Intrinsically stable organic solar cells under high-intensity illumination.

Organic photovoltaic cells are now approaching commercially viable efficiencies, particularly for applications that make use of their unique potential for flexibility and semitransparency1-3. However, their reliability remains a major concern, as even the most stable devices reported so far degrade within only a few years4-8. This has led to the belief that short operational lifetimes are an intrinsic disadvantage of devices that are fabricated using weakly bonded organic materials-an idea that persists despite the rapid growth and acceptance of organic light-emitting devices, which can achieve lifetimes of several million hours9. Here we study an extremely stable class of thermally evaporated single-junction organic photovoltaic cells. We accelerated the ageing process by exposing the packaged cells to white-light illumination intensities of up to 37 Suns. The cells maintained more than 87 per cent of their starting efficiency after exposure for more than 68 days. The degradation rate increases superlinearly with intensity, leading to an extrapolated intrinsic lifetime, T80, of more than 4.9 × 107 hours, where T80 is the time taken for the power conversion efficiency to decrease to 80 per cent of its initial value. This is equivalent to 27,000 years outdoors. Additionally, we subjected a second group of organic photovoltaic cells to 20 Suns of ultraviolet illumination (centred at 365 nanometres) for 848 hours, a dose that would take 1.7 × 104 hours (9.3 years) to accumulate outdoors. No efficiency loss was observed over the duration of the test. Overall, we find that organic solar cells packaged in an inert atmosphere can be extremely stable, which is promising for their future use as a practical energy-generation technology.

Tackling light trapping in organic light-emitting diodes by complete elimination of waveguide modes.

Conventional waveguide mode decoupling methods for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are typically not scalable and increase fabrication complexity/cost. Indium-tin-oxide-free transparent anode technologies showed efficiency improvement without affecting other device properties. However, previous works lack rigorous analysis to understand the efficiency improvement. Here, we introduced an ultrathin silver (Ag) film as transparent electrode and conducted systematic modal analysis of OLEDs and report that waveguide mode can be completely eliminated by designing an OLED structure that is below the cutoff thickness of waveguide modes. We also experimentally verified the waveguide mode removal in organic waveguides with the help of index-matching fluid and prism. The negative permittivity, extremely thin thickness (~5 nanometers), and highly conductive properties achieved by a uniform copper-seeded Ag film can suppress waveguide mode formation, enhancing external quantum efficiency without compromising any other characteristics of OLEDs, which paves the way for cost-effective high-efficiency OLEDs in current display industry.

Hot excited state management for long-lived blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes.

Since their introduction over 15 years ago, the operational lifetime of blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs) has remained insufficient for their practical use in displays and lighting. Their short lifetime results from annihilation between high-energy excited states, producing energetically hot states (>6.0 eV) that lead to molecular dissociation. Here we introduce a strategy to avoid dissociative reactions by including a molecular hot excited state manager within the device emission layer. Hot excited states transfer to the manager and rapidly thermalize before damage is induced on the dopant or host. As a consequence, the managed blue PHOLED attains T80=334±5 h (time to 80% of the 1,000 cd m-2 initial luminance) with a chromaticity coordinate of (0.16, 0.31), corresponding to 3.6±0.1 times improvement in a lifetime compared to conventional, unmanaged devices. To our knowledge, this significant improvement results in the longest lifetime for such a blue PHOLED.

Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma of the vocal fold.

Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, previously called malignant fibrous histiocytoma, usually arises in the extremities and retroperitoneum. Primary laryngeal undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma is very rare, with only 63 cases having been reported in the literature as of 2015. The disease has a poor prognosis because of problems with local recurrence and metastasis. Wide resection has been recommended as a treatment modality in previous reports. We report a case of undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma of the vocal fold in a 64-year-old man presenting with rapid growth. The lesion was treated with type III microlaryngeal surgery followed by radiation therapy. The patient's voice was good enough for social communication, and there was no evidence of recurrence on regular examination.