Post-COVID-19 Invasive Fungal Sinusitis: A Case Series from Southern India

Acute Invasive Fungal Rhinosinusitis (AIFR) is a serious condition with aggressive course and high mortality rates. There is an upsurge in the incidence of invasive fungal rhinosinusitis in post COVID-19 patients. We have come across 20 AIFR cases in post COVID-19 patients. On retrospective exploration of the patient’s records, we found that 30% patients had received steroids and 90% had diabetes. All the patients were managed by administration of IV amphotericin B and local debridement of infected tissues. The mortality rate was as low as 15 %. We conclude that combined approach of Antifungal therapy with debridement of infected tissues improves the prognosis and survival of AIFR patients

Reduction of Hysteresis in Hybrid Perovskite Transistors by Solvent-Controlled Growth

The effect of crystallization process speed on the morphology of solution-processed methyl ammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) thin films is investigated. Crystallization speed is controlled by varying the number of annealing steps, temperature, and resting time between steps. The resting period allows solvent-controlled growth (SCG) in which crystallization progresses slowly via an intermediate phase—during which solvents slowly evaporate away from the films. SCG results in fewer residues, fewer pinholes, and larger grain sizes. Consequently, thin-film transistors with SCG MAPbI3 exhibit smaller hysteresis in their current-voltage characteristics than those without, demonstrating the benefits of SCG toward hysteresis-free perovskite devices

Remarkable Stability Improvement of ZnO TFT with Al2O3 Gate Insulator by Yttrium Passivation with Spray Pyrolysis

We report the impact of yttrium oxide (YOx) passivation on the zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film transistor (TFT) based on Al2O3 gate insulator (GI). The YOx and ZnO films are both deposited by spray pyrolysis at 400 and 350 °C, respectively. The YOx passivated ZnO TFT exhibits high device performance of field effect mobility (μFE) of 35.36 cm2/Vs, threshold voltage (VTH) of 0.49 V and subthreshold swing (SS) of 128.4 mV/dec. The ZnO TFT also exhibits excellent device stabilities, such as negligible threshold voltage shift (∆VTH) of 0.15 V under positive bias temperature stress and zero hysteresis voltage (VH) of ~0 V. YOx protects the channel layer from moisture absorption. On the other hand, the unpassivated ZnO TFT with Al2O3 GI showed inferior bias stability with a high SS when compared to the passivated one. It is found by XPS that Y diffuses into the GI interface, which can reduce the interfacial defects and eliminate the hysteresis of the transfer curve. The improvement of the stability is mainly due to the diffusion of Y into ZnO as well as the ZnO/Al2O3 interface