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Fabry–Perot interferometers (FPIs), comprising foundry-compatible dielectric thin films on sapphire wafer substrates, were investigated for possible use in chemical sensing. Specifically, structures comprising two vertically stacked distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), with the lower DBR between a sapphire substrate and a silicon-oxide (SiO2) resonator layer and the other DBR on top of this resonator layer, were investigated for operation in the near-ultraviolet (near-UV) range. The DBRs are composed of a stack of nitride-rich silicon-nitride (SiNx) layers for the higher index and SiO2 layers for the lower index. An exemplary application would be formaldehyde detection at sub-ppm concentrations in air, using UV absorption spectroscopy in the 300–360 nm band, while providing spectral selectivity against the main interfering gases, notably NO2 and O3. Although SiNx thin films are conventionally used only for visible and near-infrared optical wavelengths (above 450 nm) because of high absorbance at lower wavelengths, this work shows that nitride-rich SiNx is suitable for near-UV wavelengths. The interplay between spectral absorbance, transmittance and reflectance in a FPI is presented in a comparative study between one FPI design using stoichiometric material (Si3N4) and two designs based on N-rich compositions, SiN1.39 and SiN1.49. Spectral measurements confirm that if the design accounts for phase penetration depth, sufficient performance can be achieved with the SiN1.49-based FPI design for gas absorption spectroscopy in near-UV, with peak transmission at 330 nm of 64%, a free spectral range (FSR) of 20 nm and a full-width half-magnitude spectral resolution (FWHM) of 2 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT An epitaxy-directing solvent additive 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene is combined with an off-center spin-casting technique to produce poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) fibers with uniaxial in-plane alignment on the centimeter scale. Photoconductive atomic force microscopy (pc-AFM) is used to characterize planar heterojunction devices assembled from phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) acceptor and both aligned and unaligned P3HT donor. By varying the relative positions of the laser spot (site of carrier generation) and probe (site of hole extraction), it is found that devices with aligned P3HT exhibit anisotropic and greatly enhanced long-range photocarrier transport, with nearly 10% of original photocurrent measured 400 µm from the laser spot along the direction parallel to the alignment. Complementary thin film transistor (TFT) measurements reveal a factor of ∼3.5 difference in the hole mobilities parallel and perpendicular to the direction of alignment. Together, these findings highlight the importance of macroscopic alignment as a strategy to overcome the low mobilities of disordered polymer semiconductors.1 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016, 54, 180-188 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring optical transparency over a wide spectral range of a window with a view into the tailpipe of the combustion engine, while it is exposed to the harsh environment of soot-containing exhaust gas, is an essential pre-requisite for introducing optical techniques for long-term monitoring of automotive emissions. Therefore, a regenerable window composed of an optically transparent polysilicon-carbide membrane with a diameter ranging from 100 µm up to 2000 µm has been fabricated in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. In the first operating mode, window transparency is periodically restored by pulsed heating of the membrane using an integrated resistor for heating to temperatures that result in oxidation of deposited soot (600–700 °C). In the second mode, the membrane is kept transparent by repelling soot particles using thermophoresis. The same integrated resistor is used to yield a temperature gradient by continuous moderate-temperature heating. Realized devices have been subjected to laboratory soot exposure experiments. Membrane temperatures exceeding 500 °C have been achieved without damage to the membrane. Moreover, heating of membranes to ΔT = 40 °C above gas temperature provides sufficient thermophoretic repulsion to prevent particle deposition and maintain transparency at high soot exposure, while non-heated identical membranes on the same die and at the same exposure are heavily contaminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]