The ability of acryl-terminated oligo(beta-amino esters) (AOBAE) to be coated on fibers and printed electronics without solvents and to be cross-linked to a pH-responsive coatings, makes AOBAE-based coatings a potential type of pH-sensor coating. However, there are currently no reports of AOBAEs used as a pH-responsive coating material in sensor applications. Here we present an investigation of the synthesis, curing behavior and swell tests of AOBAEs. AOBAEs were synthesized from reacting an excess of asymmetric diacrylates with piperazine without the use of any solvents. They were then cross-linked to an insoluble network by UV-curing. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to characterize the AOBAEs. NMR was used to clarify the irregular structure of the AOBAE. FTIR was used to monitor the effects of UV-curing dose and air exposure on monomer conversion during curing. An interferometric technique was used to monitor the swelling behavior of the coating in response to pH variations. Swell experiments showed that the AOBAE also responded to pH variations after polymerization. Therefore, AOBAE is an interesting class of material with potential use as a pH responsive coating in optical-and printed electronics pH-sensors applications.

Inkjet-printed metal films are important within the emerging field of printed electronics. For large-scale manufacturing, low-cost flexible substrates and low temperature sintering is desired. Tailored coated substrates are interesting for roll-to-roll fabrication of printed electronics, since a suitable tailoring of the ink-substrate system may reduce, or remove, the need for explicit sintering. Here we utilize specially designed coated papers, containing chloride as an active sintering agent. The built-in sintering agent greatly assists low-temperature sintering of inkjet-printed AgNP films. Further, we examine the effect of variations in coating pore size and precoating type. Interestingly, we find that the sintering is substantially affected by these parameters.

Low-cost solution-processing of highly conductive films is important for the expanding market of printed electronics. For roll-to-roll manufacturing, suitable flexible substrates and compatible postprocessing are essential. Here, custom-developed coated papers are demonstrated to facilitate the inkjet fabrication of high performance copper patterns. The patterns are fabricated in ambient conditions using water-based CuO dispersion and intense pulsed light (IPL) processing. Papers using a porous CaCO3 precoating, combined with an acidic mesoporous absorption coating, improve the effectiveness and reliability of the IPL process. The processing is realizable within 5 ms, using a single pulse of light. A resistivity of 3.1 ± 0.12 μΩ·cm is achieved with 400 μm wide conductors, corresponding to more than 50% of the conductivity of bulk copper. This is higher than previously reported results for IPL-processed copper.

Printed electronics is a rapidly developing field where many components can already be manufactured on flexible substrates by printing or by other high speed manufacturing methods. However, the functionality of even the most inexpensive microcontroller or other integrated circuit is, at the present time and for the foreseeable future, out of reach by means of fully printed components. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate hybrid printed electronics, where regular electrical components are mounted on flexible substrates to achieve high functionality at a low cost. Moreover, the use of paper as a substrate for printed electronics is of growing interest because it is an environmentally friendly and renewable material and is, additionally, the main material used for many packages in which electronics functionalities could be integrated. One of the challenges for such hybrid printed electronics is the mounting of the components and the interconnection between layers on flexible substrates with printed conductive tracks that should provide as low a resistance as possible while still being able to be used in a high speed manufacturing process. In this article, several conductive adhesives are evaluated as well as soldering for mounting surface mounted components on a paper circuit board with inkjet printed tracks and, in addition, a double sided Arduino compatible circuit board is manufactured and programmed.

Sensing pH in blood with an silica multimode optical fiber. This sensor is based on evanescent wave absorption and measures the change of the refractive index and absorption in a cladding made of a biocompatible Polymer. In contrast to many existing fiber optical sensors which are based upon different dyes or florescent material to sense the pH, here presents a solution where a part of the cladding is replaced with a Poly (β-amino ester) made of 1.4-Butanediol diacrylate, Piperazine, and Trimethylolpropane Triacrylate. Piperazine has the feature of changing its volume by swelling or shrinking in response to the pH level. This paper utilizes this dimension effect and measure the refractive index and the absorption of the cladding in respect to different pH-levels. The alteration of refractive index also causes a change in the absorption and therefore the output power changes as a function of the pH level. The sensor is sensitive to pH in a wide spectral range and light absorbency can be observed for wavelengths ranging from UV to far IR. © 2014 SPIE.

In this paper an ink-jet printed write once read many (WORM) resistive memory fabricated on paper substrate is presented. The memory elements are programmed for different resistance states by printing triethylene glycol monoethyl ether on the substrate before the actual memory element is printed using silver nano particle ink. The resistance is thus able to be set to a broad range of values without changing the geometry of the elements. A memory card consisting of 16 elements is manufactured for which the elements are each programmed to one of four defined logic levels, providing a total of 4294 967 296 unique possible combinations. Using a readout circuit, originally developed for resistive sensors to avoid crosstalk between elements, a memory card reader is manufactured that is able to read the values of the memory card and transfer the data to a PC. Such printed memory cards can be used in various applications.

We report experimental results on the degree of radiation damage in two duo-lateral position sensitive detectors (LPSDs) exposed to 193 nm and253 nm ultraviolet (UV) beam. One of the detectors was an in-house fabricated n(+) p LPSD and the other was a commercially available p(+) n LPSD. We report that at both wavelengths, the degradation damage from the UV photons absorption caused a much more significant deterioration in responsivity in the p(+) n LPSD than in the n(+) p LPSD. By employing a simple method, we were able to visualize the radiation damage on the active area of the LPSDs using 3-dimensional graphs. We were also able to characterize the impact of radiation damage on the linearity and position error of the detectors.

Silicon detectors made on p-substrates are expected to have a better radiation hardness as compared todetectors made on n-substrates. However, the fixed positive oxide charges induce an inversion layer ofelectrons in the substrate, which connects the pixels. The common means of solving this problem isby using a p-spray, individual p-stops or a combination of the two. Here, we investigate the use offield plates to suppress the fixed positive charges and to prevent the formation of an inversion layer.The fabricated detector shows a high breakdown voltage and low interpixel leakage current for astructure using biased field plates with a width of 20 μm. By using a spice model for simulation of thepreamplifier, a cross talk of about 1.6 % is achieved with this detector structure. The cross talk iscaused by capacitive and resistive coupling between the pixels

In the present work we conduct a study of ber lters produced by evaporation of silica particles upon aMM-ber core. A band lter was designed and theoretically veried using a 2D Comsol simulation model ofa 3D problem, and calculated in the frequency domain in respect to refractive index. The ber lters werefabricated by stripping and chemically etching the middle part of an MM-ber until the core was exposed. Amono layer of silica nano particles were evaporated on the core using an Evaporation Induced Self-Assembly(EISA) method. The experimental results indicated a broader bandwidth than indicated by the simulationswhich can be explained by the mismatch in the particle size distributions, uneven particle packing and nallyby eects from multiple mode angles. Thus, there are several closely connected Bragg wavelengths that buildup the broader bandwidth. The experimental part shows that it is possible by narrowing the particle sizedistributing and better control of the particle packing, the lter eectiveness can be greatly improved.

Characterizing a position sensitive detector in a vacuum environment without beam position monitoring devices can bechallenging and expensive. With this in mind, we have designed and fabricated a duo-lateral position sensitive detector (PSD) incorporatedwith simple and inexpensive surface features. It was evaluated using scanning electron microscopy. To assist in pinpointing precise positioningas well as acting as path guide during the sweeping of electrons, multiple grids were lithographically patterned on the top layer of the duolateralPSD. By sweeping electrons along two axes of the detector, the position detection error of both axes was determined from the signalsrecorded using a transimpedance amplification circuit. We were able to characterize the linearity over the x- and y-axis of the PSD and theresults show a very high linearity over two-dimensions of the PSD’s active area and that accurate beam monitoring for spectroscopic measurement without additional beam position monitoring devices is possible.