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Li, Songsong

Publications and source records attributed to Li, Songsong.

12 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Bioadhesive polymer semiconductors and transistors for intimate biointerfaces

The use of bioelectronic devices relies on direct contact with soft biotissues. For transistor-type bioelectronic devices, the semiconductors that need to have direct interfacing with biotissues for effective signal transduction do not adhere well with wet tissues, thereby limiting the stability and conformability at the interface. Here we report a bioadhesive polymer semiconductor through a double-network structure formed by a bioadhesive brush polymer and a redox-active semiconducting polymer. The resulting semiconducting film can form rapid and strong adhesion with wet tissue surfaces together with high charge-carrier mobility of ~1 square centimeter per volt per second, high stretchability, and good biocompatibility. Further fabrication of a fully bioadhesive transistor sensor enabled us to produce high-quality and stable electrophysiological recordings on an isolated rat heart and in vivo rat muscles.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

High-efficiency stretchable light-emitting polymers from thermally activated delayed fluorescence

Stretchable light-emitting materials are the key components for realizing skin-like displays and optical biostimulation. All the stretchable emitters reported to date, to the best of our knowledge, have been based on electroluminescent polymers that only harness singlet excitons, limiting their theoretical quantum yield to 25%. Here we present a design concept for imparting stretchability onto electroluminescent polymers that can harness all the excitons through thermally activated delayed fluorescence, thereby reaching a near-unity theoretical quantum yield. We show that our design strategy of inserting flexible, linear units into a polymer backbone can substantially increase the mechanical stretchability without affecting the underlying electroluminescent processes. As a result, our synthesized polymer achieves a stretchability of 125%, with an external quantum efficiency of 10%. Additionally, we demonstrate a fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode, confirming that the proposed stretchable thermally activated delayed fluorescence polymers provide a path towards simultaneously achieving desirable electroluminescent and mechanical characteristics, including high efficiency, brightness, switching speed and stretchability as well as low driving voltage.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Intrinsically stretchable neuromorphic devices for on-body processing of health data with artificial intelligence

For leveraging wearable technologies to advance precision medicine, personalized and learning-based analysis of continuously acquired health data is indispensable, for which neuromorphic computing could provide the most efficient implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) data processing. For realizing on-body neuromorphic computing, skin-like stretchability is required, but yet to be combined with the suite of desired neuromorphic metrics, including linear, symmetric weight update, and sufficient state retention, for achieving high computing efficiency. Here, we report an intrinsically stretchable neuromorphic device based on an electrochemical transistor, which provides a large number (>800) of states, linear/symmetric weight update, excellent switching endurance (>100 million), good state retention (>10 4 s), together with high stretchability of 100% strain. Further integration into a prototype array successfully realized the implementation of vector-matrix multiplication even at 100% strain. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of implementing AI-based classification of health signals (as exemplified by electrocardiograms) with a high accuracy that is minimally influenced by the stretched state of the neuromorphic hardware. Finally, this work breaks the ground for combining AI data analysis into skin-like wearable electronics for achieving human-integrated/mimetic intelligent systems.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Stretchable Redox‐Active Semiconducting Polymers for High‐Performance Organic Electrochemical Transistors

Abstract Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) represent an emerging device platform for next‐generation bioelectronics owing to the uniquely high amplification and sensitivity to biological signals. For achieving seamless tissue–electronics interfaces for accurate signal acquisition, skin‐like softness and stretchability are essential requirements, but they have not yet been imparted onto high‐performance OECTs, largely due to the lack of stretchable redox‐active semiconducting polymers. Here, a stretchable semiconductor is reported for OECT devices, namely poly(2‐(3,3′‐bis(2‐(2‐(2‐methoxyethoxy)ethoxy)ethoxy)‐[2,2′‐bithiophen]‐5)yl thiophene) (p(g2T‐T)), which gives exceptional stretchability over 200% strain and 5000 repeated stretching cycles, together with OECT performance on par with the state‐of‐the‐art. Validated by systematic characterizations and comparisons of different polymers, the key design features of this polymer that enable the combination of high stretchability and high OECT performance are a nonlinear backbone architecture, a moderate side‐chain density, and a sufficiently high molecular weight. Using this highly stretchable polymer semiconductor, an intrinsically stretchable OECT is fabricated with high normalized transconductance (≈223 S cm −1 ) and biaxial stretchability up to 100% strain. Furthermore, on‐skin electrocardiogram (ECG) recording is demonstrated, which combines built‐in amplification and unprecedented skin conformability.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Efficient Intermolecular Charge Transport in π-Stacked Pyridinium Dimers Using Cucurbit[8]uril Supramolecular Complexes

Intermolecular charge transport through π-conjugated molecules plays an essential role in biochemical redox processes and energy storage applications. In this work, we observe highly efficient intermolecular charge transport upon dimerization of pyridinium molecules in the cavity of a synthetic host (cucurbit[8]uril, CB[8]). Stable, homoternary complexes are formed between pyridinium molecules and CB[8] with high binding affinity, resulting in an offset stacked geometry of two pyridiniums inside the host cavity. The charge transport properties of free and dimerized pyridiniums are characterized using a scanning tunneling microscope-break junction (STM-BJ) technique. Our results show that π-stacked pyridinium dimers exhibit comparable molecular conductance to isolated, single pyridinium molecules, despite a longer transport pathway and a switch from intra- to intermolecular charge transport. Control experiments using a CB[8] homologue (cucurbit[7]uril, CB[7]) show that the synthetic host primarily serves to facilitate dimer formation and plays a minimal role on molecular conductance. Molecular modeling using density functional theory (DFT) reveals that pyridinium molecules are planarized upon dimerization inside the host cavity, which facilitates charge transport. In addition, the π-stacked pyridinium dimers possess large intermolecular LUMO–LUMO couplings, leading to enhanced intermolecular charge transport. Altogether, this work demonstrates that supramolecular assembly can be used to control intermolecular charge transport in π-stacked molecules.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Transition metal-based bimetallic MOFs and MOF-derived catalysts for electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a critical electrochemical reaction in water splitting and rechargeable metal–air batteries. It plays a pivotal role in achieving high-efficiency clean-energy production and energy storage in these devices. Transition metal-based bimetallic MOFs (TMB MOFs) with two different metal ions possess specific synergistic effects, which could exhibit OER performance and stability superior to those of the corresponding monometallic MOFs for water oxidation. Benefiting from the diversity of chemical composition and structural type, TMB MOFs can also serve as precursors and templates to obtain alloy-particle-decorated carbon materials with high surface area, or metal compounds such as bimetallic sulfides, phosphides, and hydroxides with atomic-level mixing of heterometallic elements. These materials with high-density active sites exhibit much improved catalytic activity in the water oxidation reaction. Furthermore, this article aims to review the recent progress with TMB MOFs and their derivatives in relation to applications as electrocatalysts in OER, including analysis of the mechanism of the OER process with the assistance of DFT calculations and in situ or operando techniques.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Differential effects of drought on nonstructural carbohydrate storage in seedlings and mature trees of four species in a subtropical forest

Nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) play important roles in forest vulnerability to climate change, especially under increasing drought intensity and frequency. Understanding NSC dynamics is essential for accurately predicting the resistance and resilience of forests in response to drought. However, our knowledge of NSC re-sponses to drought is still limited due to the lack of research in trees of di?erent life stages. In this study, we conducted a throughfall exclusion experiment (TFE) with four subtropical evergreen tree species to examine drought e?ects on NSC in mature trees and understory seedlings. Our results showed the differential effects of drought on NSC dynamics of understory seedlings and mature trees. In the TFE experiment, mature trees of all four species were relatively homoeostatic with the insigni?cantly changed NSC pools, photosynthesis, and growth under the drought treatment compared to the control. In contrast, understory seedlings displayed sig-ni?cant decreases in total NSC and soluble sugars (-14.70 ± 3.66% and -16.93 ± 3.85%, respectively) with the exception of Lithocarpus glaber (L. glaber). The seedlings of L. glaber with the highest hydraulic resistance maintained or slightly increased NSC and its components in response to drought. Our study highlights the im-portance of life stage in assessing drought e?ects of trees on NSC storage and then forest C cycling, which could be incorporated into the dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to better understand drought effects on forest C balance in the future.

Zhang, Peipei↗