Prof. P.C Ching has been awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Star(BBS) by the HKSAR Government for his contributions and services to the Hong Kong community. He is also elevated to IEEE Fellow effective in 2011 for his active involvements in the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He was being recognized "for leadership in engineering education and accreditation".

Congratulations!!

Prof. Y.T. Zhang wins the Hong Kong ICT Gold Award

Both the “Non-contact Electro-cardiogram Monitoring Bedsheet” and “Health-shirt” developed by a team led by Professor Zhang Yuan-ting of the Department of Electronic Engineering, received the Best Lifestyle Gold Award (Home Life and Healthy Living) from the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2008. These two low-cost and user-friendly devices monitor heart rate and blood pressure on a 24-hour basis which is particularly beneficial to heart disease patients and people with high risk (elders and hypertension patients).

Coronary heart disease is the number one killer in Hong Kong and causes more than 6,000 deaths each year. Patients suffering from sudden heart attack may die shortly if rescue is not available in time. The Non-contact Electro-cardiogram Monitoring Bedsheet uses soft and thin conductive textile as electrodes, which are fixed on specific spots to monitor user’s heart rate and its variability. Whenever the bedsheet detects a hazardous situation, it will give an alarm or dial a designated phone number for help, thus preventing sudden deaths of heart disease patients during sleep. As no electrodes or wires are attached to the user, the bedsheet will not obstruct normal sleep and suits people of different ages with different sleeping postures. The accuracy of the bedsheet reaches 90%. It will be put on the market in six months with a price below HK$1,000.
A common sphygmomanometer can measure blood pressure at a certain moment only. If continuous monitoring of blood pressure is needed, the measuring procedures have to be performed repeatedly. The Health-shirt avoids such inconvenience, and integrates the functions of monitoring, diagnosis and non-drug treatment. By putting on the specially designed Health-shirt, a user’s variability of heart rate and blood pressure can be measured continuously by means of the conductive textile in the shirt. The indices are then shown on watches or mobile phones. When the blood pressure reaches a certain high level, a built-in MP3 player will automatically play a suitably therapeutic music to lower the user’s blood pressure to normal level.

Fig.1 Non-contact Electro-cardiogram Monitoring Bedsheet

Fig.2 Health-shirt

Fig. 3 Professor Zhang receives the Gold Award from Ir. SW Cheung (right), Vice President of Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation, and Prof. KF Wong (left), President of Hong Kong Information Technology Joint Council

Fig. 4 Prof. Zhang and his research team

Prof. Xu has been awarded a CRF Funding of HK$4,000,000 for his group research project.

Collaborative Institutions: CUHK, PolyU, HKUST, CityU, UWO

Project Title: Interface Engineering for Organic Transistors: Materials, Fabrication, Characterization, and Application

Organic semiconductors are of considerable scientific and technological significance. A fundamental understanding of electrical, mechanical, and optical properties of organic thin films is vital in many applications, including organic light emitting devices (OLEDs), organic field effect transistors (OFETs), RFID transceivers, biosensors and hybrid solar cells. This project is focused on the interface engineering of organic transistors that are the key components of large area, flexible, and low-cost organic electronics. Understanding the interface properties of OFETs is essential to device design and will lead to high performance and efficiency. The project involves the collaboration among experts in synthetic chemistry, materials science, physical characterization and measurements, and device physics and engineering, from four Hong Kong universities. It, if successful, will provide an excellent example of the interdisciplinary research.

A recent article entitled "Controlling of the surface energy of the gate dielectric in organic field-effect transistors by polymer blend" (Appl. Phys. Lett. 2009, 94, 093302) by Prof. J.B. Xu's team and collaborators has been highlighted by "Noteworthy Chemistry", a weekly feature produced by the American Chemical Society (ACS) that collects and summarizes innovative ideas and has become a valuable stand alone resource for today’s informed chemistry professional.

Highlight by Noteworthy Chemistry:

Match surface energies to obtain high field-effect mobility. Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) play an essential role in making low-cost, large-area electronic products. Much effort has been devoted to modifying dielectric–semiconductor interfaces to adjust the surface energy of the gate dielectric and enhance field-effect mobility.

Polymeric dielectrics are promising gate materials for making flexible OFETs. Controlling the surface energy of the gate dielectric and the morphology of the semiconductor deposited onto it, however, is challenging. J. Gao, J. B. Xu, and coauthors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) attacked this problem with a simple approach.

The researchers built OFETs by depositing copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) semiconductors onto dielectric layers of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)–polystyrene (PS) blends. The highest field-effect mobility [0.01 cm2/(V∙s)] is obtained when the surface energy of the polymer dielectrics is modulated to match that of the semiconductor by adjusting the PMMA/PS blend ratio to 1:3. The high mobility results from the desired morphology and favors growth of CuPc on the dielectric layer. This finding demonstrates the advantage of using insulating polymer blends to control the surface energy of the gate dielectric to achieve better OFET performance. (Appl. Phys. Lett. 2009, 94, 093302; Ben Zhong Tang)”

Website:
Noteworthy Chemistry – April 6, 2009