Can soil organic carbon sequestration and the carbon management index be improved by changing the film mulching methods in the semiarid region?

Plastic film mulching has been widely used to increase maize yield in the semiarid area of China.However, whether long-term plastic film mulching is conducive to agricultural sustainability in this region remains controversial.A field experiment was initiated in 2013 with five different film mulching methods:(i) control method, flat planting without mulching (CK),(ii) flat planting with half film mulching (P),(iii) film mulching on ridges and planting in narrow furrows(S),(iv) full film mulching on double ridges (D), and (v) film mulching on ridges and planting in wide furrows (R).The effects on soil organic carbon (SOC) content, storage, and fractions, and on the carbon management index (CMI)were evaluated after nine consecutive years of plastic film mulching.The results showed that long-term plastic film mulching generally maintained the initial SOC level.Compared with no mulching, plastic film mulching increased the average crop yield, biomass yield, and root biomass by 48.38, 35.06, and 37.32%, respectively, which led to the improvement of SOC sequestration.Specifically, plastic film mulching significantly improved CMI, and increased the SOC content by 13.59%, SOC storage by 7.47%and easily oxidizable organic carbon (EOC) by 13.78%on average,but it reduced the other labile fractions.SOC sequestration and CMI were improved by refining the plastic film mulching methods.The S treatment had the best effect among the four mulching methods, so it can be used as a reasonable film mulching method for sustainable agricultural development in the semiarid area.

Construction of all-organic low dielectric polyimide hybrids via synergistic effect between covalent organic framework and cross-linking structure

Polyimide(PI)is a promising electronic packaging material,but it remains challenging to obtain an all-organic PI hybrid film with decreased dielectric constant and loss without modifying the monomer.Herein,a series of allorganic PI hybrid films were successfully prepared by introducing the covalent organic framework(COF),which could induce the formation of the cross-linking structure in the PI matrix.Due to the synergistic effects of the COF fillers and the cross-linking structure,the PI/COF hybrid film containing 2 wt%COF exhibited the lowest dielectric constant of 2.72 and the lowest dielectric loss(tanδ)of 0.0077 at 1 MHz.It is attributed to the intrinsic low dielectric constant of COF and a large number of mesopores within the PI.Besides,the cross-linking network of PI prevents the molecular chains from stacking and improves the fraction of free volume(FFV).The molecular dynamics simulation results are well consistent with the dielectric properties data.Furthermore,the PI/COF hybrid film with 5 wt%COF showed a significant enhancement in breakdown strength,which increased to 412.8 kV/mm as compared with pure PI.In addition,the PI/COF hybrid film achieve to reduce the dielectric constant and thermal expansion coefficient(CTE).It also exhibited excellent thermal,hydrophobicity,and mechanical performance.The all-organic PI/COF hybrid films have great commercial potential as next-generation electronic packaging materials.

Inorganic and Organic Solution-Processed Thin Film Devices

Thin films and thin film devices have a ubiquitous presence in numerous conventional and emerging technologies. This is because of the recent advances in nanotechnology, the development of functional and smart materials,conducting polymers, molecular semiconductors, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, and the employment of unique properties of thin films and ultrathin films, such as high surface area, controlled nanostructure for effective charge transfer, and special physical and chemical properties, to develop new thin film devices. This paper is therefore intended to provide a concise critical review and research directions on most thin film devices, including thin film transistors, data storage memory, solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes, thermoelectric devices, smart materials, sensors, and actuators. The thin film devices may consist of organic, inorganic, and composite thin layers, and share similar functionality, properties, and fabrication routes. Therefore, due to the multidisciplinary nature of thin film devices, knowledge and advances already made in one area may be applicable to other similar areas. Owing to the importance of developing low-cost, scalable, and vacuum-free fabrication routes, this paper focuses on thin film devices that may be processed and deposited from solution.

Photodetectors based on two-dimensional materials and organic thin-film heterojunctions

High-performance photodetectors are expected to open up revolutionary opportunities in many application fields, such as environment monitoring, military, optical communication and biomedical science. Combining two-dimensional materials(which have tunable optical absorption and high carrier mobility) with organic materials(which are abundant with low cost, high flexibility and large-area scalability) to form thin-film heterojunctions, high-responsivity photodetectors could be predicted with fast response speed in a wide spectra region.In this review, we give a comprehensive summary of photodetectors based on two-dimensional materials and organic thin-film heterojunctions, which includes hybrid assisted enhanced devices, single-layer enhanced devices, vertical heterojunction devices and tunable vertical heterojunction devices. We also give a systematic classification and perspectives on the future development of these types of photodetectors.

Control of Phase Separation and Crystallization for High-Efficiency and Mechanically Deformable Organic Solar Cells

Stretchable organic solar cells(OSCs)have great potential as power sources for the next-generation wearable electronics.Although blending rigid photovoltaic components with soft insulating materials can easily endow the mechanical ductility of active layers,the photovoltaic efficiencies usually drops in the resulting OSCs.Herein,a high photovoltaic efficiency of 15.03%and a large crack-onset strain of 15.70%is simultaneously achieved based on a ternary blend consisting of polymer donor poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl-3-fluoro)thiophen-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene))-alt-(5,5-(1',3'-di-2-thienyl-5',7'-bis(2-ethylhexyl)benzo[1',2'-c:4',5'-c']dithiophene-4,8-dione))](PM6),non-fullerene accepter 2,2'-((2Z,2'Z)-((12,13-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-3,9-diundecyl-12,13-dihydro-[1,2,5]thiadiazolo[3,4-e]thieno[2",3":4',5']thieno[2',3':4,5]pyrrolo[3,2-g]thieno[2',3':4,5]thieno[3,2-b]indole-2,10-diyl)bis(methanylylidene))bis(5,6-difluoro-3-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indene-2,1-diylidene))dimalononitrile(Y6),and soft elastomer polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene-ran-butylene)-block-polystyrene(SEBS)through the control of phase separation and crystallization.By employing a high-boiling point solvent additive 1-chloronaphthalene(CN)with different solubilities for PM6 and Y6,the aggregation dynamics of PM6 and Y6 as well as the film solidification process are dramatically altered,allowing for the different molecular rearrangement and liquid-liquid phase separation evolution.Consequently,the ternary film with optimal CN content presents decreased SEBS domains and moderately improved molecular ordering of PM6 and Y6,enabling effective mechanical deformation and charge generation/transport.The revealed corrections between the film-formation process,film microstructure,and photovoltaic/mechanical characteristics in the ternary blend provide deep understanding of the morphology control toward high-performance stretchable OSCs.

Alternating current characterization of nano-Pt(Ⅱ)octaethylporphyrin(PtOEP) thin film as a new organic semiconductor

Alternating current（AC） conductivity and dielectric properties of thermally evaporated Au/Pt OEP/Au thin films are investigated each as a function of temperature（303 K–473 K） and frequency（50 Hz–5 MHz）.The frequency dependence of AC conductivity follows the Jonscher universal dynamic law.The AC-activation energies are determined at different frequencies.It is found that the correlated barrier hopping（CBH） model is the dominant conduction mechanism.The variation of the frequency exponent s with temperature is analyzed in terms of the CBH model.Coulombic barrier height Wm,hopping distance Rω,and the density of localized states N（EF） are valued at different frequencies.Dielectric constant ε1（ω,T） and dielectric loss ε2（ω,T） are discussed in terms of the dielectric polarization process.The dielectric modulus shows the non-Debye relaxation in the material.The extracted relaxation time by using the imaginary part of modulus（M’’）is found to follow the Arrhenius law.

Low Temperature DC Sputtering Deposition on Indium-Tin Oxide Film and Its Application to Inverted Top-emitting Organic Light-emitting Diodes

Indium tin oxide （ITO） ultrathin films were prepared on glass substrate by DC （direct current） magnetron sputtering technique with the assistance of H2O vapor to avoid potential surface damage. The film properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD） technique, four-point probe method and spectrophotometer. The results show that the deposited ITO film with introduced H2O during sputtering process was almost amorphous. The average visible light transmission of 100 nm ITO film was around 85% and square resistivity was below 80 Ω/square. The film was used as the transparent anode to fabricate an inverted top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes （IT-OLEDs） with the structure of glass substrate/Alq3 （40 nm）/NPB （15 nm）/CuPc （x nm）/ITO anode （100 nm）, where the film thickness of CuPc was optimized. It was found that the luminance of this IT-OLEDs was improved from 25 cd/m^2 to more than 527 cd/m^2 by increasing the thickness of CuPc, and luminance efficiency of 0.24 lm/W at 100 cd/m^2 was obtained, which indicated that the optimized thickness of CuPc layer was around 15 nm.

Tandem organic light-emitting diode with a molybdenum tri-oxide thin film interconnector layer

A 10-nm-thick molybdenum tri-oxide（MoO3） thin film was used as the interconnector layer in tandem organic lightemitting devices（OLEDs）.The tandem OLEDs with two identical emissive units consisting of N,N-bis（naphthalen-1-yl）N,N-bis（phenyl）-benzidine（NPB） /tris（8-hydroxyquinoline） aluminum（Alq3） exhibited current efficiency-current density characteristics superior to the conventional single-unit devices.At 20 mA/cm2,the current efficiency of the tandem OLEDs using the interconnector layers of MoO3 thin film was about 4.0 cd/A,which is about twice that of the corresponding conventional single-unit device（1.8cd/A）.The tandem OLED showed a higher power efficiency than the conventional single-unit device for luminance over 1200cd/m2.The experimental results demonstrated that a MoO3 thin film with a proper thickness can be used as an effective interconnector layer in tandem OLEDs.Such an interconnector layer can be easily fabricated by simple thermal evaporation,greatly simplifying the device processing and fabrication processes required by previously reported interconnector layers.A possible explanation was proposed for the carrier generation of the MoO3 interconnector layer.

Hemolysis effect and calcium-phosphate precipitation of heat-organic-film treated magnesium

A heat-organic-films process was employed to induce calcium-phosphate apatites formation on magnesium, consequently the corrosion resistance and hemolysis properties of magnesium were improved for biomedical applications. Firstly, magnesium samples were heat-treated at 773 K for 10 h; secondly, stearic acid films were coated on the surface of the heat-treated magnesium. Then the surface modified magnesium was soaked in simulated body fluid (SBF) to test its corrosion resistance. The results show that the heat treatment process allows magnesium to form a dense oxide layer with a thickness of around 20 μm, thereby the surface modified magnesium has higher corrosion resistance. After 24 h in SBF island apatite was deposited on magnesium. The unevenly precipitates were characterized by XRD and FTIR as the mixture of hydroxyapatite(HA) and octacalcium phosphate(OCP). The preliminary hemolysis experiment indicates that untreated magnesium has hemolytic effect (about 60%); whereas the heat-organic film treated samples has no hemolytic effect. The mechanism of fast nucleation and growth of calcium-phosphate apatites on surface modified magnesium in SBF was also discussed.

The Production of Organic-Inorganic Compound Film-Coated Urea and the Characteristics of Its Nutrient Release

The effect of different concentrations of natural macromolecular compound on the characteristics of nutrient release in the membrane materials of organic-inorganic compound film-coated urea was discussed, and the optimal concentrations for better nutrient release was proposed. The characteristics of nutrient release of film-coated urea were evaluated by soil column leaching experiment. Organic-inorganic compound film-coated urea showed good characteristics of nutrient release, which could be well simulated by Logistic curve. The two parameters in this curve, a and r, can be used to present nutrient release of film-coated urea, and followed the order of B 〉 C 〉 A and C 〈 B 〈 A, respectively, indicating that the release was stronger with the increasing concentration of natural macromolecular compound in the membrane, which implied better controllability of nutrient release. The concentration of 5% of natural macromolecular compound showed better characteristic of nutrient release and can be utilized as a membrane material combined with inorganic mineral powders to develop film-coated slow-release fertilizer.

Composite bilayer films with organic compound-triggered bending properties

Organic compounds are widely used in both industry and daily life,and composite bilayer films with organic compound-triggered bending properties are promising for applications of transducers,soft robotics,and so on.Here,a universal and straightforward strategy to generate composite bilayer films with organic compoundtriggered bending properties is demonstrated.The composite bilayer films with organic compound-triggered bending properties are designed with bilayer structures,in which one layer is a porous polymeric membrane with appropriate solubility parameter that matches the value of organic solvents in order to produce prominent affinity to the solvent molecules,and the other layer is reduced graphene oxide membrane stacked on the porous polymeric membrane as an inert layer for restraining the swelling of the polymeric membrane on one side.Guided by matching the solubility parameters between solvent and polymer,a significant bending curvature of 27.3 cm-1 is obtained in acetone vapor.The results in this study will provide valuable guidance for designing and developing functional composite materials with significant organic compound-triggered bending properties.

Electrochemical performance of organic film on copper surface by polymer plating of 6-mercapto-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-dithiol monosodium

The 6-mercapto-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-dithiol monosodium(TTN) compound was used to fabricate an organic film on pure copper. The polymer plating process of TTN on pure copper in Na2CO3 aqueous solution and the growth mechanism of poly(6-mercapto-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-dithiol)(PTT) film were studied by means of cyclic voltammetry. The polymer plating under galvanostatic mode at 0.05 mA/cm2 was conducted to generate PTT film on pure copper in the same electrolyte with different polymer-plating time. The film mass was determined by electronic balance and the insoluble fraction in tetrahydrofuran(THF) Is tested. The performance of organic film formed on copper surface was investigated preliminarily by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS). It is found that a slight peak measured at 0 V vs SCE attributes to the oxidation of copper and generated Cu+ or/and Cu2+ to produce Cu-TTN complex,then a strong oxide peak is observed at 0.311 V vs SCE due to the polymerization of TTN for the increase of the film thickness. Electrochemical measurement results reveal that 10 min is an optimum polymer-plated time to obtain high quality film. The results of potentiodynamic polarization show that current density decreases from 1.85 μA/cm2 for bare copper to 0.168 μA/cm2 for polymer-plated copper while polymer-plated time is 10 min. The charge transfer resistances of bare copper and polymer-plated copper are 937 Ω·cm2 and 11.12 kΩ·cm2,respectively. The film capacitor for polymer-plated copper is as low as 1.82 μF·cm2. The EIS results confirm the results of potentiodynamic polarization and reveal that a homogenous and compact film is obtained by polymer plating technique.

Organic-inorganic Hybrids Towards the Preparation of Nanoporous Composite Thin Films for Microelectronic Application

Silicon containing materials have traditionally been used in microelectronic fabrication. Semiconductor devices often have one or more arrays of patterned interconnect levels that serve to electrically couple the individual circuit elements forming an integrated circuit. These interconnect levels are typically separated by an insulating or dielectric film. Previously, a silicon oxide film was the most commonly used material for such dielectric films having dielectric constants( k ) near 4 0. However, as the feature size is continuously scaling down, the relatively high k of such silicon oxide films became inadequate to provide efficient electrical insulation. As such, there has been an increasing market demand for materials with even lower dielectric constant for Interlayer Dielectric(ILD) applications, yet retaining thermal and mechanical integrity. We wish to report here our investigations on the preparation of ultra low k ILD materials using a sacrificial approach whereby organic groups are burnt out to generate low k porous ORMOSIL films. We have been able to prepare a variety of organically modified silicone resins leading to highly microporous thin films, exhibiting ultra low k from 1 80 to 2 87, and good to high modulus, 1 5 to 5 5 GPa. Structure property influences on porosity, dielectric constant and modulus will be discussed.

Organic Thin Film Electroluminescent Passive Matrix Display

Long life green emitting matrix display based on organic light emitting diode is reported. The pixel number is 96×60, equivalent pixel size 0.4×0.4 mm 2, and the pixel gap 0.1 mm. An image with no crosstalk between pixels is obtained. The average luminance of these pixels at duty cycle of 1/64 is 100 cd/m 2, and the power consumption is 0.6 W. The dark room contrast of 1∶100 is achieved without using a polarization filter.

Performance improvement in pentacene organic thin film transistors by inserting a C_(60) ultrathin layer

The contact effect on the performances of organic thin film transistors is studied here. A C60 ultrathin layer is inserted between Al source-drain electrode and pentacene to reduce the contact resistance. By a 3 nm C60 modification, the injection barrier is lowered and the contact resistance is reduced. Thus, the field-effect mobility increases from 0.12 to 0.52 cm2/（V.s）. It means that inserting a C60 ultra thin layer is a good method to improve the organic thin film transistor （OTFT） performance. The output curve is simulated by using a charge drift model. Considering the contact effect, the field effect mobility is improved to 1.15 cm2/（V-s）. It indicates that further reducing the contact resistance of OTFTs should be carried out.

New method for fast morphological characterization of organic polycrystalline films by polarized optical microscopy

A new method to visualize the large-scale crystal grain morphology of organic polycrystalline films is proposed. First,optical anisotropic transmittance images of polycrystalline zinc phthalocyanine（Zn Pc） films vacuum deposited by weak epitaxial growth（WEG） method were acquired with polarized optical microscopy（POM）. Then morphology properties including crystal grain size, distribution, relative orientation, and crystallinity were derived from these images by fitting with a transition dipole model. At last, atomic force microscopy（AFM） imaging was carried out to confirm the fitting and serve as absolute references. This method can be readily generalized to other organic polycrystalline films, thus providing an efficient way to access the large-scale morphologic properties of organic polycrystalline films, which may prove to be useful in industry as a film quality monitoring method.

High-crystalline GaSb epitaxial films grown on GaAs(001) substrates by low-pressure metal–organic chemical vapor deposition

Orthogonal experiments of Ga Sb films growth on Ga As（001） substrates have been designed and performed by using a low-pressure metal–organic chemical vapor deposition（LP-MOCVD） system. The crystallinities and microstructures of the produced films were comparatively analyzed to achieve the optimum growth parameters. It was demonstrated that the optimized Ga Sb thin film has a narrow full width at half maximum（358 arc sec） of the（004） ω-rocking curve, and a smooth surface with a low root-mean-square roughness of about 6 nm, which is typical in the case of the heteroepitaxial single-crystal films. In addition, we studied the effects of layer thickness of Ga Sb thin film on the density of dislocations by Raman spectra. It is believed that our research can provide valuable information for the fabrication of high-crystalline Ga Sb films and can promote the integration probability of mid-infrared devices fabricated on mainstream performance electronic devices.

Electric dipolar interaction assisted growth of single crystalline organic thin films

We report on a forest-like-to-desert-like pattern evolution in the growth of an organic thin film observed by using an atomic force microscope. We use a modified diffusion limited aggregation model to simulate the growth process and are able to reproduce the experimental patterns. The energy of electric dipole interaction is calculated and determined to be the driving force for the pattern formation and evolution. Based on these results, single crystalline films are obtained by enhancing the electric dipole interaction while limiting effects of other growth parameters.

Metal Organic Chemical Vapour Deposited Thin Films of Cobalt Oxide Prepared via Cobalt Acetylacetonate

The single solid source precursor, cobalt （Ⅱ） acetylacetonate was prepared and characterized by infrared spectroscopy. Thin films of cobalt oxide were deposited on soda lime glass substrates through the pyrolysis （metal organic chemical vapour deposition （MOCVD）） of single solid source precursor, cobalt acetylacetonate, Co[C5H7O2]2 at a temperature of 420℃. The compositional characterization carried out by rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction （XRD）, showed that the films have a stoichiometry of Co2O3 and an average thickness of 227±0.2 nm. A direct energy gap of 2,15±0.01 eV was calculated by the data obtained by optical absorption spectroscopy. The morphology of the films obtained by scanning electron microscopy, showed that the grains were continuous and uniformly distributed at various magnifications, while the average grain size was less than i micron for the deposited thin films of cobalt oxide.

Preparation and operation characteristics of organic semiconductor transistor using thin film Al gate and copper phthalocyanine

The organic static induction transistors (OSITs) are fabricated by the method of evaporating and plating in a vacuum with copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) dye, and has a five layered structure of Au/CuPc/Al/CuPc/Au. The experiment reveals that OSITs have obtained a low driving voltage, high current density and high switch speed such as I_ DS = 1.2×10 -6 A/mm2, and the degree of 1 000 Hz. The OSITs have excellent operation characteristics of typical static induction transistors.