Chip scale high precision measurements of physical quantities such as temperature, pressure and refractive index have become common with nanophotonics and nanoplasmonics resonance cavities. As excellent transducers to convert small variations in the local refractive index into measurable spectral shifts, resonance cavities are being used extensively in a variety of disciplines ranging from bio-sensing and pressure gauges to atomic and molecular spectroscopy. Chip-scale microring and microdisk resonators (MRRs) are widely used for these purposes owing to their miniaturized size, relative ease of design and fabrication, high quality factor, and versatility in the optimization of their transfer function.The principle of operation of such resonative sensors is based on monitoring the spectrum dependence of the resonator subject to minute variation in its surrounding (e.g., different types of atoms and molecules, gases, pressure, temperature).  Yet despite several important accomplishments, such optical sensors are still limited in their performances, and their miniaturization is highly challenging.Now, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has demonstrated an on-chip sensor capable of detecting unprecedentedly small frequency changes. The approach consists of two cascaded microring resonators, with one serving as the sensing device and the other playing the role of a reference—thus eliminating environmental and system fluctuations such as temperature and laser frequency."Here we demonstrate a record-high sensing precision on a device with a small footprint that can be integrated with standard CMOS technology, paving the way for even more exciting measurements such as single particle detection and high precision chip scale thermometry," said Prof. Uriel Levy, Director of the Harvey M. Krueger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a faculty member at the Department of Applied Physics in the Rachel and Selim Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering.Among the innovations that made this development possible are chip scale integration of reference measurement, and a servo-loop locking scheme that translates the measured effects from the optical domain to the radio frequency domain. These enabled the researchers to quantify their system capabilities using well-established RF technologies, such as frequency counters, spectrum analyzers, and atomic standards.Reference:TCRT1000GP2S60ITR8307/L24/TR8  

It has been said that spending too much time on a smartphone can negatively impact brain development or even cause damage to the neck. But don't toss yours in the bin just yet. An EU-funded project is working on smartphones' health cred by developing 'Sniffphone' - a module capable of analysing the user's breath to detect as many as 17 diseases.  Adding sensors to smartphones has been a trend lately, with the newest models being able to detect changes in the likes of temperature, humidity, hand gestures or light. But there is one thing these devices can still not do at this point: analyse our breath. Although portable devices have already been commercialised to detect blood alcohol levels and display it on smartphones, using breath analysis technology to its full potential would be a killer feature for both smartphone manufacturers and app developers.A technology called 'Na-Nose' could well be the long-sought-after Holy Grail. Presented in a study published on ACS Nano in December 2016, the device can detect the chemical patterns of exhaled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in patients' breath. The new study does not only demonstrate for the first time that specific diseases can be linked to such chemical patterns, but it also shows how Na-Nose can rely on gold nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes to diagnose as many as 17 different diseases including early stage forms of some cancers.Na-Nose's story began 10 years ago when engineer Hossam Haick joined Technion Israel's Institute of Technology. There, he started developing a screening tool made up of two parts: a desktop box with a tube into which a person exhales, sending his or her breath into an array of sensors; and an attached computer equipped with machine-learning software and trained to recognise patterns from those sensors.The array's thin layers of gold nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes are coated with organic ligands. When exhaled VOCs bind to these ligands, the electrical resistance between the nanoparticles or nanotubes is changed. The resulting signal is sent to a computer which uses a pattern-recognition software to determine whether the signal matches that of a particular disease.The device was trained to recognise over 23 illnesses, after which Haick's team tested it on over 8 000 patients to teach the software how to discriminate between disease and confounding factors, such as contamination, age, gender, background disease and geography. Last year, Haick already demonstrated that the resulting tool could detect gastric cancer in a blinded test of patients with 92-94 % accuracy. But with this new study, he took things even further by using Na-Nose to detect and discriminate among 17 different diseases in the breath of 1 404 individuals across five countries.The next step now consists in miniaturising the device enough to be able to bring it onto smartphones by August 2018, thanks to funding under Horizon 2020's SNIFFPHONE project. 'We aim to catch disease at an early stage, where we can increase the survival rate,' says Haick.Reference:10027941005447-11005935-1 

Researchers from the Graphene Flagship, working at the AMBER centre in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland in collaboration with researchers from University of Siegen, Germany, and University of Vienna, Austria, have demonstrated ultrafast and highly sensitive gas sensors using platinum selenide (PtSe2). This material – a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) – has promising potential in different areas of nanoelectronics, including optoelectonics as well as sensing. This research, published in ACS Nano, demonstrates the potential of PtSe2 in a range of applications, and presents this little-studied material as an excellent candidate for further investigation.The new TMD was created using a metal conversion method, in which thin platinum film is converted into PtSe2 by thermally assisted conversion in selenium vapour at 400 °C. PtSe2 now joins the growing class of stable TMDs. Georg Duesberg, from Trinity College Dublin, is the principal investigator of the study. He said "We performed a screening study of materials, to check a few different material combinations. The conversion of metals is helpful in the quest for new materials, because it is simple to do. Of the other combinations that worked, many immediately oxidised, so they were not stable. We were very lucky to find a sweet spot with this material, and to be able to synthesise it on a large scale."One of the benefits of PtSe2 is the method of fabrication, which is compatible with silicon chip fabrication. "We grow PtSe2 at 400 °C which makes it potentially suitable for so-called back end of line (BEOL) processing. This means that it can be combined with existing device architectures to add new functionality," said Niall McEvoy, a researcher at Trinity College Dublin who performed the growth experiments. BEOL processing comes after the actual fabrication of integrated circuits of a silicon chip, It is crucial that the temperature is less than 450 °C, to preserve the functionality of the integrated circuit. "This is very interesting for the Flagship's push towards industrial applications," added Duesberg. "This potentially can be grown on top of a chip. You can imagine using this material for the Internet of Things, sensors and so on."To demonstrate possible applications for the new material, the researchers tested its performance in sensing NO2. "All of our homegrown materials are tested as gas sensors. PtSe2 showed excellent results, high sensitivity, excellent response time and nearly complete recovery," said Kangho Lee, a researcher at Trinity College Dublin who performed the gas sensing experiments. Gas molecules adsorbed onto the surface of the PtSe2 change its conductivity, lowering the resistance. The researchers found that the PtSe2 had extremely high sensitivity, measuring 100 ppb NO2 at room temperature. The sensor was also extremely fast to respond to the gas – detecting low quantities of gas in only seconds – and recovering completely within a minute when the inert atmosphere was restored.For commercial sensing applications, the sensor must be responsive only to specific gases, so that changes in environmental conditions can be monitored. McEvoy is optimistic that the PtSe2 can be treated to have the selective sensing properties needed. "With some added processing steps, to engender selectivity, PtSe2 could potentially be used in a wide array of industrial chemical sensing applications," he said. A potential route to selective sensing could be the addition of chemical groups that are responsive to the chosen gas.Reference:2790427929314100009 

As of the model year 2017, BMZ GmbH offers a warranty of four years on e-bike batteries to the customers of the bicycle purchasing cooperative. For this purpose, BMZ and ZEG have signed a service agreement. According to the agreement, BMZ offers a warranty to the buyers of ZEG e-bikes that their batteries will have a residual capacity of more than 60% after a period of 48 months.This means, if a customer rides his e-bike for a distance of 100 kilometres today, he can still ride it for 60 kilometres under the same conditions after four years. BMZ offers a warranty of 24 months to commercial dealers.The date of purchase by the end customer is key when it comes to asserting warranty claims. Proper handling of the batteries and chargers, for which there is a 24-month warranty, is a prerequisite for granting the warranty. A comprehensive warranty agreement, which will be sent to the dealers separately, specifies all the details.BMZ and ZEG are linked by a long-standing partnership. ZEG, the Zweirad-Einkaufs-Genossenschaft eG is an association of 960 independent bicycle dealers. It offers uniquely favourable sales and purchasing opportunities and maintains business relations with all renowned brands of bicycle manufacturers. For half a century, ZEG has been synonymous with quality and reliability.Process-oriented quality management and product quality have been taking centre stage at BMZ since the company was established in 1994. It is the foundation for outstanding products and business excellence. With innovative and high-quality products, BMZ is known for maximum sustainability.Reference:1215F101215F2X21215F2X4 

Wearable sensors that monitor heart rate, activity, skin temperature, and other variables can reveal a lot about what is going on inside a person, including the onset of infection, inflammation, and even insulin resistance, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.An important component of the ongoing study is to establish a range of normal, or baseline, values for each person in the study and when they are ill. “We want to study people at an individual level,” said Michael Snyder, Ph.D., professor, and chair of genetics. Snyder is the senior author of the study, which was published online in PLOS Biology.  Altogether, the team collected nearly 2 billion measurements from 60 people, including continuous data from each participant’s wearable biosensor devices and periodic data from laboratory tests of their blood chemistry, gene expression, and other measures. Participants wore between one and seven commercially available activity monitors and other monitors that collected more than 250,000 measurements a day.  The team collected data on weight; heart rate; oxygen in the blood; skin temperature; activity, including sleep, steps, walking, biking, and running; calories expended; acceleration; and even exposure to gamma rays and X-rays. “I was very impressed with all the data that was collected,” said Eric Topol, MD, professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, who was not involved in the study. “There’s a lot here — a lot of sensors and a lot of different data on each person.” The study demonstrated that, given a baseline range of values for each person, it is possible to monitor deviations from normal and associate those deviations with environmental conditions, illness, or other factors that affect health. Distinctive patterns of deviation from normal seem to correlate with particular health problems. Algorithms designed to pick up on these patterns of change could potentially contribute to clinical diagnostics and research. The work is an example of Stanford Medicine’s focus on precision health, whose goal is to anticipate and prevent disease in the healthy and to precisely diagnose and treat disease in the ill. On a long flight to Norway for a family vacation last year, Snyder noticed changes in his heart rate and blood oxygen levels. As one of the 60 participants in the digital health study, he was wearing seven biosensors.  From previous trips, Snyder knew that his oxygen levels normally dropped during airplane flights and that his heart rate increased at the beginning of a flight — as occurred in other participants. But the values typically returned to normal over the course of a long flight and after landing. This time, his numbers didn’t return to baseline. Something was up, and Snyder wasn’t completely surprised when he went on to develop a fever and other signs of illness.  The fact that you can pick up infections by monitoring before they happen is very provocative. Two weeks earlier, he’d been helping his brother build a fence in rural Massachusetts, so his biggest concern was that he might have been bitten by a tick and infected with Lyme disease. In Norway, Snyder persuaded a doctor to give him a prescription for doxycycline, an antibiotic known to combat Lyme disease. Subsequent tests confirmed that Snyder had indeed been infected with the Lyme microorganism. Snyder was impressed that the wearable biosensors picked up the infection before he even knew he was sick. “Wearables helped make the initial diagnosis,” he said.  Subsequent data analysis confirmed his suspicion that the deviations from normal heart rate and oxygen levels on the flight to Norway had indeed been quite abnormal. “The fact that you can pick up infections by monitoring before they happen is very provocative,” said Topol. For Snyder, the Lyme diagnosis is just the tip of the iceberg — part of very early work to begin querying massive data sets of health information. The results of the current study raise the possibility of identifying inflammatory disease in individuals who may not even know they are getting sick. For example, in several participants, higher-than-normal readings for heart rate and skin temperature correlated with increased levels of C reactive protein in blood tests. C reactive protein is an immune system marker for inflammation and often indicative of infection, autoimmune diseases, developing cardiovascular disease, or even cancer. Snyder’s own data revealed four separate bouts of illness and inflammation, including the Lyme disease infection and another that he was unaware of until he saw his sensor data and an increased level of C reactive protein. The wearable devices could also help distinguish participants with insulin resistance, a precursor for Type 2 diabetes. Of 20 participants who received glucose tests, 12 were insulin-resistant. The team designed and tested an algorithm combining participants’ daily steps, daytime heart rate, and the difference between daytime and nighttime heart rate. The algorithm was able to process the data from just these few simple measures to predict which individuals in the study were likely to be insulin-resistant. The study also revealed that declines in blood-oxygen levels during airplane flights were correlated with fatigue. Fortunately, the study showed that people tend to adapt on long flights; oxygen levels in their blood go back up, and they generally feel less fatigued as the hours go by. “The desaturation of oxygen in flight was not something I anticipated,” said Topol. “Whenever you walk up and down the aisle of a plane, everyone is sleeping, and I guess there may be another reason for that besides that they partied too hard the night before. That was really interesting, and I thought it was great that the authors did that.” Topol noted that one of the biosensors used in the study doesn’t work very well and that another has been recalled. “A few are not going to hold up,” he said. “Either they are not going to be available or they are going to be proven to not be very accurate." "But what is good about what the authors did here is that they weren’t just relying on one device. They did everything they could with the kind of sensors that are available today to get data that was meaningful.” During a visit to the doctor, patients normally have their blood pressure and body temperature measured, but such data is typically collected only every year or two and often ignored unless the results are outside of the normal range for entire populations. But biomedical researchers envisage a future in which human health is monitored continuously. “We have more sensors on our cars than we have on human beings,” said Snyder. In the future, he said, he expects the situation will be reversed and people will have more sensors than cars do. Already, consumers have purchased millions of wearable devices, including more than 50 million smartwatches and 20 million other fitness monitors. Most monitors are used to track activity, but they could easily be adjusted to more directly track health measures, Snyder said. We have more sensors on our cars than we have on human beings. With a precision health approach, every person could know his or her normal baseline for dozens of measures. Automatic data analysis could spot patterns of outlier data points and flag the onset of ill health, providing an opportunity for intervention, prevention, or cure. FAQ 1. What is wearable sensor?Wearable sensors, just as the name implies, are integrated into wearable objects or directly with the body in order to help monitor health and/or provide clinically relevant data for care. ... However, recent focus has shifted to wearable sensing platforms, exploiting stretchable and flexible electronics. 2. What can wearable sensors measure?The use of wearable sensors for sports is at its infancy, with the majority of devices currently used to measure movement-based parameters such as distance, velocity, and acceleration. 3. What are wearable sensors made of?At present, wearable temperature sensors also use a variety of nanomaterials, including conductive polymers,96, 97 graphene,89, 98 CNTs,46, 99 nickel,100 silver,101, 102 and copper metal nanoparticles and nanowires103 as thermal-sensing elements. 4. What are examples of wearable technology?Common examples of wearable technology include:Smart jewelry, such as rings, wristbands, watches and pins. ...Body-mounted sensors that monitor and transmit biological data for healthcare purposes.Fitness trackers, often in the form of wristbands or straps, that monitor things like physical activity and vital signs. 5. What are the wearable sensors used for?Wearable sensors are used to gather physiological and movement data thus enabling patient's status monitoring. Sensors are deployed according to the clinical application of interest. 6. What can wearable devices be used for?Wearables are electronic technology or devices incorporated into items that can be comfortably worn on a body. These wearable devices are used for tracking information on real time basis. They have motion sensors that take the snapshot of your day to day activity and sync them with mobile devices or laptop computers. 7. How we can monitor activity in wearable devices?Present wearable technologies include accelerometers, gyroscopes, sole sensors, and barometric pressure sensors mounted over the body. According to the purpose of the use, different body sensors have been developed with a capacity to monitor physiological and biochemical properties, posture and motion. 8. What is the value of the use of wearable microsensors?Using on-board sensors, wearable devices can provide critical information about athlete's performance and well-being. Athlete tracking is an important functionality of wearable devices that relies on positioning data which also influences the accuracy of numerous other attributes. 9. What health conditions require a wearable device?These devices will be especially important for improving the health and control of chronically ill patients and for those with conditions like asthma, COPD, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The focus of this paper revolves around wearable devices for asthma, but can be applied for any chronic condition. 10. What are the pros and cons of wearable technology?Pros and Cons of Wearable Tech:Pro: Wearable Tech is Convenient.Con: Wearable Tech is Limited.Pro: Most Wearable Tech is Discreet.Con: Some Wearable Tech is Not Discreet.Pro: Wearable Tech is Useful.Con: Wearable Tech is Expensive. Reference:EE-TP109IS471FSEIS489E

Scientists have spent decades searching for a safe alternative to the flammable liquid electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries.Now Stanford University researchers have identified nearly two-dozen solid electrolytes that could someday replace the volatile liquids used in smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices. The results, based on techniques adapted from artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, are published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science."Electrolytes shuttle lithium ions back and forth between the battery's positive and negative electrodes," said study lead author Austin Sendek, a doctoral candidate in applied physics and first author on the paper. "Liquid electrolytes are cheap and conduct ions really well, but they can catch fire if the battery overheats or is short-circuited by puncturing."Battery fires led to the recent recall of nearly 2 million Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones, the latest in a series of highly publicized lithium-ion battery failures."The main advantage of solid electrolytes is stability," Sendek said. "Solids are far less likely to blow up or vaporize than organic solvents. They're also much more rigid and would make the battery structurally stronger."Searching for solidsDespite years of laboratory trial and error, researchers have yet to find an inexpensive solid material that performs as well as liquid electrolytes at room temperature.Instead of randomly testing individual compounds, the team turned to AI and machine learning to build predictive models from experimental data. They trained a computer algorithm to learn how to identify good and bad compounds based on existing data, much like a facial-recognition algorithm learns to identify faces after seeing several examples."The number of known lithium-containing compounds is in the tens of thousands, the vast majority of which are untested," Sendek said. "Some of them may be excellent conductors. We developed a computational model that learns from the limited data we already have, and then allows us to screen potential candidates from a massive database of materials about a million times faster than current screening methods."To build the model, Sendek spent more than two years gathering all known scientific data about solid compounds containing lithium."Austin collected all of humanity's wisdom about these materials, and many of the measurements and experimental data going back decades," said Evan Reed, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and a senior author on the paper. "He used that knowledge to create a model that can predict whether a material will be a good electrolyte. This approach enables screening of the full spectrum of candidate materials to identify the most promising materials for further study."Screening criteriaThe model used several criteria to screen promising materials, including stability, cost, abundance and their ability to conduct lithium ions and re-route electrons through the battery's circuit.Candidates were selected from The Materials Project, a database that allows scientists to explore the physical and chemical properties of thousands of materials."We screened more than 12,000 lithium-containing compounds and ended up with 21 promising solid electrolytes," Sendek said. "It only took a few minutes to do the screening. The vast majority of my time was actually spent gathering and curating all the data, and developing metrics to define the confidence of model predictions."The researchers eventually plan to test the 21 materials in the laboratory to determine which are best suited for real-world conditions."Our approach has the potential to address many kinds of materials problems and increase the effectiveness of research investments in these areas," Reed said. "As the amount of data in the world increases and as computers improve, our ability to innovate is going to increase exponentially. Whether it's batteries, fuel cells or anything else, it's a really exciting time to be in this field."Reference:1215F101215F2X31215F6