Science Daily March 1, 2019 An international team of researchers (Canada, USA – UCLA, Czech Republic, Sweden) has developed a fire-retardant and self-extinguishing triboelectric nanogenerator (FRTENG), which can be utilized as a motion sensor and/or power generator in occupations such as oil drilling, firefighting or working in extreme temperature environments with flammable and combustible materials. The device takes advantage of the excellent thermal properties of carbon derived from resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel. The FRTENG is not flammable, shows exceptional charge transfer characteristics, leading to a potential difference up to 80 V and a current density up to 25 µA/m2. When integrated into firefighter’s shoes, the […]
Category Archives: Sensors
New technique offers rapid assessment of radiation exposure
Eurekalert January 9, 2019 Researchers at the North Carolina State University have developed a new technique which relies on testing crystalline insulators found in everything from thumb drives to smartphones. Because the technique is high-throughput, accurate and precise, it can adequately assess an individual’s exposure in about an hour. The insulator should be removed from its electronic device, cleaned and placed in a thermally stimulated luminescence reader, which collects spectra relating to the number of electrons found in the flaws inherent to the sample’s crystalline structure. That spectral data is then fed into a custom algorithm that calculates the sample’s […]
Invention promises airport security screening without queues
Australian National University December 14, 2018 Researchers in Australia have developed a proof-of-concept prototype device made with metasurfaces that can control the direction of electromagnetic waves to perform highly advanced sensing functions. It is arbitrarily tunable so that it can direct electromagnetic waves towards any direction or control multiple beams to perform different functions at the same time. It can sense the entire environment surrounding it with unprecedented precision. Future cameras could identify hazardous devices or dangerous chemicals in people’s carry-on baggage when they walk through an airport. Other applications could include smaller and safer sensors for driverless vehicles…read more. […]
Novel laser technology for microchip-size chemical sensors
Science Daily December 10, 2018 Researchers in Austria produced quantum cascade lasers which generate a frequency comb in the infrared range. With the help of an electrical signal of a specific frequency the quantum cascade lasers can be controlled to emit a series of light frequencies, which are all coupled together. The system is robust and can withstand temperature fluctuations, or reflections that send some of the light back into the laser. It can be easily miniaturized. The entire measuring system can be accommodated on a chip in millimeter format. The chip could be placed on a drone to measure […]
Color-changing fabric warns military about chemical agents
Eurekalert December 11, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (University of Cincinnati, University of Florida) is working with a polymer called Nafion which has unique structural properties that provide for electrical insulation and gas separation, while also promoting the passage of ions but at the same time, it hinders the transport of gases, like oxygen. The idea is to incorporate the naturally flexible Nafion membrane into a soldier’s clothes to detect chemical agents in the air while preventing them from interacting with the skin. Nafion could react with chemical warfare agents to form benign products when applied to […]
Photonic radiation sensors survive huge doses undamaged
Science Daily November 27, 2018 High levels of radiation would modify the optical properties of silicon in the devices, leading to incorrect readings. NIST test results indicate the sensors could be customized for measuring radiation dose in both industrial applications and clinical radiotherapy. Researchers at NIST examined the impact of cobalt-60 γ-ray radiation up to 1 megagray (MGy) absorbed dose on silicon photonic devices. They did not find any systematic impact of radiation on passivated devices, indicating the durability of passivated silicon devices under harsh conditions…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Innate ‘fingerprint’ could detect tampered steel parts
Science Daily November 28, 2018 All materials typically display some variation in their microstructure simply as a result of the manufacturing process, thus providing the potential that Barkhausen noise measurements between nominally similar components will be unique. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have demonstrated that Barkhausen noise measurements are both repeatable in time for a single sample made from a ferromagnetic material, and unique across several instances of nominally similar samples. As the method inherently results in a time series measurement at each point on a sample, it is expected to have far higher dimensionality than physically similar […]
VitalTag to give vital information in mass casualty incidents
Phys.org November 27, 2018 VitalTag, developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is a low-cost suite of sensors that detects, monitors and wirelessly transmits vital signs, including blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate and other metrics such as blood oxygen levels, shock index and data from a single-lead electrocardiogram. It adheres to a patient’s sternum and connects seamlessly via Wi-Fi to securely transmit patient data to a mobile device or laptop in real time. This comprehensive view could enable emergency medical technicians and paramedics to tend to more patients faster, armed with more detail than ever before. The VitalTag […]
Detecting dengue, Zika, and chikangunya within minutes
MIT News November 21, 2018 Researchers at MIT have developed a paper-based diagnostic test to detect Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other related viruses within minutes. The test can quickly and accurately identify Zika, dengue 1-4, and chikungunya at the point of care at an affordable cost. They have commercialized the technique to change the way mosquito-borne illnesses are diagnosed and enable governments to effectively prevent and respond to an outbreak from turning into a public health crisis, especially in high-risk, resource-poor areas across the world…read more.
How to Encode a Secret Message in a Fingerprint
IEEE Spectrum November 2, 2018 Researchers in China have developed a sophisticated way to construct digital fingerprints that encode secret messages into the continuous lines that occasionally swirl into spiral points. The technique involves mapping the message to a polynomial and encode it into a set of points with different polarities, from which the spiral phase is computed and constructed. The continuous phase is constructed by decomposing a fingerprint image synthetically generated. The spiral phase and the continuous phase are combined to form the hologram phase to form a common from. They have demonstrated that the encoded message can be […]