Jiun-Haw Lee

The levels of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells in paediatric patients with allergic rhinitis and bronchial asthma

Our purpose was to determine whether numbers of CD4+CD25+ T [T regulatory (Treg)] cells and mRNA expression of functional molecules of Treg are related to airway allergy and disease severity in 51 paediatric patients with allergic rhinitis or bronchial asthma and 47 healthy controls. Surface markers were evaluated with flow cytometry, and mRNA was determined with real‐time polymerase chain reaction. Children with allergic disease had fewer CD4+CD25+ T cells (8·49% ± 2·41% versus 9·58% ± 2·43%, P < 0·05) and CD4+CD25hi T cells (1·32% ± 0·68% versus 1·70% ± 0·68%, P < 0·01) than control subjects. Numbers of CD4+CD25+ and CD4+CD25hi T lymphocytes were higher in children with persistent allergic rhinitis and/or moderate–severe bronchial asthma than in those with respective milder disease. The number of Treg cells was correlated positively with total immunoglobulin E level. The mRNA expression of forkhead box P3 (FoxP3) was increased in moderate–severe versus mild asthma (2·93 ± 0·38 versus 1·60 ± 0·31, P < 0·01). Patients with moderate–severe bronchial asthma also had increased mRNA expression of interleukin (IL)‐10 compared with patients with mild asthma (15·24 ± 4·07 versus 3·77 ± 2·18, P < 0·01). The suppressive function of Treg cells from patients with more severe asthma was competent in vitro. On average, decreased numbers of Treg cells in children with allergic airway disease might represent a defect of the Treg population. With increased expression of FoxP3 and IL‐10 in Treg from patients with relatively severe allergic disease, adaptive and functional Treg might be generated in response to aggravated atopy and disease severity.

Mixed host organic light-emitting devices with low driving voltage and long lifetime

In this letter, we present and analyze the device performance of the mixed host (MH) organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs). The host of the emitting layer (EML) material in this device consists of a hole transport layer (HTL) and an electron transport layer (ETL) fabricated by coevaporation. The bipolar transport characteristic of the MH layer helps to reduce the driving voltage. Device lifetime is increased due to the elimination of the sharp boundary of the HTL/EML interface. Combining the MH structure with a high mobility electron ETL material, bis(10-hydroxybenzo[h]qinolinato)beryllium, the OLED has shown a brightness of 27600cd∕m2 at a driving voltage of 5 V, and a lifetime four times longer than that of a conventional OLED.

High Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency of Metal Phthalocyanine/Fullerene Heterojunction Photovoltaic Device

This paper introduces the fundamental physical characteristics of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Photoelectric conversion efficiency is crucial to the evaluation of quality in OPV devices, and enhancing efficiency has been spurring on researchers to seek alternatives to this problem. In this paper, we focus on organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices and review several approaches to enhance the energy conversion efficiency of small molecular heterojunction OPV devices based on an optimal metal-phthalocyanine/fullerene (C60) planar heterojunction thin film structure. For the sake of discussion, these mechanisms have been divided into electrical and optical sections: (1) Electrical: Modification on electrodes or active regions to benefit carrier injection, charge transport and exciton dissociation; (2) Optical: Optional architectures or infilling to promote photon confinement and enhance absorption.

Recombination zone in mixed-host organic light-emitting devices

In this letter, the authors had quantitatively investigated the recombination zone in the mixed-host (MH) emitting layer (EML) of an organic light-emitting device with different mixed ratios experimentally and theoretically. The MH-EML consisted of a hole-transport layer (HTL) and an electron-transport layer fabricated by coevaporation. When the mixed ratio of the HTL in the EML increases, the driving voltage increases then decreases; this can be well demonstrated by an electrical model with different carrier mobilities. A blueshift was also observed due to the solid state solvation effect combined with the exciton shift from the anode to the cathode side.

Charge carrier mobility of mixed-layer organic light-emitting diodes

The authors report the investigation of the charge transport behaviors in mixed thin films of N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(1-napthyl)-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine and tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum. The extracted electron and hole drift mobility were found to be sensitive to the compositional fraction and interpreted by energy levels, charge mobilities of neat compounds, and microscopic networks within the mixed systems. The carrier conduction characteristics, therefore, were used to illustrate the electrical and optical properties of the organic light emitting devices with a mixed layer and present direct evidences on the role of the mixed layer in these devices.

High ambient-contrast-ratio display using tandem reflective liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting device.

A high ambient-contrast-ratio (A-CR) and large aperture-ratio display is conceptually demonstrated and experimentally validated by stacking a normally black reflective liquid crystal display (NB-RLCD) and an organic light-emitting device (OLED). Such a tandem device can be switched between the NB-RLCD mode and the OLED mode under bright and dark ambient light, respectively. The normally black characteristic of the RLCD also helps to boost the A-CR under OLED-mode operation. To obtain a better image quality in the RLCD mode, a bumpy and transmissive structure is used to eliminate the specular reflection and to increase the viewing angle performance that results in CR>2:1 over 55 degrees viewing cone. Besides, such a structure can also increase the external quantum efficiency of the OLED by 49.4%. In our experiments, regardless of the ambient intensity the A-CR is kept higher than 100:1.

Emission characteristics of organic light-emitting diodes and organic thin-films with planar and corrugated structures.

In this paper, we review the emission characteristics from organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic molecular thin films with planar and corrugated structures. In a planar thin film structure, light emission from OLEDs was strongly influenced by the interference effect. With suitable design of microcavity structure and layer thicknesses adjustment, optical characteristics can be engineered to achieve high optical intensity, suitable emission wavelength, and broad viewing angles. To increase the extraction efficiency from OLEDs and organic thin-films, corrugated structure with micro- and nano-scale were applied. Microstructures can effectively redirects the waveguiding light in the substrate outside the device. For nanostructures, it is also possible to couple out the organic and plasmonic modes, not only the substrate mode.

Effects of cathode buffer layers on the efficiency of bulk-heterojunction solar cells

The effects of cathode buffer layers on the bulk-heterojunction solar cells are investigated. Comparing with the device without buffer layer, obvious enhancements of Voc from 0.38 to 0.65 V and fill factor from 44% to 63% have been achieved by using 2 nm bathocuproine layer, which make the efficiency of the devices improved from 1.63% to 4.11%. Alternatively, lithium fluoride and/or tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminum were also introduced for clarification purpose. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study indicates that the degradation caused by the outer diffusion of carbon from active layers plays a crucial role in the device performance.

Efficiency improvement and spectral shift of an organic light-emitting device by attaching a hexagon-based microlens array

In this paper, we present and analyze the influences of the fill factor and the sag of hexagon-based microlenses on the optical characteristics of an organic light-emitting device (OLED), such as spectral shift, CIE (abbreviation of the French ‘Commission internationale de l’´ eclairage’) coordinates, viewing angle dependence, luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency. Both the luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency of the OLED were found to increase linearly on increasing the fill factor of the microlenses. It is also found that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the OLED spectra and CIE coordinates decreased linearly on increasing the fill factor of the microlenses. Besides, the efficiency improvement of the OLED increased with the height ratio of attached microlenses. Compared to the OLED, the luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency of the device can be enhanced by 35% and 40%, respectively, by attaching a microlens array having a fill factor of 0.90 and a height ratio of 0.56. We also observed blue shifts at different viewing angles when microlens arrays were attached to the OLED, which is evidence that the waveguiding modes are being extracted. In our planar OLED, the peak wavelength blue shifted and the FWHM decreased on increasing the viewing angles, due to the microcavity effect.

Blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting device with double emitting layer

In this paper, we demonstrated a blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting device (OLED) with a higher current-efficiency and a lower driving-voltage using conventional iridium(III)bis[4,6-(di-fluorophenyl)-pyridinato-N,C2′] picolinate (FIrpic) doped in the double emitting layer (DEML), which consists of a hole- and an electron-transporting material, N,N′-dicarbazolyl-3,5-benzene (mCP) and 2,2′-bis[5-phenyl-2-(1,3,4)oxadazolyl]biphenyl (OXD), respectively. Compared to OLEDs with only single mCP- and OXD-EML, current-efficiency of the optimized DEML-OLED increases by 30.82% and 141.37%, combining with a voltage reduction of 0.34 and 0.59 V at 50 mA/cm2, which comes from the better charge balance in DEML.