Investigation of the effect of microstructural changes on thermal transport in semicrystalline polymer semiconductors

Great progress in the development of new semiconducting polymers over the last two decades alongside improved understanding of electron transport mechanisms have resulted in a dramatic increase in the electron mobility of these materials making them promising candidates for electronic and thermoelectric applications. Heat transport phenomena, on the other hand—which govern thermal conductivity—have not received as much attention up to date. In spite of the simplicity of the principle behind the measurement of thermoelectric properties, the combined uncertainty in thermoelectric figure of merit zT could easily reach 50% with the largest uncertainty coming from thermal conductivity measurements. Such a high measurement uncertainty, often comparable to relative variations in zT encountered when optimizing within a given class of materials, prevents the study of structure-thermal property relationships. Here we present a protocol for the measurement of the thermal conductivity of thin films with reduced measurement uncertainty, which allowed us to investigate the effect of microstructural changes on the thermal conductivity of the conjugated polymer P(NDI2OD-T2). We show that the enhancement of the thermal conductivity upon annealing is much less pronounced than the corresponding increase in the electron mobility that has been reported under the same annealing conditions in the literature. This suggests that semicrystalline conjugated polymers in which thermal transport remains limited by the amorphous domain boundaries in between crystalline grains could be a suitable system for realizing the electron-crystal phonon glass concept and enable higher performance thermoelectric materials.</jats:p

Surface wear of TiN coated nickel tool during the injection moulding of polymer micro Fresnel lenses

Limited tool life of nickel mould inserts represents an issue for the mass-production of polymer optics with complex micro three-dimensional geometries by injection moulding. TiN coating was applied to a nickel insert for the injection moulding of polycarbonate micro Fresnel lenses. Surface wear was monitored at different intervals during production on different tool locations. 3D micro optical dimensional microscopy, surface replica technique and SEM–EDS were employed to characterize wear of the micro features. Results showed wear decreasing at higher distance from the gate. After 24,500 moulding cycles the measured height reduction of 23μm high ribs was on the order of 400–1000nm

System Vicarious Calibration for Ocean Color Climate Change Applications: Requirements for In Situ Data

System Vicarious Calibration (SVC) ensures a relative radiometric calibration to satellite ocean color sensors that minimizes uncertainties in the water-leaving radiance Lw derived from the top of atmosphere radiance LT. This is achieved through the application of adjustment gain-factors, g-factors, to pre-launch absolute radiometric calibration coefficients of the satellite sensor corrected for temporal changes in radiometric sensitivity. The g-factors are determined by the ratio of simulated to measured spectral LT values where the former are computed using: i. highly accurate in situ Lw reference measurements; and ii. the same atmospheric model and algorithms applied for the atmospheric correction of satellite data. By analyzing basic relations between relative uncertainties of Lw and LT, and g-factors consistently determined for the same satellite missions using different in situ data sources, this work suggests that the creation of ocean color Climate Data Records (CDRs) should ideally rely on: i. one main long-term in situ calibration system (site and radiometry) established and sustained with the objective to maximize accuracy and precision over time of g-factors and thus minimize possible biases among satellite data products from different missions; and additionally ii. unique (i.e., standardized) atmospheric model and algorithms for atmospheric correction to maximize cross-mission consistency of data products at locations different from that supporting SVC. Finally, accounting for results from the study and elements already provided in literature, requirements and recommendations for SVC sites and field radiometers radiometric measurements are streamlined

Measurement Science and Technology

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