Silver Nanowire-Based Stretchable Transparent Electrode for Flexible Organic Light-Emitting Diode.

The new stretchable transparent electrode was proposed and fabricated based on a process which utilizes silver nanowires (AgNWs) on a Polyurethane (PU) substrate. In order to overcome the rough surface nature of the silver nanowire electrode, a titanium oxide (TiO2) buffer layer was over-coated and then followed by a heat treatment of organo-metalic sol-gel solution. The fabricated stretchable electrodes exhibit electrical sheet resistance of 24 Ω/□, transmittance of 78% at 550 nm wavelength and average surface roughness of less than 5 nm. In addition, without adding additional conductive polymer layers, the fabricated AgNW-based electrode can maintain its initial electrical resistance even if nearly 130% strain is applied. In this letter, the critical role of a TiO2 buffer layer in achieving the high performance of the AgNW stretchable electrode is discussed.

Nonlinear intermodulation distortion suppression in coherent analog fiber optic link using electro-optic polymeric dual parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator.

A linearized dual parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) based on electro-optic (EO) polymer was both fabricated, and experimentally used to suppress the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) in a coherent analog fiber optic link. This optical transmitter design was based on a new EO chromophore called B10, which was synthesized for applications dealing with the fiber-optic communication systems. The chromophore was mixed with amorphous polycarbonate (APC) to form the waveguide's core material. The DPMZM was configured with two MZMs, of different lengths in parallel, with unbalanced input and output couplers and a phase shifter in one arm. In this configuration each of the MZMs carried a different optical power, and imposed a different depth of optical modulation. When the two optical beams from the MZMs were combined to generate the transmitted signal it was possible to set the IMD3 produced by each modulator to be equal in amplitude but 180° out of phase from the other. Therefore, the resulting IMD3 of the DPMZM transmitter was effectively canceled out during two-tone experiments. A reduction of the IMD3 below the noise floor was observed while leaving fifth-order distortion (IMD5) as the dominant IMD product. This configuration has the capability of broadband operation and shot-noise limited operation simultaneously.

Thermomechanical liquid crystalline elastomer capillaries with biomimetic peristaltic crawling function.

It is highly desirable to fabricate liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) devices with novel functions for applications in different areas. In this study, LCE capillaries with biomimetic peristaltic function are fabricated for the first time to mimic the peristaltic crawling locomotion of earthworms. A specifically designed LC cell was prepared for this purpose, which consisted of two coaxial glass capillaries coated with polyimide alignment layers on the inner cell surfaces. The side-on LCE capillaries were fabricated by photoinitiated polymerization/crosslinking of a monomer and a crosslinker in the LC cells. The results show that owing to the effect of the alignment layers on the LC cell walls, the mesogenic units in the network structures are predominantly oriented along the capillary axis. Reversible thermomechanical contraction and expansion are observed for the LCE capillaries, which show a relative contraction of 16% in the length and a relative expansion of 12% in the diameter upon the nematic to isotropic phase transition. When placed in a glass tube with an appropriate inner diameter, reversible peristaltic crawling locomotion of the LCE capillaries is realized by moving a heating source outside the tube along its axis. Under typical conditions, the peristaltic crawling motion shows a moving speed of 0.31 mm s-1. The mechanism of the peristaltic crawling of the LCE capillary is elucidated with the assistance of the finite elemental analysis (FEA) simulation. A five-stage motion model is established to rationalize these observations and correlate the observations with the crawling locomotion of earthworms. The LCE capillary with the peristaltic crawling locomotion function promises its potential applications in biomimetic miniature robots and actuators.

Flexible, Highly Durable, and Thermally Stable SWCNT/Polyimide Transparent Electrodes.

Flexible, transparent, and electrically conducting electrode materials are highly desired for flexible electronic applications. With a highly transparent polyimide (PI) as a substrate, a comprehensive and comparative study was performed to investigate four different fabrication schemes in producing transparent and electrically conducting SWCNT/PI electrodes. A very promising method that involves an in situ imidization process and nitric acid doping treatment was identified, which led to the fabrication of highly durable and thermally stable SWCNT/PI electrodes. The best performed electrode has a transmission of 77.6% at 550 nm and a sheet resistance (Rs) of 1169 ± 172 Ω/□, which appeared no changes after repeating tests of bending, folding-unfolding, adhesive-tape-peeling-off, and wet tissue-paper scratching/wiping. The excellent thermal stability of such fabricated SWCNT/PI electrode is manifested by the very high glass transition temperature of 290.1 °C and low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of 28.5 ppm °C(-1) in the temperature range from 75 to 200 °C. The new method expects to be able to pave the way in facile production of high-performance flexible, transparent, and conducting electrodes.

Electro-optic polymer frequency shifter activated by input optical pulses.

We demonstrate electro-optic frequency shifting of 1.55-microm optical pulses by as much as 86 GHz in a polymer traveling-wave phase modulator. The optical pulses were modulated with the linear region of quasi-sinusoidal microwave pulses. In the implemented configuration the electro-optic frequency shifter does not require synchronization with the source of the optical pulses, making it transparent to the optical-pulse repetition rate and increasing its utility. Electro-optic frequency conversion has a number of advantages compared with other methods of all-optical frequency conversion, including no need for a second optical source, high conversion efficiency, and simple control of the output frequency.

Vertical adiabatic transition between a silica planar waveguide and an electro-optic polymer fabricated with gray-scale lithography.

We report on a vertical adiabatic transition between silica planar waveguides and electro-optic (EO) polymer. Gray-scale lithography was used to pattern a polymer transition with an exponential profile. Excess losses of the order of 1 dB were measured, and good mode matching to simulation was observed. This configuration, which married the advantages of both silica and EO-polymer planar-optic technologies, demonstrates a new technique for fabricating hybrid active devices with high modulation speed, low insertion loss, and complex geometries.