Nanofibers have exceptional properties due to their diameter and large surface area to mass ratio. Thus, nanofibers can potentially be used as electrodes in highly sensitive biosensing systems, bio-fuel cells, and high-power devices. In this study, conductive polyurethane-FeCl₃ composite nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning. The optimal electrospinning conditions were investigated, and the physical and chemical properties of the composite were evaluated. Conductive polyurethane/FeCl₃ fibers of 1-5 µm in diameter were obtained, and their conductivity was 13.7±1.47×10^-3 S/m. The effects of the morphology of the material were also monitored, and it was found that a fiber mat was 10 times more conductive than a film, because the crystallinity of the polyurethane and the Fe³⁺ distribution affect the electrical properties. The conductive nanofibers are flexible because the fiber substrate is made of polyurethane. Therefore, the fibers demonstrated in this study could make it possible to control the electric properties by modifying the nanofiber morphology.

The piezoresistivity in beta silicon carbide (3C-SiC) ultra-thin nanosheet with (001) surface orientation has been simulated on the basis of first-principles calculations of model structures. Electronic structure of the 3C-SiC nanosheet model with about 4 nm thickness has been completely verified in terms of the quantum confinement by the projection of the 3-dimensional multi-valley conduction band for bulk 3C-SiC onto the 2-dimensional reciprocal-lattice plane. For the ultra-thin 3C-SiC nanosheet models of less than 2 nm thickness, original features of themselves in electronic state can be observed beyond the quantum confinement concept. The strain response to carrier conductivity of n- or p-doped nanosheet models were calculated using band densities and their effective mass tensors with respect to carrier concentration and temperature. In the p-doped state, much larger longitudinal and transverse gauge factors for [110] direction were evaluated with the same qualitative character as p-type bulk 3C-SiC, on the condition that thickness is more than 2 nm under the quantum confinement effect.

This paper presents the design, fabrication and evaluation of an optical readout infrared thermal imaging sensor for human detection using vacuum evaporated Eu(TTA)₃ phosphor. Eu(TTA)₃ is served as an infrared (IR)-to-visible converter, which emits temperature dependent luminescence under specific ultraviolet (UV) excitation. The temperature sensitivity of luminescence intensity from Eu(TTA)₃ was measured as about -2.1%/℃. An optical readout system was designed to measure the luminescence changes of the sensor pixels. Eu(TTA)₃ on the sensor pixels is excited by a light emitting diode (LED) with 355 nm wavelength, and a visible luminescence map on the sensor pixels is projected onto a charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera. Thermal images of human were successfully obtained by using a 76 × 98 imaging sensor array with a carefully designed IR optics. The noise analysis shows that the noise-equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of the system is about 1.8 K.

Ion concentrations in the joints of borosilicate glass anodically bonded to ultrathin silicon were measured by glow discharge mass spectroscopy (GDMS), a highly conventional and sensitive method that measures profiles up to depths of 100 µm. The ion migration behavior was also investigated. The bonding current was an exponential function of the silicon thickness. All cations in the glass migrated towards the cathode, whereas the non-bridging oxygen ions were retained in the glass, possibly because of anodic bonding in the negatively charged depletion layer formed adjacent to the silicon-Tempax^® boundary. The anodic bonding is apparently related to the different migration lengths of the oxygen and silicon ions. The lower migration length of the oxygen ions may result from the lower migration length of the ionized cations. These findings confirm the utility of GDMS in investigating the impact of joints in anodic bonding.

A solid-type pH sensor for dairy cow-rumen measurement is developed. The pH sensor combines a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) with a separate sensing electrode made of indium tin oxide (ITO) film, which is a separate sensing component and connected to the gate terminal of the FET. The developed pH sensor offers the advantages of FET and ITO sensing techniques. The sensor system can be fabricated with a compact size by eliminating the reference solution. The solid-state sensor structure is fit for long-term pH measurement, and the separate ITO sensing electrode can be patterned with a suitable capture structure for cow-rumen test environment. The results show that the pH sensor has a <1 mA baseline for pH = 7 and >14 µA/pH measurement sensitivity. After good packaging, the solid pH sensor is adapted to sense the daily range of pH value of the rumen, and the developed sensor can help farmers efficiently monitor the health condition of wagyu cows.

Antireflection coating on glass is one of the important issues in optical industry. Moth-eye structure, which shows an anti-reflection effect at wide range of incident angle and wavelength, has been paid attention as a key technology for anti-reflection coating in developing optical devices. However, the conventional fabrication methods have several drawbacks, which is difficult to fabricate onto a curved surfaces and large area at low cost. In this work, we proposed and experimentally demonstrated a new fabrication method using photo-curable silicone rubber and vitrification by vacuum ultraviolet light (VUV) to develop glass-made moth-eye structure using printing method. As a result, the fabricated moth-eye structure made of the silicon rubber showed 94.3% transparency and the VUV modified moth-eye structure showed the better performance over 95.5% transparency, compared with a plain glass surface of 92.0% in the visible light range from 470nm to 700nm.