Stable organic self-assembled microwire lasers for chemical vapor sensing

Organic microlasers hold great potentials in fabricating on-chip sensors for integrated photonic circuits due to their chemical versatility and reactivity. However, chemical vapor detection is still challenging for organic microlaser sensors, as it requires not only optical gain and self-assembly capability, but also rapid response to stimuli and long-term stability under high excitation power. In this work, a new laser dye 4,7-bis(9-octyl-7-(4-(octyloxy)phenyl)-9H-carbazol-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (BPCBT) is designed and synthesized, which self-assembles into microwires showing strong intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) photoluminescence with >80% quantum efficiency. It enables the lasing from BPCBT microwires under a low threshold of 16 μJ·mm−2·pulse−1 with significantly improved stability over conventional organic microlasers. The stimulated emission amplifies the fluorescence change in the BPCBT microwires under chemical vapors including various acid, acetone, and ethanol vapors, indicating high sensitivity and high selectivity of organic microlaser sensors desirable for compact sensor arrays in integrated photonics.

Fabrication of Reproducible and Selective Ammonia Vapor Sensor-Pellet of Polypyrrole/Cerium Oxide Nanocomposite for Prompt Detection at Room Temperature

Polypyrrole (PPy) and polypyrrole/cerium oxide nanocomposite (PPy/CeO2) were prepared by the chemical oxidative method in an aqueous medium using anhydrous ferric chloride (FeCl3) as an oxidant. The successful formulation of materials was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmittance electron microscopy (TEM). A four-in-line probe device was used for studying DC electrical conductivity and ammonia vapor sensing properties of PPy and PPy/CeO2. The significant improvement in both the conductivity and sensing parameters of PPy/CeO2 compared to pristine PPy reveals some synergistic/electronic interaction between PPy and cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs) working at molecular levels. The initial conductivity (i.e., conductivity at room temperature) was found to be 0.152 Scm−1 and 1.295 Scm−1 for PPy and PPy/CeO2, respectively. Also, PPy/CeO2 showed much better conductivity retention than pristine PPy under both the isothermal and cyclic ageing conditions. Ammonia vapor sensing was carried out at different concentration (0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 vol %). The sensing response of PPy/CeO2 varied with varying concentrations. At 0.5 vol % ammonia concentration, the % sensing response of PPy and PPy/CeO2 sensor was found to be 39.1% and 93.4%, respectively. The sensing efficiency of the PPy/CeO2 sensor was also evaluated at 0.4. 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.05, 0.03, and 0.01 vol % ammonia concentration in terms of % sensing response, response/recovery time, reversibility, selectivity as well as stability at room temperature.

ZnO/RGO Heterojunction Based near Room Temperature Alcohol SENSOR with Improved Efficiency

The systematic optimization of surface engineering (dimensionality) indeed plays a crucial role in achieving efficient vapor-sensing performance. Among various semiconducting metal oxides, owing to some of its unique features and advantages, ZnO has attracted researchers on a global scale due to its application in various fields, including chemical sensors. The concomitant optimization of the surface attributes (varying different dimensions) of ZnO have become a sensation for the entire research community. Moreover, the small thickness and extremely large surface of exfoliated 2D nanosheets render the gas sensing material an ideal candidate for achieving strong coupling with different gas molecules. However, temperature is a crucial factor in the field of chemical sensing. Recently, graphene-based gas sensors have attracted attention due to their variety of structures, unique sensing performances and room temperature working conditions. In this work, a highly sensitive and fast responsive low temperature (60 °C)-based ethanol sensor, based on RGO/2D ZnO nanosheets hybrid structure, is reported. After detailed characterizations, the vapor sensing potentiality of this sensor was tested for the detection of ethanol. The ethanol sensor offered the response magnitude of 89% (100 ppm concentration) with response and recovery time of 12 s/29 s, respectively. Due to excessively high number of active sites for VOC interaction, with high yield synthesis process and appreciably high carrier mobility, this has paved the way for developing future generation, miniaturized and flexible (wearable) vapor sensor devices, meeting the multidimensional requirements for traditional and upcoming (health/medical sector) applications. The underlying mechanistic framework for vapor sensing, using this hybrid junction, is explained with the Energy Band Diagram.

On the Performance of Airborne Meteorological Observations Against Other In-situ Measurements

Routine in situ observations of the atmosphere taken in flight by commercial aircraft provide atmospheric profiles with greater temporal density and, in many parts of the country, at more locations than the operational radiosonde network. Thousands of daily temperature and wind observations are provided by largely complementary systems, the Airborne Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR) and the Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR). All TAMDAR aircraft also measure relative humidity while a subset of AMDAR aircraft are equipped with the Water Vapor Sensing System (WVSS) measure specific humidity.One year of AMDAR/WVSS and TAMDAR observations are evaluated against operational National Weather Service (NWS) radiosondes to characterize the performance of these systems in similar environments. For all observed variables, AMDAR reports showed both smaller average differences and less random differences with respect to radiosondes than the corresponding TAMDAR observations. Observed differences were not necessarily consistent with known radiosonde biases. Since the systems measure different humidity variables, moisture is evaluated in both specific and relative humidity using both aircraft and radiosonde temperatures to derive corresponding moisture variables. Derived moisture performance is improved when aircraft-based temperatures are corrected prior to conversion. AMDAR observations also show greater consistency between different aircraft than TAMDAR observations do. The small variability in coincident WVSS humidity observations indicates that they may prove more reliable than humidity observations from NWS radiosondes.