Phys.org March 9, 2023 Magnetoelectric (ME) oxide materials can convert magnetic input into electric output and vice versa, making them excellent candidates for advanced sensing, data storage, and communication. However, their application has been limited to rigid devices due to their brittle nature. An international team of researcher (Switzerland, Germany, South Korea, Spain) has developed flexible ME oxide composite (BaTiO3/CoFe2O4) thin film nanostructures with distinct ME coupling coefficients. In contrast to rigid bulk counterparts, these ceramic nanostructures displayed a flexible behavior after being released from the substrate, and could be transferred onto a stretchable substrate such as polydimethylsiloxane. These ceramic […]
Tag Archives: Sensors
A liquid laser that is robust in air and tunable by wind
Phys.org February 10, 2023 Lasers made solely from liquids are promising toward flexible lasers, but they are intrinsically unstable and have been inapplicable to steady operation under ambient conditions unless they are enclosed in a tailored container or a matrix to prevent the evaporation of the liquid. To simulate the near-perfect water droplets that form on the lotus leaves and roll off, an international team of researchers (Japan, Germany) mixed 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIBF4) with a dye that allowed it to become a laser. The droplets were highly robust and worked as efficient long-lasting laser oscillators. The lasing wavelength was sensitively […]
Nanostructure strengthens, de-ices, and monitors aircraft wings, wind turbine blades, and bridges
Phys.org December 22, 2022 Researchers in Russia have developed nanostructured sensor made of carbon nanotubes which generates heat under electrical current. When it is embedded in a composite, it leaves the composite’s thickness unaffected, other characteristics unimpaired and does not create undesirable pores. It can serve as a sensor for structural health monitoring or a heater for anti-icing or de-icing purposes. By applying an electrical current to the carbon nanotube layer and monitoring the signal, it is possible to keep track of the structure’s deterioration and avert disaster by anticipating breakage. Electricity can also be used for heating to de-ice […]
Monitoring ‘frothy’ magma gases could help evade disaster
Phys.org November 21, 2022 Researchers in Japan repeatedly measured isotopic compositions of noble gases and CO2 in volcanic gases sampled at six fumaroles around the Kusatsu-Shirane volcano (Japan) between 2014 and 2021 to detect variations reflecting recent volcanic activity. The synchronous increases in 3He/4He at some fumaroles suggested an increase in magmatic gas supply since 2018. The increase in magmatic gas supply was also supported by the temporal variations in 3He/CO2 ratios and carbon isotopic ratios of CO2. The 3He/40Ar* ratios showed significant increases in the period of high 3He/4He ratios. The temporal variation in 3He/40Ar* ratios may reflect changes […]
Protein that could prevent chemical warfare attack created
Phys.org September 1, 2022 The creation of proteins that use specific, sensitive, real-time biological recognition detection methods for VX neurotoxin using directed evolution or library screening methods has been hampered because its toxicity makes laboratory experimentation extraordinarily expensive. A team of researchers in the US (the City College of New York, the State University of New Jersey, Clarkson University) designed the protein to have a cavity at its center that matched the precise shape and chemical composition of VX. The protein underwent a dramatic shape change, burying VX in the cavity. The shape change is the signal which could be […]
Bioinspired whisker arrays can work as antennae to detect sources of flow disturbances under water or in the air
Science Daily July 20, 2022 Previous behavioral research on live sea lions showed that the whisker system and the animal’s neural processing is seemingly able to detect the Direction of Arrival (DoA) from just one side of the heads vibrissal pads. Therefore, temporal differences between whisker stimulation are a likely method for determining the angle. Researchers in the UK developed a theoretical model based on multilateration and tested by experimental studies on a 2D array of bio-inspired whiskers with regular spacing, and a 3D array of bio-inspired whiskers on a model head of a sea lion, as used in their […]
Researchers create VX neurotoxin detector
Science Direct July 6, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (City College of New York, The State University of New Jersey, Clarkson University) designed a pair of VX-binding proteins using a supercharged scaffold that coupled a large-scale phase change from unstructured to folded upon ligand binding, enabling fully internal binding sites that present the maximum surface area possible for high affinity and specificity in target recognition. Binding site residues were chosen using a new distributed evolutionary algorithm implementation in protCAD. Both designs detected VX at parts per billion concentrations with high specificity. Computational design of fully buried molecular […]
A mirror tracks a single nanoparticle
Nanowerk June 29, 2022 Interferometric methods for detecting the motion of a levitated nanoparticle provide a route to the quantum ground state, but such methods are currently limited by mode mismatch between the reference beam and the dipolar field scattered by the particle. An international team of researchers (Austria, UK) has demonstrated a self-interference method to detect the particle’s motion that solves this problem. They confined a charged dielectric nanoparticle in high vacuum using a Paul trap and a mirror retro-reflected the scattered light. They measured the particle’s motion with a sensitivity of 1.7×10−12m/√Hz, corresponding to a detection efficiency of […]
Improving quantum sensors by measuring the orientation of coherent spins inside a diamond lattice
Phys.org June 16, 2022 Researchers in Japan have developed a new method for implementing magnetic field measurements in nitrogen-vacancy centers. The spin state of an extra electron at this site can be read or coherently manipulated using pulses of light. They used an “inverse Cotton-Mouton” effect to test their method. They used light of different polarizations to create tiny controlled local magnetic fields. They have demonstrated that by measuring the orientation of coherent spins inside a diamond lattice, the magnetic fields can be measured even over very short times. The team hopes that this work will help enable quantum spintronic […]
Quantum sensor can detect electromagnetic signals of any frequency
MIT News June 21, 2022 Quantum sensors can only detect signal fields with frequency in a few accessible ranges, typically low frequencies up to the experimentally achievable control field amplitudes and a narrow window around the sensors’ resonance frequency. A team of researchers in the US (M IT, MIT Lincoln Laboratory) devised a new system, they call a quantum mixer which injects a second frequency into the detector using a beam of microwaves. This converts the frequency of the field being studied into a different frequency which is tuned to the specific frequency that the detector is most sensitive to. […]