Effect of irradiation on temperature performance of dispersioncompensation no-core cascade optical-fiber sensor coated with polydimethylsiloxane film

A temperature measurement device can produce data deviations and can even be damaged in a high-dose radiation environment.To reduce the radiation damage to such a device and improve the temperature measurement accuracy in a radiation environment,a temperature sensor based on optical-fiber sensing technology is proposed.This sensor has a cascade structure composed of a single-mode fiber(SMF),a dispersion-compensation fiber(DCF),a nocore fiber(NCF),and another SMF(SDNS).The DCF and NCF are coated with a polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)film,which is a heat-sensitive material with high thermal optical and thermal expansion coefficients.In experiments,PDMS was found to produce an irradiation crosslinking effect after irradiation,which improved the temperature sensitivity of the SDNS sensor.The experimental results showed that within a range of 30–100℃,the maximum temperature sensitivity after irradiation was 62.86 pm/℃,and the maximum transmission sensitivity after irradiation was 3.353×10^(-2)dB/℃,which were 1.22 times and 2.267 times the values before irradiation,respectively.In addition,repeated temperature experiments verified that the SDNS sensor coated with the PDMS film had excellent temperature repeatability.Furthermore,it was found that with an increase in the irradiation intensity,the irradiation crosslinking degree of PDMS increased,and the temperature sensitivity of the sensor was improved.The proposed sensor could potentially be applied to temperature measurement in a nuclear-radiation environment.

Fine-tuning of Polymer Photovoltaic Properties by the Length of Alkyl Side Chains

This paper reports the synthesis and characteristics of a series of alkyl-substituted planar polymers. The physical properties are carefully tuned to optimize their photovoltaic performance. Depending on the length of soluble alkyl side chains which modify the structural order and orientation substantially in polymer backbones, the device performance can be improved significantly. The tuning of HOMO energy levels optimized polymers＇ spectral coverage of absorption and their hole mobility, as well as miscibility with fullerene; all these efforts enhanced polymer solar cell performances. The short- circuit current, Jsc for polymer solar cells was increased by adjusting polymer chain packing ability. It was found that films with well distributed polymer/fullerene interpenetrating network exhibit improved solar cell conversion efficiency. Enhanced efficiency up to 5.8% has been demonstrated. The results provide important insights about the roles of flexile chains in structure-property relationship for the design of new polymers to be used in high efficient solar cells.