Inverted loss engineering in functional material covered waveguides

Optical waveguides, covered with thin films, which transmittance can be controlled by external action, are widely used in various applications from optical modulators to saturable absorbers. It is natural to suggest that the waveguide losses will be proportional to the covering material absorption. We demonstrate that under certain conditions this simple assumption fails. Instead, we observe the reduction of the film material absorption can lead to an increase in the waveguide propagation losses. For this, we use a side polished fiber covered with a single-walled carbon nanotube thin film whose absorption is attenuated either due to saturable absorption or electrochemical gating. For the films thicker than 50 nm, we observe saturable absorption to turn into light induced absorption with nonmonotonic dependence on the incident power. With a numerical simulation and analytical approach, we identify that this nontrivial behavior comes from mode reshaping and predict required parameters for its observation.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Data from: Holographic sol-gel monoliths: optical properties and application for humidity sensing

Sol–gel monoliths based on SiO2, TiO2 and ZrO2 with holographic colourful diffraction on their surfaces were obtained via a sol–gel synthesis and soft lithography combined method. The production was carried out without any additional equipment at near room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The accurately replicated wavy structure with nanoscale size of material particles yields holographic effect and its visibility strongly depends on refractive index (RI) of materials. Addition of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in systems increases their RI and lends absorbing properties due to extremely high light absorption constant. Further prospective and intriguing applications based on the most successful samples, MWCNTs-doped titania, were investigated as reversible optical humidity sensor. Owing to such property as reversible resuspension of TiO2 nanoparticles while interacting with water, it was proved that holographic xerogels can repeatedly act as humidity sensors. Materials which can be applied as humidity sensors in dependence on holographic response were discovered for the first time

Transparent Conducting Films Based on Carbon Nanotubes: Rational Design toward the Theoretical Limit

Funding Information: The authors thank Dr. D. Krasnikov and Dr. A. Goldt for fruitful discussions of the review and their valuable comments. D.A.I. and O.E.G. acknowledge the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 21‐19‐00226). A.G.N. thanks the Council on grants of the President of RF. (grant No. НШ‐1330.2022.1.3). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.Electrically conductive thin-film materials possessing high transparency are essential components for many optoelectronic devices. The advancement in the transparent conductor applications requires a replacement of indium tin oxide (ITO), one of the key materials in electronics. ITO and other transparent conductive metal oxides have several drawbacks, including poor flexibility, high refractive index and haze, limited chemical stability, and depleted raw material supply. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are a promising alternative for transparent conducting films (TCFs) because of their unique and excellent chemical and physical properties. Here, the latest achievements in the optoelectronic performance of TCFs based on SWCNTs are analyzed. Various approaches to evaluate the performance of transparent electrodes are briefly reviewed. A roadmap for further research and development of the transparent conductors using “rational design,” which breaks the deadlock for obtaining the TCFs with a performance close to the theoretical limit, is also described.Peer reviewe

Robust method for uniform coating of carbon nanotubes with V₂O₅ for next-generation transparent electrodes and Li-ion batteries

Composites comprising vanadium-pentoxide (V2O5) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are promising components for emerging applications in optoelectronics, solar cells, chemical and electrochemical sensors, etc. We propose a novel, simple, and facile approach for SWCNT covering with V2O5 by spin coating under ambient conditions. With the hydrolysis-polycondensation of the precursor (vanadyl triisopropoxide) directly on the surface of SWCNTs, the nm-thick layer of oxide is amorphous with a work function of 4.8 eV. The material recrystallizes after thermal treatment at 600 °C, achieving the work function of 5.8 eV. The key advantages of the method are that the obtained coating is uniform with a tunable thickness and does not require vacuuming or heating during processing. We demonstrate the groundbreaking results for two V2O5/SWCNT applications: transparent electrode and cathode for Li-ion batteries. As a transparent electrode, the composite shows stable sheet resistance of 160 Ω sq−1 at a 90% transmittance (550 nm) - the best performance reported for SWCNTs doped by metal oxides. As a cathode material, the obtained specific capacity (330 mA h g−1) is the highest among all the other V2O5/SWCNT cathodes reported so far. This approach opens new horizons for the creation of the next generation of metal oxide composites for various applications, including optoelectronics and electrochemistry.</p

Modified silicone rubber for fabrication and contacting of flexible suspended membranes of n-/p-GaP nanowires with a single-walled carbon nanotube transparent contact

Rubber materials are the key components of flexible optoelectronic devices, especially for the light-emitting diodes based on arrays of inorganic nanowires (NWs). This paper reports on polydimethylsiloxane-graft-polystyrene (PDMS-St) as a new flexible substrate of GaP NW array structures. The NWs were encapsulated by the newly introduced G-coating method to substitute the inefficient mainstream spin-coating. To further exploit the flexibility and the stretchability of the NW/PDMS-St structures, the ferrocenyl-containing polymethylhydrosiloxane was synthesized and successfully used as an electrode for the NWs. In order to make an alternative highly efficient transparent electrode, a new application of conductive single-walled carbon nanotubes was demonstrated. The novel materials and methods demonstrated unsurpassed mechanical stability of the fabricated flexible electronic devices.Peer reviewe