Dielectric/metal/dielectric alternative transparent electrode: observations on stability/degradation

The use of indium-free transparent conductive electrodes is of great interest for organic optoelectronic devices. Among the possible replacements for ITO, dielectric/metal/dielectric (D/M/D) multilayer structures have already proven to be quite efficient. One issue with organic devices is their lifetime, which depends not only on the organic molecules used but also on the electrodes. Therefore we study the variation, with elapsed time, of the electrical and optical properties of different D/M/D structures, with M  =  Ag or Cu/Ag. Six years after realization, it has been shown that if some structures retained an acceptable conductivity, some others became non-conductive. For a sample which remains conductive, in the case of a PET/MoO3/Ag/MoO3 multilayer structure, the sheet resistance changes from 5 Ω/sq–17 Ω/sq after six years. This evolution can be compared to that of a PET/ITO electrode that varies from 25 Ω/sq–900 Ω/sq after six years. It means that not only are the PET/MoO3/Ag/MoO3 multilayer structures more flexible than PET/ITO, but they can also be more stable. Nevertheless, if some PET/MoO3/Ag/MoO3 multilayer structures are quite stable, some others are not. This possible degradation appears to be caused primarily by the physical agglomeration of Ag, which can result in Ag film disruption. This Ag diffusion seems to be caused by humidity-induced degradation in these Ag-based D/M/D structures. Initially, defects begin to grow at a \u27nucleus\u27, usually a microscopic particle (or pinhole, etc), and then they spread radially outward to form a nearly circular pattern. For a critical density of such defects, the structure becomes non-conductive. Moreover the effect of humidity promotes Ag electrochemical reactions that produce Ag+ ions and enhances surface diffusivity with AgCl formation

Indium free electrode, highly flexible, transparent and conductive for optoelectronic devices

WO3/Ag/WO3 multilayer structures were used as ITO free transparent electrode, transparent heat mirrors and transparent heaters. WO3/Ag/WO3 stacked layers were deposited by sequential sublimation, evaporation under vacuum. After optimization of Ag thickness (16 nm), they exhibit low sheet resistance (8 Ω/sq), high transmittance in the visible (TMax = 91.5%, averaged T400-700 = 80.6%) and high reflection in the near infrared and infrared regions. These values are optimal when it is used as transparent electrode but, as transparent heat mirrors 18 nm are better due to higher reflection in the NIR and IR. All these properties made possible to use them in different devices. When used as transparent anode in organic photovoltaic cells, they allow achieving performance similar to those obtained with ITO. Their transmission and reflection spectra show that they can also be employed as transparent heat mirrors. Similarly, studies dedicated to heating properties of the WO3/Ag/WO3 multilayer structures show that their performance are comparable to those obtained with another possible substituent to ITO, silver nanowires thin films

Order-of-magnitude speedup for steady states and traveling waves via Stokes preconditioning in Channelflow and Openpipeflow

Steady states and traveling waves play a fundamental role in understanding hydrodynamic problems. Even when unstable, these states provide the bifurcation-theoretic explanation for the origin of the observed states. In turbulent wall-bounded shear flows, these states have been hypothesized to be saddle points organizing the trajectories within a chaotic attractor. These states must be computed with Newton's method or one of its generalizations, since time-integration cannot converge to unstable equilibria. The bottleneck is the solution of linear systems involving the Jacobian of the Navier-Stokes or Boussinesq equations. Originally such computations were carried out by constructing and directly inverting the Jacobian, but this is unfeasible for the matrices arising from three-dimensional hydrodynamic configurations in large domains. A popular method is to seek states that are invariant under numerical time integration. Surprisingly, equilibria may also be found by seeking flows that are invariant under a single very large Backwards-Euler Forwards-Euler timestep. We show that this method, called Stokes preconditioning, is 10 to 50 times faster at computing steady states in plane Couette flow and traveling waves in pipe flow. Moreover, it can be carried out using Channelflow (by Gibson) and Openpipeflow (by Willis) without any changes to these popular spectral codes. We explain the convergence rate as a function of the integration period and Reynolds number by computing the full spectra of the operators corresponding to the Jacobians of both methods.Comment: in Computational Modelling of Bifurcations and Instabilities in Fluid Dynamics, ed. Alexander Gelfgat (Springer, 2018

Molecular characterization of canine parvovirus-2 variants circulating in Tunisia

Canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV2) emerged in 1978 as a highly contagious and very serious disease in dogs. The characterization of CPV2 antigenic types is exclusively based on the identification of the amino acid residue at position 426 of the capsid protein VP2. Currently, three antigenic types CPV-2a (asparagine N-426), CPV-2b (aspartic acid D-426) and CPV-2c (glutamic acid E-426) are circulating worldwide. In Tunisia, despite the fact that many clinical and few serological investigations clearly indicate that CPV is widespread and of major concerns in the local dog population, no molecular and antigenic type characterization of circulating variants has been carried out. This investigation showed that most of clinically presumed CPV infections were confirmed by classical or real-time PCR. When no real-time PCR facilities were affordable, classical PCR as reported here in association with restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) with MboI and MboII can be very useful for screening and diagnosing CPV infections. A total of 50 variants were characterized by sequencing and an almost even representation of the different antigenic types, including CPV-2c and slightly more type 2b, were evidenced. Characterization of the Tunisian variants by MGB probe assays as reported was inefficient for most of CPV-2a variants because of their typical nucleotide mutation C-1269. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the Tunisian variants underwent evolution for a relatively long period of time inside the country. The analysis also showed some crossings of the different antigenic types, leaving both genotypic and phenotypic characteristic mutations

Stabilisation of Cu films in WO3/Ag/Cu:Al/WO3 structures through their doping by Al and Ag

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On the contribution of fullerene to the current of planar heterojunction organic solar cells

International audienceRecently, significant progress in the field of organic photovoltaic cells was obtained by substituting new electron acceptor molecules to the fullerene, which was attributed to the fact that the fullerene absorption is quite small. Nevertheless, we demonstrate in the present work that, in the case of inverted cells, i.e. when the transparent bottom electrode is used as cathode, the contribution of fullerene to the Jsc short-circuit current of the cells, if not dominant, is not negligible; and that mainly in the short wavelength spectral range. The experimental results are confirmed by an optical simulation. Due to this significant contribution to Jsc, the light transmission of the transparent electrode towards the UV-part of the spectrum is crucial for inverse cell performances. When a transparent conductive electrode based on an alternative dielectric/metal/dielectric structure is substituted to ITO, such as ZnS/Ag/TiO 2 , the study allows to obtain promising results, although there is a loss of performance due to the decrease of transmission of TiO 2 below 400 nm in wavelength

Stabilisation of the electrical and optical properties of dielectric/Cu/dielectric structures through the use of efficient dielectric and Cu:Ni alloy

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New dielectric/metal/dielectric electrode for organic photovoltaic cells using Cu:Al alloy as metal

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