Formation of Wrinkle Structures on Styrene--isoprene--styrene Films Using One-Step Ion-Beam Irradiation.

We investigated the wrinkle formation on ion-beam (IB)-irradiated substrates coated with the thermoplastic elastomer styrene--isoprene--styrene (SIS) and demonstrate a relation of the wrinkle structure and the newly formed top layer induced by IB. IB irradiation led to polymer cross-linking on the surface, thereby forming a new skin layer, a finding which was supported by an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, Young moduli calculated using force-distance curves, and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry depth profiling. The wrinkle wavelength increased according to the irradiation time, which indicates that the latter mainly increased the thickness of the cross-linking layer.

One-dimensional surface wrinkling for twisted nematic liquid crystal display based on ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography.

Surface wrinkling method is used to fabricate a 1-dimensional nanostructure. The structure is transferred to an ultraviolet cured polymer which is used as an alignment layer. The anisotropic geometry serves as a guide for aligning liquid crystal molecules uniformly without defects.

Tailoring the Orientation and Periodicity of Wrinkles Using Ion-Beam Bombardment.

The present study demonstrates that surface reformation in polydimethylsiloxane can be controlled using ion-beam (IB) irradiation. This can be done by simply varying the IB incidence angle and requires no change in the energy source. By controlling the incidence angle of IB irradiation, we were able to continuously control the pattern of the wrinkle structure, that is, a randomly formed pattern or an anisotropic one.

Chemically Driven, Water-Soluble Composites of Carbon Nanotubes and Silver Nanoparticles as Stretchable Conductors.

In the past decade, hybrid materials for highly stretchable, conductive electrodes have received tremendous attention in the fields of emerging wearable electronic, optoelectronic, and sensing devices. Here, we present a previously unrecognized aqueous route to producing stretchable conductors composed of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) embedded in a polyurethane (PU) matrix, in contrast to ones dispersed in toxic organic solvents reported to date. The intact chemical interaction between one-dimensional SWNTs, for endowing the capability of establishing conductive pathways even in stretching conditions, and AgNPs, for enabling high conductivity of the composites, is achieved in an aqueous medium with an anionic polyelectrolyte, poly(acrylic acid), that undergoes pH-dependent conformational evolution.

Electrical and optical properties of Y-doped indium zinc oxide films grown by RF magnetron sputtering.

Y2O3-doped IZO (YIZO) films was investigated in order to control the carrier concentration of semiconducting IZO layer. Stoichiometric thin YIZO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering method using indium zinc oxide (IZO) including 50 wt.% ZnO and Y2O3 targets.

Thin transparent W-doped indium-zinc oxide (WIZO) layer on glass.

Annealing effect on structural and electrical properties of W-doped IZO (WIZO) films for thin film transistors (TFT) was studied under different process conditions. Thin WIZO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron co-sputtering technique using indium zinc oxide (10 wt.% ZnO-doped In2O3) and WO3 targets in room temperature.

Characteristics of Al-doped ZnO films grown by atomic layer deposition for silicon nanowire photovoltaic device.

We report the structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al) films deposited on glass by atomic layer deposition (ALD) with various Al2O3 film contents for use as transparent electrodes. Unlike films fabricated by a sputtering method, the diffraction peak position of the films deposited by ALD progressively moved to a higher angle with increasing Al2O3 film content. This indicates that Zn sites were effectively replaced by Al, due to layer-by-layer growth mechanism of ALD process which is based on alternate self-limiting surface chemical reactions.

Superior optical properties of homogeneous liquid crystal alignment on a tin (IV) oxide surface sequentially modulated via ion beam irradiation.

We first investigated the alignment characteristics of tin (IV) oxide (SnO(2)) thin films deposited by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. This study demonstrates that liquid crystal (LC) molecules could be aligned homogeneously by controlling the Ion Beam (IB) irradiation energy densities. We also show that the pretilt angle of the LC molecules has a close relation with the surface energy.