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Objective The goal of this work is to examine the effects of pulse-inversion (PI) technique in combination with dual-frequency (DF) excitation method to separate the high-order nonlinear responses from microbubble contrast agents for improvement of image contrast. DF excitation method has been previously developed to induce the low-frequency ultrasound nonlinear responses from bubbles by using the composition of two high-frequency sinusoids ( f 1 and f 2 ). Motivation Although the simple filtering was conventionally utilized to provide signal separation, the PI approach is better in the sense that it minimizes the mutual interferences among these high-order nonlinear responses in the presence of spectral overlap. The novelty of the work is that, in addition to the common PI summation, the PI subtraction was also applied in DF excitation method. Methods DF excitation pulses having an envelope frequency of 3 MHz (i.e., f 1 = 8.5 MHz and f 2 = 11.5 MHz) with pulse lengths of 3–10 μs and the pressure amplitudes from 0.5 to 1.5 MPa were used to interrogate the nonlinear responses of SonoVue™ microbubbles in the phantom experiments. The high-order nonlinear responses in the DF excitation were extracted for contrast imaging using PI summation for even-order nonlinear components or PI subtraction for odd-order nonlinear ones. Results Our results indicated that, as compared to the conventional filtering technique, the PI processing effectively increases the contrast-to-tissue ratio (CTR) of the third-order nonlinear response at 5.5 MHz and the fourth-order nonlinear response at 6 MHz by 2–5 dB. For these high-order nonlinear components, the CTR increase varies with the transmission pressures from 0.5 to 1.5 MPa due to the microbubbles’ displacement induced by the radiation force of DF excitation. Conclusions For DF excitation technique, the PI processing can help to extract either the odd-order or the even-order nonlinear components for higher CTR estimates.

We dissolved hole transport materials α-NPD and NPB in THF solvent, and spin-coated the α-NPD + THF or NPB + THF solution onto ITO anode surface to improve the luminance efficiency and lifetime of flexible fluorescent and phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes. Then the BCP and TPBi were employed as hole blocking layer (HBL) of phosphorescent device and its thickness was optimized. From the experimental results, the maximum luminance efficiency is 4.4 cd/A at 9 V of fluorescent device and 24.4 cd/A of phosphorescent device, respectively. Such an improvement in the device performance was attributed to the smoother surface and good contact between the interface of spin-coated HTL/ITO, the hole were effectively injected from the anode into the organic layer. And the deposited HTL can block excitons from diffusing into the anode to quench, thus improving the luminance efficiency and lifetime greatly.

Ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs) are used to enhance the acoustic backscattered intensity of blood and thereby assist the assessment of blood perfusion. Characterization of UCA destruction provides important information for the design of contrast-assisted perfusion imaging. High-speed optical observation of single microbubble destruction during acoustic insonation has been performed in previous studies. The results identified that pressure, center frequency and transmission phase have significant effects on the fragmentation threshold. We proposed an acoustic-based experiment method to demonstrate the relationship between different acoustic exposure conditions and the degree of UCA destruction. The method also provides a simple and convenient way to determine the microbubble destruction threshold. The experiments introduced three insonation parameters, including acoustic pressure (0 to 1 MPa), pulse frequency (1, 2.25, 5 and 7.5 MHz) and pulse length (1 to 10 cycles). The term of surviving percentage (SP) was proposed to represent the ratio of UCA backscattered power with and without acoustic insonation. The results showed that the SP decreased with decreasing pulse frequency, but with increasing transmission acoustic pressure and pulse length. In addition, there was an exponential relationship between SP and acoustic pressure, and thus the UCA destruction pressure threshold could be predicted from the fitted exponential curve. The results also show that the degree of UCA destruction was not related to mechanical index (MI). Potential applications of this method include UCA high-resolution destruction/replenishment imaging model, microbubble cavitation, sonoporation in drug delivery and gene therapy. (E-mail: ckyeh@mx.nthu.edu.tw )

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging has been used to image soft tissue due to its high contrast and high spatial resolution. The generation of PA signal is based on the object's absorption characteristic to the emitted electromagnetic energy. Typically, a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser providing mJ pulse energy is suitable for biomedical PA applications. However, such laser is relatively bulky and expensive. An alternative way is to use a diode laser. A diode laser can generate laser pulse at much higher pulse repetition frequency (PRF). However, the output power of the diode laser is too low for effective PA generation. One method to overcome this problem is to increase the transmission energy using coded excitation. The coded laser signals can be transmitted by a diode laser with high PRF and the signal intensity of the received signal can be enhanced using pulse compression. In this study, we proposed a chirp coded excitation algorithm for a diode laser. Compared to Golay coded excitation seen in the literature, the proposed chirp coded excitation requires only a single transmission. Chirp-coded PA signal was generated by tuning the pulse duration of individual laser pulses in time domain. Result shows that the PA signal intensity can be enhanced after matched filtering. However, high range side-lobes are still present. The compression filter is an important tool to reduce the range side-lobes, which is subject to further investigation.

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging has the potential to image soft tissue with high contrast and high spatial resolution. Conventionally, a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser providing ns pulse duration and mJ pulse energy is suitable for PA applications. However, such a laser is typically bulky and expensive. On the other hand, a small, relative low-cost diode laser is potentially useful to achieve PA imaging as it provides PRF up to kHz but the pulse energy of such a laser is generally too low for effective PA generation. In this study, we proposed Golay coded excitation using a diode laser to generate PA signal. A high frequency 20-MHz PA transducer integrated an optical fiber was proposed to enable backward mode ultrasound and PA detection. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the generated PA signals of different Golay code lengths (i.e., 2, 4, 16 and 256 bit) and pulse durations (i.e., 25, 50, 100 and 200 ns) were evaluated. Results show that the SNR increased with the code length and achieved from 30.8 to 37.0 dB of 256-bit code length with different pulse durations. In addition, the SNR improvement was also shown. Results indicate that the highest SNR improvement is 23.5 dB. Finally, an ultrasound/PA fusion image of an agar phantom was shown.

The organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) [1] is a new-generation flat panel display with the advantages of self-luminescence, wide viewing angle (> 160°), prompt response time (~1 μs), low operating voltage (3~10 V), high luminance efficiency, high color purity, and easy to be made on various substrates. Therefore, it’s an important topic that how to improve the luminance efficiency, lifetime and the adhesion characters of ITO/organic interface of flexible OLEDs. Zugang Liu et al. reported that the NPB (HTL) is suitable in contact with the emission layer and when they form an energy ladder structure, the driving voltage decreased and the electroluminescent output increased [2]. Thus it can be seen, the hole transport layer [3-6] is very important to balance the injection of hole and electron, to increase the luminance efficiency and lifetime. In recent years, the hole buffer layer of device typically employs LiF [7], CuPc [8], Pani:PSS [9-10] or PEDOT:PSS [9-11] to improve the hole injection efficiency. In addition, a flexible substrate (PET, metal foil, etc.) surface is not completely smooth and will usually have spikes. After the organic thin film evaporates onto the ITO substrate surface the spikes will still exist. When the device is operated under high voltage or high current density, a heavy amount of electric current will concentrate at the spikes and damage the device by causing the device to short circuit, creating Joule heat. The luminance efficiency of the device will therefore be reduced producing shorter device lifetime. Thus, the PEDOT:PSS fabrication process uses spin-coating to obtain a thin film with a smoother surface than that produced by thermal deposition. Spin-coating enhances the organic material adhesion in subsequent processes, thereby directly affecting the performance of flexible OLED. For the above reason, this research dissolved hole transport material N,N’-diphenyl-N,N’-bis(1-naphthyl)1,1’biphenyl-4,4’’diamine (α-NPD), N,N’Bis(naphthalenel-yl) -N,N’-bis(phenyl)-benzidine (NPB) or α-NPD:NPB in tetrahydrfuran (THF) solvent and spin-coated the buffer layer onto ITO surface of flexible OLEDs. Phosphorescent dye gains energy from the radiative recombination of both singlet and triplet excitons [12], improving the internal quantum efficiency of fluorescent OLEDs (FOLEDs) typically 25% at maximum to nearly 100% [13]. Enhancing the luminance 8

Objective and motivation The goal of this work was to test experimentally that exposing air bubbles or ultrasound contrast agents in water to amplitude modulated wave allows control of inertial cavitation affected volume and hence could limit the undesirable bioeffects. Methods Focused transducer operating at the center frequency of 10 MHz and having about 65% fractional bandwidth was excited by 3 μs 8.5 and 11.5 MHz tone-bursts to produce 3 MHz envelope signal. The 3 MHz frequency was selected because it corresponds to the resonance frequency of the microbubbles used in the experiment. Another 5 MHz transducer was used as a receiver to produce B-mode image. Peak negative acoustic pressure was adjusted in the range from 0.5 to 3.5 MPa. The spectrum amplitudes obtained from the imaging of SonoVue TM contrast agent when using the envelope and a separate 3 MHz transducer were compared to determine their cross-section at the – 6 dB level. Results The conventional 3 MHz tone-burst excitation resulted in the region of interest (ROI) cross-section of 2.47 mm while amplitude modulated, dual-frequency excitation with difference frequency of 3 MHz produced cross-section equal to 1.2 mm. Conclusion These results corroborate our hypothesis that, in addition to the considerably higher penetration depth of dual-frequency excitation due to the lower attenuation at 3 MHz than that at 8.5 and 11.5 MHz, the sample volume of dual-frequency excitation is also smaller than that of linear 3-MHz method for more spatially confined destruction of microbubbles.

Stimulating high-frequency nonlinear oscillations of ultrasound contrast agents is helpful to distinguish microbubbles from background tissues. Nevertheless, inefficiency of such oscillations from most commercially available contrast agents and intense attenuation of the resultant high-frequency harmonics limit microbubble detection with high-frequency ultrasound. To avoid this high-frequency nature, we devised and explored a dual-frequency difference excitation technique to induce efficiently low-frequency, rather than high-frequency, nonlinear scattering from microbubbles by using high-frequency ultrasound. The proposed excitation pulse is comprised of 2 high-frequency sinusoids with frequency difference subject to the microbubble resonance frequency. Its envelope, with frequency being the difference between the 2 frequencies, is used to stimulate nonlinear oscillation of microbubbles for the consonant low-frequency harmonic generation, whereas high-imaging resolution is retained because of narrow high-frequency transmit beams. Hydrophone measurements and phantom experiments of speckle-generating flow phantoms were performed to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique. The results show that, especially when the envelope frequency is near the microbubbleiquests resonance frequency, the envelope of the proposed excitation pulse can induce significant nonlinear scattering from microbubbles, the induced nonlinear responses tend to increase with the pulse pressures, and up to 26 dB and 36 dB contrast-to-tissue ratios with second- and fourth-order nonlinear responses, respectively, can be obtained. Potential applications of this method include microbubble fragmentation and cavitation with high-frequency ultrasound.

In this study, we dissolved hole transport layer (HTL) material NPB in THF (tetrahydrofuran) solvant, and spin-coated the N,N'-Bis(naphthalene-l-yl)-N,N'-bis(phenyl)-benzidine (NPB) solution on the surface of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) anode to enhance the luminance efficiency and lifetime of flexible phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes (POLEDs), where the 2,2',2''-(1,3,5-Benzinetriyl)-tris(1-phenyl-1-H-benzimidazole) (TPBi) was employed as hole blocking layer (HBL) and its thickness was optimized. Such an improvement in the device performance was attributed to the improved hole-electron balance. Finally, we employed 2,9-Dime-thyl-4,7-dphenyl-1,10-phenanhroline (BCP) or TPBi as hole blocking layer. The maximum luminance efficiency reaching 24.4 cd/A can be obtained.

Characterization of ultrasonic contrast agents (UCAs) destruction provides important information for the design of contrast-assisted perfusion imaging. In this paper, we proposed an acoustical method to demonstrate the relationship between different acoustic exposure conditions and the degree of UCAs destruction. The method also provides a simple and convenient way to determine the bubble destruction threshold. The insonation parameters include transmission pressure, pulse frequency and pulse cycles. The term of destruction percentage (DP) represented the ratio of backscattered power with and without acoustic insonation. The results showed that the DP increased with decreasing pulse frequency, but with increasing transmission acoustic pressure and pulse cycle. Over 90% UCAs could be destroyed at 0.15, 0.4, 0.7 and 0.8 MPa in 1, 2.25, 5 and 7.5 MHz pulse under 10-cycle pulses condition, respectively. In addition, there was an exponential relationship between DP and acoustic pressure, pulse cycle and thus the UCAs destruction threshold parameters could be predicted by the exponential curve. The UCAs destruction threshold is not related to the mechanical index. Potential applications of this method include UCAs high resolution destruction/replenishment imaging model, microbubble cavitation, sonoporation in drug delivery and gene therapy

-- For improving the sensitivity of a D-type SPR fiber sensor, we simulated the optimum parameters , such as, the thickness of coatings, the length of sensor, and the angle of incidence for different ranges of refractive index. These simulations are based on SPR theory and the intensity and phase methods. It is clearly that, the sensitivity is improved by increasing the length of sensor and/or the thickness of the gold film. And the sensitivity of the phase method is higher than the intensity method by two orders. It is used to detect the refractive index or concentration of gas or liquid in real-time, and it has some merits, such as, small, simple, cheaper, and in vivo test. Keywords : surface plasmon resonance (SPR), fiber sensor 1. INTRODUCTION SPR fiber sensor is very useful in many applications in resent years 1-4 , such as, physical, chemical, biophotonics, etc. Although the sensitivity is not as high as that of the SPR prism sensor, however, owing to its merits such as, low cost, smaller tested volume, convenient to operation, in-vivo testing, it is also attention-getting in the future. There are several types of optical fiber sensor (OFS) based on surface plasmon resonance had been proposed

A Q-switched Nd:YAG laser providing nanosecond pulse durations and millijoule pulse energies is suitable for typical biomedical PA applications. However, such lasers are both bulky and expensive. An alternative method is to use a diode laser, which can achieve a higher pulse repetition frequency. Although the energy from a diode laser is generally too low for effective PA generation, this can be remedied by using high-speed coded laser pulses, with the signal intensity of the received signal being enhanced by pulse compression. In this study we tested a version of this method that employs coded excitation. A 20-MHz PA transducer was used for backward-mode PA detection. A frequency-coded PA signal was generated by tuning the interval between two adjacent laser pulses. The experimental results showed that this methodology improved the signal-to-noise ratio of the decoded PA signal by up to 19.3 dB, although high range side lobes were also present. These side lobes could be reduced by optimizing the compression filter. In contrast to the Golay codes proposed in the literature, the proposed coded excitation requires only a single stimulus.