.     

Hybrid film of chemically modified graphene and vapor-phase-polymerized PEDOT for electronic nose applications

A hybrid of graphene and conducting polymer holds great potential as the active materials for high performance chemical sensor application. In this work, a thin hybrid film of reduced graphene oxide (RG-O) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) was fabricated by means of vapor phase polymerization and explored as active material for chemical sensors. The chemical sensors based on hybrid film of RG-O and PEDOT are capable of detecting electrical signals caused by the absorption of trace levels of different analyte vapors with high sensitivity, selectivity and fast response.     

Falling film evaporation characteristics of microalgae suspension for biofuel production

Microalgae, one of the important biofuel producers, have received considerable attention recently. Dewatering is one of the bottlenecks for its industrialization due to the dilute nature of the suspensions and the small cell size. Traditional liquid–solid separation processes are not efficient for dewatering of microalgae suspensions. In this study, falling film evaporation was employed for dewatering of microalgae suspension, which is a popular process for concentrating heat sensitive materials. The heat transfer coefficient was as high as 9414.20 W/m² K with mass flow rate of 0.233 kg/s, ΔT of 1.21 °C, and microalgae concentration of 60 g/L. The falling film evaporation process can be made highly energy efficient if it is coupled with Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) or Thermal Vapor Recompression (TVR) system. Heat and mass transfer characteristics of falling film evaporation of microalgae suspension have been investigated here. This will provide the fundamentals for future feasibility study of utilizing the falling film evaporation in the microalgal industry.     

Determination of diffusion coefficients in film systems on the basis of Fe/Cr and Cu/Cr

This paper presents the results of investigation of condensation stimulated (CSD) and thermal stimulated (TSD) diffusion in nanoscale film systems on the basis of Fe/Cr and Cu/Cr by Auger-electron spectroscopy method. The film systems were built in ultrahigh vacuum. Auger spectrum was traced during condensation after each increase in thickness of 0.5-1 nm or during film systems annealing from 300 to 683 K over 5 h. According to experimental data the concentration profiles were built and the effective coefficients of CSD and TSD were computed by several mathematical methods. The efficiency of these techniques in different cases was analyzed. The most accurate results were obtained with Weeple and Gauss error methods that take into account the thickness of the diffusant source.     

Low‐Energy Electron Beam Induced Charging and Secondary Electron Emission Properties of FEP Film Used on Satellite Surfaces

Many kinds of insulating materials are used outside a spacecraft. They include FEP films, polyimide films, and so on, and are used as thermal control materials. These materials are exposed to a charged‐particle environment around the spacecraft. Thus then become charged due to charged particles, especially electrons. It has been pointed out that charging of these materials is likely to cause discharges on the surfaces. From this viewpoint, we investigated the charging potential characteristics of 127‐μm‐thick FEP film, a typical thermal control material, by exposing it to electron irradiation at various energies below 20 keV. In the dependence of the charging potential on the electron energy, we found that the electron energy at which no charge‐up occurs is about 2.7 keV. This appears to be the energy at the which secondary electron emission yield becomes unity. This indicates that electron irradiation of FEP film with energies lower than 2.7 keV induces positive charging. From the charge decay characteristics after electron irradiation, the volume resistivity of the film was also obtained as a function of the electric fields in the bulk of the FEP film.