Transparent devices

From ships to submarines to mining the sea floor, certain plastics can survive sea environments, which are considered more hostile than those on earth or in space. For water-surface vehicles many different plastic products have been designed and used successfully in both fresh and the more hostile seawater. Figure 2-55 is an example where extensive use is made using unreinforced and reinforced plastics meeting structural and nonstructural product requirements. Included are compartments, electronic scanners, radomes, optically transparent devices, food storage and dispensing containers, medical products, buoyant devices, temperature insulators, and many more. 

If, after careful review, it is necessary to use a transparent device that could result in a hazard if broken, design safeguards should be used such as (1) shields or covers, (2) extra-strong devices (such as 300 psig equipment in 100 psig service), or (3) suitable excess-flow valves or remotely operated isolating valves. 

The transparent chamber technique in its broadest sense covers all transparent devices which allow living tissue to be studied microscopically for more than a few hours. A large assortment of devices exist for numerous animals and various tissues (Baker and Nastuk, 1986). Internal organs that have been exteriorized by chamber techniques include a loop of small intestine with its attached mesentery in the rabbit and dog, the pancreas of the mouse, and the ovary and Fallopian tube in the rabbit. Body surfaces that have been replaced by transparent windows include the rabbit and monkey cranium, atrium, and stomach wall, and the dog and rabbit thorax. The original transparent chamber designed for the rabbit ear has since been modified and adapted to the lateral body-wall skin flap of rabbits, the ear of the dog, the hamster cheek pouch, the dorsal skin fold of the mouse and the rat, and even to the upper-arm skin fold in man. 

To investigate the electrochromic performance, transparent devices were assembled similarly to Sect. 5.2.3 by capping the prepared NiO films with a FTO counter electrode using a precut thermoplastic gasket as spacer, infiltration with 1M KOH(aq) electrolyte, insertion of an Ag/AgCl wire as reference electrode, and finally sealing the device with epoxy glue. 

To investigate the effect of the nanostructure on the electrochromic performance of NiO, transparent devices were assembled from nontemplated and DG-structured films with a FTO counter electrode and a 1M KOH(aq) electrolyte, see Fig. 6.9a. The active electrode material used was limited in area to 0.95mm. During the nickel electroplating process limiting the deposition area improve the control and quality of the deposit. 

Besides, even in the case of transparent device, the analysis can be done only for very simple microchannel geometry without internal structures. 

New developments relating to the manufacture of thin film transistors (TFT) are being reported from Japan where the Tokyo Institute of Technology has developed a flexible, transparent device on a PETP substrate. This TFT comprises an amorphous oxide semiconductor, which serves as the active layer, and which is made from indium, gallium and zinc oxide deposited by laser ablation to a thickness of 30-60 nm. The TFT, with its transparent electrodes and circuitry, is manufactured in a vacuum at a temperature of 150 "C or less. Because of this low processing temperature it is possible to use low cost PET film, with a thickness of 200 pm, as a substrate thereby enabling transistors to be manufactured at a relatively low cost. 

Figure 4-29. Extensive use has been made of both unreinforced and reinforced plastics in boats such as this U.S. Navy aircraft flattop for structural and nonstructural parts, electrical devices and wiring, electronic scanners and devices like radomes, optically transparent devices, food storage and dispensing devices, medical systems, buoyant devices, temperature insulation, and many more, particularly of plastics that resist damage from saltwater.

The stretehable, optical transparent ionie conductor presented by Whitesides and Sun et al. can act as actuator or loudspeaker without electrochemical reactions (Keplinger et al. 2013). The ionic conductors display a higher resistivity than many electronic conductors, but the overall sheet resistance in stretchable and transparent devices is lower than in all existing electronic (namely, ITO, AgNWs, SWNTs, graphene) conductors. 

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