Ultraflexible Glassy Semiconductor Fibers for Thermal Sensing and Positioning.

Flexible, large-area, and low-cost thermal sensing networks with high spatial and temporal resolution are of profound importance in addressing the increasing needs for industrial processing, medical diagnosis, and military defense. Here, a thermoelectric (TE) fiber is fabricated by thermally codrawing a macroscopic preform containing a semiconducting glass core and a polymer cladding to deliver thermal sensor functionalities at fiber-optic length scales, flexibility, and uniformity. The resulting TE fiber sensor operates in a wide temperature range with high thermal detection sensitivity and accuracy, while offering ultraflexibility with the bending curvature radius below 2.5 mm. Additionally, a single TE fiber can either sense the spot temperature variation or locate the heat/cold spot on the fiber. As a proof of concept, a two-dimensional 3 × 3 fiber array is woven into a textile to simultaneously detect the temperature distribution and the position of heat/cold source with the spatial resolution of millimeter. Achieving this may lead to the realization of large-area, flexible, and wearable temperature sensing fabrics for wearable electronics and advanced artificial intelligence applications.

Study of the EFG tensor at 75As nuclei in Ge-As-Se chalcogenide glasses.

Asymmetry parameters of the electric field gradient tensor at (75) As nuclei were determined for chalcogenide glassy semiconductors (CGS) of the Ge-As-Se system by comparing the experimental and simulated (75) As nuclear quadrupole resonance nutation interferograms. The electric field gradient asymmetry in CGS was analyzed, and it is believed that a structural change in these glassy semiconductors takes place at r¯ = 2.425. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of the Ge-As-Se system were obtained for the first time. A comparison was made between the results of analysis of the Ge-As-Se system by nuclear quadrupole resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance methods, and this allowed us to make the supposition that a structural phase transition occurs at r¯ = 2.4 from two-dimensional to three-dimensional CGS structure.