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Despite the recent advances in augmented reality (AR), which has shown the potential to significantly impact on our daily lives by offering a new way to manipulate and interact with virtual information, minimizing visual discomfort due to the vergence-accommodation conflict remains a challenge. Emerging AR technologies often exploit focus-tunable optics to address this problem. Although they demonstrated improved depth perception by enabling proper focus cues, a bulky form factor of focus-tunable optics prevents their use in the form of a pair of eyeglasses. Herein, we describe an ultrathin, focus-tunable liquid crystal (LC) diffractive lens with a large aperture, a low weight, and a low operating voltage. In addition, we show that the polarization dependence of the lens, which is an inherent optical property of LC lenses, can be eliminated using birefringent thin films as substrates and by aligning the optical axes of the birefringent substrates and LC at a specific angle. The polarization independence eliminates the need for a polarizer, thus further reducing the form factor of the optical system. Next, we demonstrate a prototype of AR glasses with addressable focal planes using the ultrathin lens. The prototype AR glasses can adjust the accommodation distance of the virtual image, mitigating the vergence-accommodation conflict without substantially compromising the form factor or image quality. This research on ultrathin lens technology shows promising potential for developing compact optical displays in various applications., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures

We demonstrate the influence of angular mismatch on the field-effect mobility in solution-processed organic thin-film transistors based on the study of anisotropic organic semiconductor (OSC) layer characteristics. The mobility alteration caused by angular mismatch was significantly affected by the molecular alignment and crystallinity characteristics. In particular, the sensitivity of mobility increased with angular mismatch. This tendency was more pronounced as the molecular alignment and crystallinity were enhanced. These results clearly show the dependence of the anisotropic mobility properties, which were induced by angular mismatch, on the OSC film characteristics. (C) 2017 Author(s).

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is most commonly used as an anode buffer layer in bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs). However, its hygroscopic and acidic nature contributes to the insufficient electrical conductivity, air stability and restricted photovoltaic (PV) performance for the fabricated PSCs. In this study, a new multifunctional additive, 2,3-dihydroxypyridine (DOH), has been used in the PEDOT: PSS buffer layer to obtain modified properties for PEDOT: PSS@DOH and achieve high PV performances. The electrical conductivity of PEDOT:PSS@DOH films was markedly improved compared with that of PEDOT:PSS. The PEDOT:PSS@DOH film exhibited excellent optical characteristics, appropriate work function alignment, and good surface properties in BHJ-PSCs. When a poly(3-hexylthiohpene):[6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester blend system was applied as the photoactive layer, the power conversion efficiency of the resulting PSCs with PEDOT:PSS@DOH(1.0%) reached 3.49%, outperforming pristine PEDOT:PSS, exhibiting a power conversion enhancement of 20%. The device fabricated using PEDOT:PSS@DOH (1.0 wt%) also exhibited improved thermal and air stability. Our results also confirm that DOH, a basic pyridine derivative, facilitates adequate hydrogen bonding interactions with the sulfonic acid groups of PSS, induces the conformational transformation of PEDOT chains and contributes to the phase separation between PEDOT and PSS chains.

We demonstrate the first-ever surface modification of green CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) using bromide anions (Br-) in cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The Br- ions reduced the interparticle spacing between the QDs and induced an effective charge balance in QD light-emitting devices (QLEDs). The fabricated QLEDs exhibited efficient charge injection because of the reduced emission quenching effect and their enhanced thin film morphology. As a result, they exhibited a maximum luminance of 71,000 cd/m2 and an external current efficiency of 6.4 cd/A, both significantly better than those of their counterparts with oleic acid surface ligands. In addition, the lifetime of the Br- treated QD based QLEDs is significantly improved due to ionic passivation at the QDs surface.