Category Archives: Newsletter

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires (NWs) are excellent candidates for the fabrication of energy harvesters, mechanical sensors, piezotronic and piezo-phototronic devices thanks to the interplay between piezoelectric and semiconducting properties. The growth of ZnO NWs on flexible substrates would further broaden their possible applications. However, such a growth requires low temperature synthesis to prevent any damage…

From 25th to 27th of April, the whole PULSE-COM consortium was in Prague (Czech Republic) to conduct its final workshop, presenting the main results obtained on this FET-OPEN project. Inside the SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics 2023 conference (https://spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/optics-and-optoelectronics), a dedicated sessions called “Smart Materials for Opto-Electronic Applications” had been organised in which the workshop had…

For the final demonstration of new optical functionalities added to PMP doped with 6% ZnO a silver ultra-thin plasmonic film of 7 nm thickness was deposited on one face of the PMP. The SEM image (left) and EDX (right) detected composition are presented below. On the same face of the doped PMP opal structures were…

Introduction The concept of the hardware bloc of the designed spectrometer developed in the scope of the PULSE-COM project is shown on the Figure 1 below. It includes a Linear Charge Coupled Device (CCD) image sensor, a TCD1304AP/Toshiba, assembled in a custom DIP package which has 3648 effective pixels, a 32-bit microcontroller/STMicroelectronics, selected from the…

Azobenzene-based photo-mobile polymer (PMP) samples were mechanically coupled with foils of commercial piezoelectric material (PZM) (Sensor DT Series Piezo Film vibration, by TE Connectivity) (Figure 1). The obtained assembly was placed under a solar simulator. The solar simulator used a short arc xenon lamp as a light source with an AM1.5 filter to mimic the…

The recent progresses made in the manufacturing of new plasmonic photomobile films are offering an innovative solution for light induced motion actuators and devices. Indeed, such films can be assimilated as transducers thanks to their ability to convert light into displacement with strokes up to several millimetres. By adjusting the incident light parameters (wavelength, exposure…

Piezoelectric and semiconducting zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires (NWs) are excellent candidates for the fabrication of energy harvesters, mechanical sensors, piezotronic and piezophototronic devices [1]. Understanding the interplay between piezoelectricity and semiconductor physics is fundamental to enhancing the performance of these devices. Within PULSE-COM we explored the piezoelectric performance of vertically grown ZnO NWs based on…

Laser Direct Writing via Two Photon Polymerization (LDW via TPP), also known as 3D Lithography (3DL), is a method of obtaining structures with sub-micrometric features (lateral features down to 90 nm) using LDW. The key element is the two-photon absorption and the transverse Gaussian intensity profile of the incident laser beam. Irradiation of the used…