An electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) device that enhances water capturing capability for condensation applications is presented. A single planar EWOD device is fabricated for testing and placed in a high-humidity environment under mist flow. By applying an electric field to portions of the device, the wettability of the affected areas is altered from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, which promotes droplet nucleation and growth, thereby improving water capturing capability. The results of this study demonstrate that droplet coalescence is appreciably improved at the moments of plugging and unplugging DC voltage, which induces wipe-down events (when a droplet drips down the surface and removes all droplets underneath it). The improvement in water capturing capability under DC voltages of 20 V, 40 V, and 60 V is also investigated both by comparing the mass of water collected on uncharged and charged devices during the same testing period and by using an image processing approach to track changes in droplet area coverage over time. The EWOD effect was shown to improve water capturing capability for the 20 V, 40 V, and 60 V cases by 138.96%, 171.87%, and 220.43%, respectively. These results are of great significance as they indicate a strong possibility for improvement in water harvesting applications.
We have investigated an uncooled infrared (IR) detector utilizing a dual level architecture. This was achieved by combining two-microbolometer stack in the vertical direction to achieve high IR absorption over two distinct spectral windows across the long wavelength infrared region (LWIR). In addition, we have studied amorphous silicon germanium oxide (SixGeyO1−x−y) as an IR sensitive material, and metasurface to control IR absorption/reflection in interaction with standard Fabry–Perot cavity. The bottom microbolometer uses a metasurface to selectively absorbs a portion of the spectrum and reflects radiation outside this window range. At the same time, the top microbolometer uses a conventional Fabry–Perot resonant cavity to absorb a different portion of the spectrum and transmit any unabsorbed radiation outside this window. This device can be used to measure the absolute temperature of an object by comparing the relative signals in the two spectral bands. The spectral responsivity and detectivity, and thermal response time were > 105 V/W, > 108 cm Hz1/2/W, and 1.13 ms to filtered blackbody infrared radiation between (2–16) µm. The microbolometer voltage noise power spectral density was reduced by annealing the microbolometers in vacuum at 300 °C.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.