Reflection Properties Research Articles

Potential measurement error from vessel reflex and multiple light paths in dual-wavelength retinal oximetry.

This study aims to characterize the dependence of measured retinal arterial and venous saturation on vessel diameter and central reflex in retinal oximetry, with an ultimate goal of identifying potential causes and suggesting approaches to improve measurement accuracy. In 10 subjects, oxygen saturation, vessel diameter and optical density are obtained using Oxymap Analyzer software without diameter correction. Diameter dependence of saturation is characterized using linear regression between measured values of saturation and diameter. Occurrences of negative values of vessel optical densities (ODs) associated with central vessel reflex are acquired from Oxymap Analyzer. A conceptual model is used to calculate the ratio of optical densities (ODRs) according to retinal reflectance properties and single and double-pass light transmission across fixed path lengths. Model-predicted values are compared with measured oximetry values at different vessel diameters. Venous saturation shows an inverse relationship with vessel diameter (D) across subjects, with a mean slope of -0.180 (SE = 0.022) %/μm (20 < D < 180 μm) and a more rapid saturation increase at small vessel diameters reaching to over 80%. Arterial saturation yields smaller positive and negative slopes in individual subjects, with an average of -0.007 (SE = 0.021) %/μm (20 < D < 200 μm) across all subjects. Measurements where vessel brightness exceeds that of the retinal background result in negative values of optical density, causing an artifactual increase in saturation. Optimization of model reflectance values produces a good fit of the conceptual model to measured ODRs. Measurement artefacts in retinal oximetry are caused by strong central vessel reflections, and apparent diameter sensitivity may result from single and double-pass transmission in vessels. Improvement in correction for vessel diameter is indicated for arteries however further study is necessary for venous corrections.

SVBRDF Reconstruction by Transferring Lighting Knowledge

AbstractThe problem of reconstructing spatially‐varying BRDFs from RGB images has been studied for decades. Researchers found themselves in a dilemma: opting for either higher quality with the inconvenience of camera and light calibration, or greater convenience at the expense of compromised quality without complex setups. We address this challenge by introducing a two‐branch network to learn the lighting effects in images. The two branches, referred to as Light‐known and Light‐aware, diverge in their need for light information. The Light‐aware branch is guided by the Light‐known branch to acquire the knowledge of discerning light effects and surface reflectance properties, but without the reliance of light positions. Both branches are trained using the synthetic dataset, but during testing on real‐world cases without calibration, only the Light‐aware branch is activated. To facilitate a more effective utilization of various light conditions, we employ gated recurrent units (GRUs) to fuse the features extracted from different images. The two modules mutually benefit when multiple inputs are provided. We present our reconstructed results on both synthetic and real‐world examples, demonstrating high quality while maintaining a lightweight characteristic in comparison to previous methods.

Reconstruction of a large-scale realistic three-dimensional (3-D) mountain forest scene for radiative transfer simulations

ABSTRACT The realistic three-dimensional (3D) forest scene is an important input to 3D radiative transfer simulations, which are essential for analyzing the reflective properties of forest canopies. Previous studies utilized the voxel as an essential element to reconstruct the 3D forest scene, while they mainly focused on the small flattened areas and ignored the wood components. This study introduces a novel approach for reconstructing a realistic 3D mountain forest scene by incorporating branches into the voxel crown. To determine the optimal voxel size for simulating Bidirectional Reflectance Functions (BRFs) in a temperate deciduous mountain forest, this study reconstructed the forest scene using eight different voxel sizes, ranging from 30 to 100 cm with a step of 10 cm. Two forest scenes were examined to evaluate the impact of branches on radiative transfer simulations: one with branch voxel-based scenes and one without branches. The radiative transfer simulation is conducted using an efficient Monte Carlo path-tracing algorithm and has been implemented in the LargE-Scale remote sensing data and image Simulation framework (LESS) model, facilitating high-quality, large-scale simulations of forested environments. The finding revealed that the optimal voxel size for simulating BRFs in 30 m resolution is approximately 90 cm, smaller than the 100 cm used in flat areas. This study emphasized the significant impact of branches on the BRF simulations and underscored their critical role in scene reconstruction. The impact of branches is two-fold: branches themselves increase the simulated BRFs, whereas their shadows decrease them. Moreover, the effects of branches and their shadows decrease as the voxel size increases. The simulated spectral albedo exhibits maximum deviations of 0.71% and 1.04% in the red and NIR wavebands, respectively, while remaining below 0.2% in the blue waveband. Furthermore, the study suggests that if the precise branch architecture is unknown, constructing branches of the first generation is recommended to achieve better results. Additionally, the results demonstrate that the proposed scene achieves greater accuracy and robustness when compared to both the ellipsoid-based and the boundary-based scenes. The finding of this study can help researchers to better understand the underlying mechanisms driving the reflective properties of forest canopies, which can inform future studies and improve the accuracy of forest monitoring and ecological modeling.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EMBROIDERY AND SCREEN-PRINTING TECHNIQUES FOR TEXTILE-BASED FREQUENCY SELECTIVE SURFACES

Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) is a specialized structure used in the field of electromagnetic waves and radio frequency (RF) engineering. It is designed to exhibit selective transmission or reflection properties based on the frequency of the incident electromagnetic waves. This article describes the design, construction, and analysis of a textile-based band-stop frequency selective surface for use in the highly EM-polluted GSM, Wi-Fi, LTE, and WiMAX bands. A full-wave EM solver called CST Microwave Studio was used to develop and simulate the unit cell of the proposed FSS at the relevant frequency. In this study, embroidered and screen-printed textile based FSSs were designed. According to the results of this study, it was demonstrated that both embroidery and screen printing FSSs exhibit resonance at a frequency of 3.5 GHz. The screen printing method yielded the best results in terms of resonance frequency sensitivity, while the embroidery method showed a resonance frequency shift. It was observed that the stitch directions and density are important parameters in the embroidery method. Gaps between the embroidery paths in the production of embroidered FSSs resulted in differences from simulations due to the disruption of the structural integrity of the unit cell. Consequently, textile-based FSSs offer advantages over traditional FSSs. This study highlights the potential of textile FSSs as an effective means of reducing electromagnetic pollution, and suggests that further improvements in the design and production processes of textile FSSs can be made.

Effect of Protective Layer on the Performance of Monocrystalline Silicon Cell for Indoor Light Harvesting.

The development of renewable energy sources has grown increasingly as the world shifts toward lowering carbon emissions and supporting sustainability. Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy sources, and its harvesting potential has gone beyond typical solar panels to small, portable devices. Also, the trend toward smart buildings is becoming more prevalent at the same time as sensors and small devices are becoming more integrated, and the demand for dependable, sustainable energy sources will increase. Our work aims to tackle the issue of identifying the most suitable protective layer for small optical devices that can efficiently utilize indoor light sources. To conduct our research, we designed and tested a model that allowed us to compare the performance of many small panels made of monocrystalline cells laminated with three different materials: epoxy resin, an ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (ETFE), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), under varying light intensities from LED and CFL sources. The methods employed encompass contact angle measurements of the protective layers, providing insights into their wettability and hydrophobicity, which indicates protective layer performance against humidity. Reflection spectroscopy was used to evaluate the panels' reflectance properties across different wavelengths, which affect the light amount arrived at the solar cell. Furthermore, we characterized the PV panels' electrical behavior by measuring short-circuit current (ISC), open-circuit voltage (VOC), maximum power output (Pmax), fill factor (FF), and load resistance (R). Our findings offer valuable insights into each PV panel's performance and the protective layer material's effect. Panels with ETFE layers exhibited remarkable hydrophobicity with a mean contact angle of 77.7°, indicating resistance against humidity-related effects. Also, panels with ETFE layers consistently outperformed others as they had the highest open circuit voltage (VOC) ranging between 1.63-4.08 V, fill factor (FF) between 35.9-67.3%, and lowest load resistance (R) ranging between 11,268-772 KΩ.cm-2 under diverse light intensities from various light sources, as determined by our results. This makes ETFE panels a promising option for indoor energy harvesting, especially for powering sensors with low power requirements. This information could influence future research in developing energy harvesting solutions, thereby making a valuable contribution to the progress of sustainable energy technology.

The color rendering and near infrared reflection properties of coated iron oxide green pigments

In this study, a novel iron oxide green pigment (FePc), composed of phthalocyanine blue (CuPc) and iron oxide yellow pigments (FeOOH), was prepared by intermittent stirring. The FePc was coated with the hydrolysate of sodium metasilicate and silane coupling agent KH602. The structure and properties of prepared pigments were characterized by TEM, SEM, XRD, FT-IR, XPS, and TG-DTA techniques. The aspect ratio of FePc decreased compared to FeOOH. XPS analysis showed that CuPc and FeOOH were bound by hydrogen bonds. The thermal decomposition temperature of the coated pigments increased from 266 °C to 314 °C, and the color difference ΔE of pigment was 1.623 after baking at 240 °C for 30 min, indicating the prepared pigments had excellent heat resistance. The surface modification of FePc improved their hydrophobicity and dispersibility in organic media. The pigments with CuPc/FeOOH ratio of 0.2 exhibited well color properties (L* = 55.44, a* = −9.9, b* = 6.63), and green tone. The coating and surface modification had little impact on a* value. Particularly, all the newly prepared green pigments displayed high NIR reflectance. The prepared pigments have high heat resistance and dispersion properties, and are expected to be used in fields such as plastics and high-temperature coatings.

Optimizing the slicing pattern of stress-relief crystal analyzers for X-ray Raman scattering

X-ray Raman scattering (XRS) spectroscopy is an emerging inelastic scattering technique used to measure local electronic structure and chemical bonding around low-Z atoms with hard X-rays. This technique is useful in environments where traditional soft X-ray techniques are not applicable. However, the small cross section of XRS requires that the spectrometer must simultaneously achieve large solid angles and good energy resolution. A large XRS spectrometer named `Qian Kun' is currently under construction at the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) in China, which can hold up to 100 analyzers with an energy resolution in the range 0.4–1.0 eV. Here, the batch production and performance evaluation of the spherically bent crystal analyzers fabricated for this spectrometer are reported. The stress-relief effect of various dicing patterns and their impact on the reflectivity properties of crystal analyzers to achieve good energy resolution when studying the near-edge features of carbon and oxygen K edges were investigated. It was discovered that radially dicing the thin silicon wafers is more effective in relieving stress than conventional strip cuts in the case that the total number of divided blocks is roughly the same.

Morphological, optical and electrochemical properties of tin(II) 2,3-naphthalocyanine for organic electronic applications

Herein, tin(II) 2,3-naphthalocyanine (SnNC) organic dye was successfully thermally deposited onto different optical transparent substrates such as glass, quartz, ITO, and FTO. FE-SEM technique reveals that SnNC film shows a uniform and symmetrical spherical-shaped with an average diameter of ∼50 nm. Annealing up to 473 K for 4 h increases the crystallite size of SnNC thin film. SnNC thin film shows absorption bands centered at 858 nm, 313 nm, and 249 nm with two shoulders at 775 nm and 350 nm. We present the absorbance, specular transmittance, specular reflectance and fluorescence properties of SnNc deposited on the different transparent substrates. The oscillator strengths (f) and the electric dipole strength (q2) of SnNC thin film were estimated from the molar absorptivity () spectra. According to the Tauc model, two optical gap transitions were estimated as 1.03 eV and 3.48 eV. Annealing up to 473 K for 4 h slightly increases them to 1.15 eV and 3.59 eV, respectively. At excitation wavelength = 360 nm, two emission bands were observed at around 403 nm and 674 nm. Upon annealing at 373 K and 473 K, the real part of the refractive index of SnNC thin film decreases, which is correlated with a decrease in mass density. Electrochemical HOMO—LUMO band gaps of SnNC estimated from the cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements () agree well with the observed optical energy gap estimated from the optical measurements. The wide range absorption, emission, good thermal stability, suitable optical band gap, and electrochemical properties, prove an effective example of organic dye suitable for organic electronic applications.

Novel composite materials with high near-infrared reflectance properties to retard the thermal aging of polyethylene: Pr3+ and Er3+ doped La2Zr2O7 compounds

In this paper, Er3+ and Pr3+ successfully replaced La3+ in the lattice without changing the structure of La2Zr2O7 pyrochlore, and finally formed the substituted solid solution La2-xMxZr2O7+δ (M = Er, Pr; x = 0–0.25). SEM analysis shows that the pigments were in the shape of nearly spherical particles with a particle size between 10 and 60 nm. La2-xPrxZr2O7+δ and La2-xErxZr2O7 materials have high NIR reflectance properties, with the NIR reflectance of 68.46%–92.51% and 82.79%–90.89%, which are related to the variation of free carrier concentration due to doping content. Compared with pure polyethylene material, the polyethylene plastic samples containing La2-xPrxZr2O7+δ and La2-xErxZr2O7+δ not only had lower internal surface temperatures, 5.9–11.4 °C and 6.9–13.2 °C lower but also had significantly lower thermal aging. In conclusion, the use of synthetic pigments with high NIR reflectivity as additives can delay the thermal aging of plastics and increase the aging resilience of plastic.

Mechanical, durability and solar reflectance properties of colored self‒compacting concrete

Mechanical, durability and solar reflectance properties of colored self‒compacting concrete

Scene-adaptive pattern coding-based fringe projection profilometry: diffuse surfaces identification and 3-D reconstruction in cluttered scenes.

Fringe projection profilometry (FPP) is one of the most widely used optical three-dimensional (3-D) perceiving techniques. However, when applied to cluttered scenes, acquiring accurate 3-D shapes is difficult because of the influences of indirect light caused by non-diffuse surfaces. In this paper, we first theoretically analyze and model the influences of indirect light in FPP, and then propose a scene-adaptive pattern coding-based method, which can design projection patterns based on the reflective properties of the scene's surfaces, to achieve accurate 3-D perceiving in cluttered scenes. Specifically, the scene confidence analysis method is first proposed to identify the reflective properties of various surfaces and localize the camera pixels of the diffuse surface. The illumination status (i.e., "0" or "1") of each projector pixel can be determined according to the camera-projection coordinate mapping and spatial pattern coding, where only diffuse surfaces can be illuminated, thus fundamentally preventing the influences of indirect light from the point of view of the light source. The 3-D shapes of diffuse surfaces can be accurately reconstructed in cluttered scenes. Different from traditional reflective properties change or light separation solutions, the proposed method can achieve accurate 3-D perceiving of cluttered scenes without additional hardware or expensive calculation. Extensive experiments verify that the proposed method outperforms the traditional methods in terms of accuracy and robustness.

Study of transmission and reflection of hydrophilic transparent nano-titanium dioxide coating

Purpose The paper aims to design the optimum formulation of the nano-titanium dioxide (TiO2) hydrophilic coating system using the synthetic polypropylene glycol (PPG), which can create the reflection and absorption property. Design/methodology/approach TiO2 nanoparticles are used as fillers, and PPG has been blended at the proper ratio of 1PPG: 0.2TiO2. The prepared resin has been applied onto the glass substrate at different numbers of glass immersions during the dip-coating fabrication process. One-time glass immersion is labeled as T1 coating, two-time glass immersion is labeled as T2 coating and three-time glass immersion is labeled as T3 coating. All the prepared coating systems were left dry at ambient temperature. Findings T3 coating showed the lowest reading of WCA value at 40.50°, due to higher surface energy at 61.73 mN/m. The T3 coating also shows the greatest absorbance property among the prepared coating systems among the prepared coating. In terms of reflectance property, the T2 coating system has great reflectance in UV region and near-infrared region, which is 16.47% and 2.77 and 2.73%, respectively. The T2 coating also has great optical transmission about 75.00% at the visible region. Research limitations/implications The development of thermal insulation coating by studying the relationship between convection heat and reflectance at different wavelengths of incident light. Practical implications The developed coating shows high potential for glass window application. Originality/value The application of the hydrophilic coating on light absorption, reflectance and transmission at different wavelengths.

BRDF representation in response to the build orientation in 3D-printed digital materials

Additively manufactured (AM) parts still lack a thorough understanding of their optical properties, particularly surface texture and reflectance characteristics at different viewing angles. This study examines the reflectance properties of material jetting (MJT) parts using bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs). The visual appearance of the MJT parts was analyzed using a gonio-spectrophotometer at 328 unique incidence and viewing geometries for seven different wedge angles for build orientation (BO) from 0° to 90° at 15° intervals. The redundancy analysis (RDA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to study BO and to determine the prominent measurement geometries. The results indicate higher BOs resulted in more color and texture variation and rougher surfaces, with Sq 4.21 μm vertical compared to 1.42 μm for horizontal BOs. Furthermore, it affected the visual representation and parametric estimation of BRDF, where significantly lower luminance, more diffuse reflection, and less hue distribution were observed for all CMYK resins printed at higher BOs. Accordingly, vertically printed surfaces showed a wider near-to-specular luminance area than other BOs. An analysis of the bidirectional reflectance property suggests that a gonio-spectrophotometer can be embedded in the printing process and quality assurance in AM as a computationally efficient model.

Fast adaptive multimodal feature registration (FAMFR): an effective high-resolution point clouds registration workflow for cultural heritage interiors

Accurate registration of 3D scans is crucial in creating precise and detailed 3D models for various applications in cultural heritage. The dataset used in this study comprised numerous point clouds collected from different rooms in the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace in Warsaw using a structured light scanner. Point clouds from three relatively small rooms at Wilanow Palace: The King’s Chinese Cabinet, The King’s Wardrobe, and The Queen’s Antecabinet exhibit intricate geometric and decorative surfaces with diverse colour and reflective properties. As a result, creating a high-resolution full 3D model require a complex and time-consuming registration process. This process often consists of several steps: data preparation, registering point clouds, final relaxation, and evaluation of the resulting model. Registering two-point clouds is the most fundamental part of this process; therefore, an effective registration workflow capable of precisely registering two-point clouds representing various cultural heritage interiors is proposed in this paper. Fast Adaptive Multimodal Feature Registration (FAMFR) workflow is based on two different handcrafted features, utilising the colour and shape of the object to accurately register point clouds with extensive surface geometry details or geometrically deficient but with rich colour decorations. Furthermore, this work emphasises the challenges associated with high-resolution point clouds registration, providing an overview of various registration techniques ranging from feature-based classic approaches to new ones based on deep learning. A comparison shows that the algorithm explicitly created for this data achieved much better results than traditional feature-based or deep learning methods by at least 35%.

Detecting Water in Visual Image Streams from UAV with Flight Constraints

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) require identifying water surfaces during flight maneuvers, mainly for safety in execution and its applications. We introduce two novel techniques to identify water surfaces from front-facing and downward-facing cameras mounted on a UAV. The first method — UNet-RAU, a unique architecture based on UNet and Reflection Attention Units, segments water pixels from front-facing camera views, utilizing the reflection property of water surfaces. On the On-Road and Off-Road datasets of Puddle-1000, UNet-RAU improved its performance by 2% over the state-of-the-art FCN-RAU. Additionally, the UNet-RAU generated an F1-score of 80.97% on our Drone-Water-Front dataset. The second method — Dense Optical Flow based Water Detection (DOF-WD), detects water surfaces in videos of downward-facing cameras. This method utilizes downwash-generated ripples and natural texture features on a water surface to identify water in low and high altitudes, respectively. We empirically validated the performance of the DOF-WD method using our Drone-Water-Down dataset.

Reconfigurable integrated structures with functions of Fabry–Perot antenna and wideband liquid absorber for radar system stealth

This paper proposes a functionally reconfigurable integrated structure of a Fabry–Perot (FP) antenna and wideband liquid absorber. First, a two-layer partial reflecting surface (PRS) has been designed. Then, a patch antenna is used to act as the source antenna. By combining the source antenna with the PRS, an FP antenna has been designed. What’s more, taking full advantage of the reflective properties of PRS, a liquid broadband absorber is then designed. Last, the integrated structure with two functions has been realized. It can be used as the FP antenna or the liquid absorber through the extraction and injection of ethanol. In this way, it is effective to switch between stealth and detection states which can be used in different electromagnetic environments. The PRS is elaborately tailored to serve as both a component of the FP antenna and the metal ground of the broadband liquid absorber. Then the integrated structure is realized by combining the FP antenna with the liquid absorber. The PRS is composed of patches on the top layer of the substrate and the square loop on the bottom. The liquid absorber is composed of a 3-D printed container, 45% ethanol layer and the PRS is used to serve as the metal ground. The formula of Mie resonance theory has been extended and used to design the liquid absorber. The gain of the antenna is 19.7 dBi when the ethanol is extracted. When the ethanol is injected, a wideband liquid absorber is achieved. The absorption band (S11 < − 10 dB) ranges from 4 to 18 GHz. The absorption bandwidth is over 133%. The monostatic RCS reduction bands of the structure with ethanol range from 4 to 18 GHz and the average RCS reduction is 28.4 dBsm. The measured and simulated results are in good agreement.

Hyperbolic Polaritons in Topological Nodal Ring Semimetals.

In mirror-symmetric systems, there is a possibility of the realization of extended gapless electronic states characterized as nodal lines or rings. Strain induced modifications to these states lead to the emergence of different classes of nodal rings with qualitatively different physical properties. Here we study optical response and the electromagnetic wave propagation in type I nodal ring semimetals, in which the low-energy quasiparticle dispersion is parabolic in momentum k_{x} and k_{y} and is linear in k_{z}. This leads to a highly anisotropic dielectric permittivity tensor in which the optical response is plasmonic in one spatial direction and dielectric in the other two directions. The resulting normal modes (polaritons) in the bulk material become hyperbolic over a broad frequency range, which is furthermore tunable by the doping level. The propagation, reflection, and polarization properties of the hyperbolic polaritons not only provide valuable information about the electronic structure of these fascinating materials in the most interesting region near the nodal rings but also pave the way to tunable hyperbolic materials with applications ranging from anomalous refraction and waveguiding to perfect absorption in ultrathin subwavelength films.

Investigation into the reflection properties of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1636–53

We present the spectroscopy of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1636–53 using six simultaneous XMM-Newton and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer observations. We applied different self-consistent reflection models to explore the features when the disk is illuminated by either the corona or the neutron star surface. We found that the spectra could be well fitted by these two types of models, with the derived emissivity index below a typical value of 3. The relative low emissivity can be explained if the neutron star and the corona, working together as an extended illuminator, simultaneously illuminate and ionize the disk. Additionally, the derived ionization parameter in the lamppost geometry is larger than the theoretical prediction. This inconsistency likely suggests that the corona does not emit isotropically in a realistic context. Furthermore, we also found that there is a possible trend between the height of the corona and the normalization of the disk emission. This could be understood either as a variation in the reflected radiation pressure or in the context of a jet base. Finally, we found that the disk is less ionized if it is illuminated by the neutron star, indicating that the illuminating source has significant influence on the physical properties of the disk.

Improved structured light system based on generative adversarial networks for highly-reflective surface measurement

Gray code pattern structured light projection technology is widely used in industrial inspection due to its good robustness and anti-noise performance. Gray code pattern technology projects a sequence of encoded fringe patterns with black and white strips onto the scanned object in order to measure its height distribution. However, if the scanned object has strong specular reflection properties, the acquired encoded fringe images tend to miss significant amounts of local area information. As a result, the measured three-dimensional point clouds contain many missing points, and hence the measurement accuracy is severely degraded. To address this problem, the present study proposes a novel fringe-inpainting system based on a generative adversarial network framework, to repair the fringe features in the regions of the scanned surface in which the local information is lost. The performance of the proposed fringe-inpainting system is compared with that of several other advanced highly-reflective surface measurement technologies reported in the literature. The experimental results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms these techniques and yields an excellent encoded fringe inpainting for all of the considered objects.

Optical properties of strontium titanate (STO) thin films using transfer matrix method

The transfer matrix method is a very effective theoretical technique investigating the optical properties of a single and layered thin films. By utilizing the transfer matrix method, the transmission, reflection, and absorption properties of Strontium Titanate (STO) thin films are analyzed across a wide range of wavelengths. For 250 nm and 260 nm thick STO thin films, the optical direct band gaps 3.49 eV and 3.59 eV respectively are found to be consistent with the experimental findings. Additionally, the impact of film thickness and optical band gap on response of STO thin films is explored. It is noticed that with the increase in thickness of thin film, the band gap is redshifted and its value is increased as well. The findings presented in this paper contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the optical behavior of STO thin films, enabling further advancements in the design and fabrication of STO-based optoelectronic devices.