Dynamical study on charge injection and transport in a metal/polythiophene/metal structure

The dynamical process of charge injection from metal electrode to a nondegenerate polymer in a metal/polythiophene （PT）/metal structure has been investigated by using a nonadiabatic dynamic approach. It is found that the injected charges form wave packets due to the strong electron-lattice interaction in PT. We demonstrate that the dynamical formation of the wave packet sensitively depends on the strength of applied voltage, the electric field, and the contact between PT and electrode. At a strength of the electric field more than 3.0 × 10^4 V/cm, the carriers can be ejected from the PT into the right electrode. At an electric field more than 3.0 × 10^5 V/cm, the wave packet cannot form while it moves rapidly to the right PT/metal interface. It is shown that the ejected quantity of charge is noninteger.     

Theoretical investigation of the thermoelectric transport properties of BaSi2

The full-potential linear augmented plane wave method based on density functional theory is employed to investigate the electronic structure of BaSi 2 . With the constant relaxation time and rigid band approximation,the electrical conductivity,Seebeck coefficient and figure of merit are calculated by using Boltzmann transport theory,further evaluated as a function of carrier concentration. We find that the Seebeck coefficient is more anisotropic than electrical conductivity. The figure of merit of BaSi 2 is predicted to be quite high at room temperature,implying that optimal doping may be an effective way to improve thermoelectric properties.     

Phase Transition of FeS in Terms of In-Situ Resistance Measurement

Electrical properties of stoichiometric iron sulfide （FeS） are investigated under high pressure with a designed diamond anvil cell. The process of phase transition is reflected by changing the electrical conductivity under high pressure, and the conductivity of FeS with the NiAs structure is found to be much smaller than other phases. Two new phase transitions without structural change are observed at 34.7 GPa and 61.3 GPa. The temperature dependence of the conductivity is found to be similar to that of a semiconductor when the pressure is higher than 35 GPa     

Breakdown voltage analysis of Al0.25Ga0.75N/GaN high electron mobility transistors with partial silicon doping in the AlGaN layer

In this paper,two-dimensional electron gas（2DEG） regions in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors（HEMTs） are realized by doping partial silicon into the AlGaN layer for the first time.A new electric field peak is introduced along the interface between the AlGaN and GaN buffer by the electric field modulation effect due to partial silicon positive charge.The high electric field near the gate for the complete silicon doping structure is effectively decreased,which makes the surface electric field uniform.The high electric field peak near the drain results from the potential difference between the surface and the depletion regions.Simulated breakdown curves that are the same as the test results are obtained for the first time by introducing an acceptor-like trap into the N-type GaN buffer.The proposed structure with partial silicon doping is better than the structure with complete silicon doping and conventional structures with the electric field plate near the drain.The breakdown voltage is improved from 296 V for the conventional structure to 400 V for the proposed one resulting from the uniform surface electric field.     

Microscopic degradation mechanism of polyimide film caused by surface discharge under bipolar continuous square impulse voltage

Polyimide （PI） film is an important type of insulating material used in inverter-fed motors. Partial discharge （PD） under a sequence of high-frequency square impulses is one of the key factors that lead to premature failures in insulation systems of inverter-fed motors. In order to explore the damage mechanism of PI film caused by discharge, an aging system of surface discharge under bipolar continuous square impulse voltage （BCSIV） is designed based on the ASTM 2275 01 standard and the electrical aging tests of PI film samples are performed above the partial discharge inception voltage （PDIV）. The chemical bonds of PI polymer chains are analyzed through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FTIR） and the dielectric properties of unaged and aged PI samples are investigated by LCR testers HIOKI 3532-50. Finally, the micro-morphology and micro-structure changes of PI film samples are observed through scanning electron microscopy （SEM）. The results show that the physical and chemical effects of discharge cut off the chemical bonds of PI polymer chains. The fractures of ether bond （C-O-C） and imide ring （C-N-C） on the backbone of a PI polymer chain leads to the decrease of molecular weight, which results in the degradation of PI polymers and the generation of new chemical groups and materials, like carboxylic acid, ketone, aldehydes, etc. The variation of microscopic structure of PI polymers can change the orientation ability of polarizable units when the samples are under an AC electric field, which would cause the dielectric constant e to increase and dielectric loss tan ~ to decrease. The SEM images show that the degradation path of PI film is initiated from the surface and then gradually extends to the interior with continuous aging. The injection charge could result in the PI macromolecular chain degradation and increase the trap density in the PI oolvmer bulk.     

Phase separation in Sr doped BiMnO3

Phase separation in Sr doped BiMnO3 （Bil_xSrxMnO3, x = 0.4-0.6） was studied by means of temperature-dependent high-resolution neutron powder diffraction （NPD）, high resolution X-ray powder diffraction （XRD）, and physical property measurements. All the experiments indicate that a phase separation occurs at the temperature coinciding with the reported charge ordering temperature （Tco） in the literature. Below the reported TCO, both the phases resulting from the phase separation crystallize in the orthorhombically distorted perovskite structure with space group Imma. At lower temperature, these two phases order in the CE-type antiferromagnetic structure and the A-type antiferromagnetic structure, respectively. However, a scrutiny of the high-resolution NPD and XRD data at different temperatures and the electron diffraction exper- iment at 300 K did not manifest any evidence of a long-range charge ordering （CO） in our investigated samples, suggesting that the anomalies of physical properties such as magnetization, electric transport, and lattice parameters at the TCO might be caused by the phase separation rather than by a CO transition.     

Free-standing,curled and partially reduced graphene oxide network as sulfur host for high-performance lithium–sulfur batteries

Lithium–sulfur(Li–S) batteries have received more and more attention because of higher specific capacity and energy density of sulfur than current lithium–ion batteries. However, the low electrical conductivity of sulfur and its discharge product, and also the high dissolution of polysulfides restrict the Li–S battery practical applications. To improve their performances, in this work, we fabricate a novel free-standing, curled and partially reduced graphene oxide(CPrGO for short) network and combine it with sulfur to form a CPrGO–S composite as a cathode for Li–S battery. With sulfur content of 60 wt%, the free-standing CPrGO–S composite network delievers an initial capacity of 988.9 m Ah·g~(-1). After 200 cycles,it shows a stable capacity of 841.4 m Ah·g~(-1) at 0.2 C, retaining about 85% of the initial value. The high electrochemical performance demonstrates that the CPrGO–S network has great potential applications in energy storage system. Such improved properties can be ascribed to the unique free-standing and continous CPrGO–S network which has high specific surface area and good electrical conductivity. In addition, oxygen-containing groups on the partially reduced graphene oxide are beneficial to preventing the polysulfides from dissolving into electrolyte and can mitigate the "shuttle effect".     

Room-Temperature Continuous-Wave Operation of InGaN-Based Blue-Violet Laser Diodes with a Lifetime of 15.6 Hours

We report our recent progress of investigations on InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes （LDs）. The roomtemperature （RT） cw operation lifetime of LDs has extended to longer than 15.6 h. The LD structure was grown on a c-plane free-standing （FS） GaN substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition （MOCVD）. The typical threshold current and voltage of LD under RT cw operation are 78 mA and 6.8 V, respectively. The experimental analysis of degradation of LD performances suggests that after aging treatment, the increase of series resistance and threshold current can be mainly attributed to the deterioration of p-type ohmic contact and the decrease of internal quantum efticiency of multiple quantum well （MQW）, respectively.     

Direct Current Hopping Conductivity in One—Dimensional Nanometre Systems

A one-dimensional random nanocrystalline chain model is established.A dc electron-phonon-field conductance model of electron tunnelling transfer is set up,and a new dc conductance formula in one-dimensional nanometre systems is derived.By calculationg the dc conductivity,the relationship among the electric field,temperature and conductivity is analysed.and the effect of the crystalline grain size and the distrotion of interfacial atoms on the dc conductance is discussed.The result shows that the nanometre system appears the characteristic of negative differential dependence of resistance and temperature at low temperature.The dc conductivity of nanometre systems varies with the change of electric field and trends to rise as the crystalline grain size increases and to decrease as the distroted degree of interfacial atoms increases.     

Two-step dissociation of a polaron in conjugated polymers

We have studied the electric-field-driven motion of a polaron by solving the time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation nonadiabatically and the lattice equation of motion simultaneously. It is found that the polaron may experience two sequent transitions under high fields; one is the transition from the subsonic to the supersonic state, and the other from the supersonic to dissociated state. The acoustic mode is decoupled from the charge when the polaron moves at a speed faster than the sound speed, and then the optical mode is decoupled at the second transition to make the polaron dissociate completely.     

Dependence of charge trapping of fluorescent and phosphorescent dopants in organic light-emitting diodes on the dye species and current density

This paper utilizes multilayer organic light-emitting diodes with a thin layer of dye molecules to study the mechanism of charge trapping under different electric regimes. It demonstrates that the carrier trapping was independent of the current density in devices using fluorescent material as the emitting molecule while this process was exactly opposite when phosphorescent material was used. The triplet--triplet annihilation and dissociation of excitons into free charge carriers was considered to contribute to the decrease in phosphorescent emission under high electric fields. Moreover, the fluorescent dye molecule with a lower energy gap and ionized potential than the host emitter was observed to facilitate the carrier trapping mechanism, and it would produce photon emission.     

Double Wire-Grid Terahertz Polarizer on Low-Loss Polymer Substrates

A double-wire-grid polarizer was fabricated on both sides of a low-loss polythene film by simple electroplating and photolithographic micro-processing techniques. The performances of the polarizer were measured using a terahertz time-domain spectrometer （THz-TDS）. The transmittance is more than 70% and below 2% in the parallel and perpendicular directions of the polarizer, respectively. The extinction ratio is better than 22 dB in the broad frequency range of 0.5–3 THz, which is higher than the conventional free-standing polarizer in the high frequency region.     

Breakdown voltage analysis of Al_0.25Ga_0.75N/GaN high electron mobility transistors with partial silicon doping in the AlGaN layer

In this paper,two-dimensional electron gas(2DEG) regions in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors(HEMTs) are realized by doping partial silicon into the AlGaN layer for the first time.A new electric field peak is introduced along the interface between the AlGaN and GaN buffer by the electric field modulation effect due to partial silicon positive charge.The high electric field near the gate for the complete silicon doping structure is effectively decreased,which makes the surface electric field uniform.The high electric field peak near the drain results from the potential difference between the surface and the depletion regions.Simulated breakdown curves that are the same as the test results are obtained for the first time by introducing an acceptor-like trap into the N-type GaN buffer.The proposed structure with partial silicon doping is better than the structure with complete silicon doping and conventional structures with the electric field plate near the drain.The breakdown voltage is improved from 296 V for the conventional structure to 400 V for the proposed one resulting from the uniform surface electric field.     

A study on the electrical property of HgSe under high pressure

Using a microcircuit fabricated on a diamond anvil cell, we have measured in-situ conductivity of HgSe under high pressures, and investigated the temperature dependence of conductivity under several different pressures. The result shows that HgSe has a pressure-induced transition sequence from a semimetal to a semiconductor to a metal, similar to that in HgTe. Several discontinuous changes in conductivity are observed at around 1.5, 17, 29 and 49GPa, corresponding to the phase transitions from zinc-blende to cinnabar to rocksalt to orthorhombic to an unknown structure, respectively. In comparison with HgTe, it is speculated that the unknown structure may be a distorted CsCl structure. For the cinnabar-HgSe, the energy gap as a function of pressure is obtained according to the temperature dependence of conductivity. The plot of the temperature dependence of conductivity indicates that the unknown structure of HgSe has an electrical property of a conductor.     

Electronic mobility in the high-carrier-density limit of ion gel gated IDTBT thin film transistors

Indacenodithiophene-co-benzothiadiazole(IDTBT) has emerged as one of the most exciting semiconducting polymers in recent years because of its high electronic mobility and charge transport along the polymer backbone. By using the recently developed ion gel gating technique we studied the charge transport of IDTBT at carrier densities up to 1021cm-3.While the conductivity in IDTBT was found to be enhanced by nearly six orders of magnitude by ionic gating, the charge transport in IDTBT was found to remain 3D Mott variable range hopping even down to the lowest temperature of our measurements, 12 K. The maximum mobility was found to be around 0.2 cm2·V-1·s-1, lower than that of Cytop gated field effect transistors reported previously. We attribute the lower mobility to the additional disorder induced by the ionic gating.     

Recent progress in design of conductive polymers to improve the thermoelectric performance

Organic semiconductors,especially polymer semiconductors,have attracted extensive attention as organic thermoelectric materials due to their capabilities for flexibility,low-cost fabrication,solution processability and low thermal conductivity.However,it is challenging to obtain high-performance organic thermoelectric materials because of the low intrinsic carrier concentration of organic semiconductors.The main method to control the carrier concentration of polymers is the chemical doping process by charge transfer between polymer and dopant.Therefore,the deep understanding of doping mechanisms from the point view of chemical structure has been highly desired to overcome the bottlenecks in polymeric thermoelectrics.In this contribution,we will briefly review the recently emerging progress for discovering the structure–property relationship of organic thermoelectric materials with high performance.Highlights include some achievements about doping strategies to effectively modulate the carrier concentration,the design rules of building blocks and side chains to enhance charge transport and improve the doping efficiency.Finally,we will give our viewpoints on the challenges and opportunities in the field of polymer thermoelectric materials.     

X-ray spectra of high temperature tungsten plasma calculated with collisional radiative model

Tungsten is regarded as an important candidate of plasma facing material in international thermonuclear experimental reactor （ITER）, so the determination and modeling of spectra of tungsten plasma, especially the spectra at high temperature were intensely focused on recently. In this work, using the atomic structure code of Cowan, a collisional radiative model （CRM） based on the spin-orbit-split-arrays is developed. Based on this model, the charge state distribution of tungsten ions is determined and the soft X-ray spectra from high charged ions of tungsten at different temperatures are calculated. The results show that both the average ionization charge and line positions are well agreed with others calculations and measurements with discrepancies of less than 0.63% and 1.26%, respectively. The spectra at higher temperatures are also reported and the relationship between ion abundance and temperature is predicted in this work.     

Influence of Incident Velocity on the Penetration for C20 Clusters Moving through Oxides

A theoretical model is established to simulate the penetration process of C20 clusters in oxides （Al2O3, SiO2） at different incident velocities. The induced spatial potential by the incident clusters is described by the dielectric response formalism, in which the Mermin-type dielectric function is adopted to provide a realistic evaluation of the electronic properties of the oxides. The charge distribution of individual ions is derived by using the Brandt-Kitagawa effective charge model, also under the consideration of the asymmetric influence from the wake potential. The stopping power of the clusters and the Coulomb explosion processes are derived by solving the motion equation of the individual ions, when taking into account the multiple scattering effect simulated by using the Monte Carlo method. It is found that the dynamical interaction potential between ions leads to a spatial asymmetry to the cluster structure and the charge distribution for high velocity clusters, and will not be in effect as the incident velocities decrease.     

Novel high-voltage self-adaptive power device based on interface charge＊

This paper presents a novel high-voltage lateral double diffused metal-oxide semiconductor （LDMOS） with self- adaptive interface charge （SAC） layer and its physical model of the vertical interface electric field. The SAC can be self-adaptive to collect high concentration dynamic inversion holes, which effectively enhance the electric field of dielectric buried layer （EI） and increase breakdown voltage （BV）. The BV and EI of SAC LDMOS increase to 612 V and 600 V/tim from 204 V and 90.7 V/ttm of the conventional silicon-on-insulator, respectively. Moreover, enhancement factors of r/which present the enhanced ability of interface charge on EI are defined and analysed.     

Thermal Conduction in a Single Polyethylene Chain Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Research on the thermal conduction in a single polymer chain is significant for the improvement of the thermal property of bulk polymer materials. We calculate the thermal conductivity of a single polyethylene （PE） chain by using both the Green-Kubo approach and a nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation method. The results suggest that the thermal conductivity of an individual polymer chain is very high although bulk PE is a thermal insulator, even divergent in our case. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of PE chains is observed to increase with the chain length.