Graphene sensors: introduction and market status - Page 26

Researchers from the University of Strasbourg & CNRS (France), in collaboration with Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland) and the University of Florence (Italy), have developed a new generation of pressure sensors based on graphene and molecular springs. The researchers say that thanks to their highest sensitivity, these devices are ideally suited for health monitoring and point-of-care testing.

The team reports that many electroactive materials have been employed for this purpose. Among these, graphene has been the most studied because of its excellent electrical conductivity, exceptional mechanical properties and large surface area. The researchers rely envision applications of graphene-based sensors in the form of tattoos.

researchers from Jiliang University and Zhejiang University of Technology in China, along with researchers at the Technical University of Denmark, have devised a new design for a graphene-based sensor that can simultaneously detect multiple substances - including dangerous bacteria and other pathogens. In addition to food safety, the new design could improve detection of gases and chemicals for a wide range of applications.

"Our design is based on graphene sheets, which are two-dimensional crystals of carbon just one atom thick," said research team member Bing-Gang Xiao, from China Jiliang University. "The sensor is not only highly sensitive but can also be easily adjusted to detect different substances."

Researchers at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have found that graphene could better fulfill its potential when purified to remove silicon, doubling its electrical performance.

Despite researchers demonstrating countless possible applications of graphene, many people feel that graphene is thus far showing rather sluggish industrial adoption. Now, researchers based at RMIT have proposed a possible reason for this and suggested how graphene's full potential could be unlocked.

An international team of scientists, led by Professor Monica Craciun from the University of Exeter's Engineering department, has reported a new technique to create fully electronic fibers that can be incorporated into the production of everyday clothing. The researchers believe that the discovery could revolutionize the creation of wearable electronic devices for use in a range of every day applications, as well as health monitoring, such as heart rates and blood pressure, and medical diagnostics.

Currently, wearable electronics are achieved by essentially gluing devices to fabrics, which can often mean they are too rigid and susceptible to malfunctioning. The new research avoids this by integrating the electronic devices into the fabric of the material, by coating electronic fibers with light-weight, durable components that will allow images to be shown directly on the fabric.

The Advanced Technology R&D Center of Mitsubishi Electric Corp. is reportedly developing a graphene-enhanced image sensor that can sense a wide frequency band of light from visible light to terahertz waves with one device.

It is said to be a multi-spectrum image sensor with a lower cost and higher performance, compared with existing multi-spectrum image sensors. Currently, multiple kinds of image sensors are combined in accordance with wavelength to realize a multi-spectrum image sensor, and high-cost materials and liquid nitrogen-based cooling are necessary to detect lights other than visible light.

In February 2018, Haydale, the University of Swansea and Wheelsure entered a collaboration to develop intelligent systems for transport and industrial applications using Haydale's graphene ink sensor technology, in order to extend Wheelsure's product range. Now, Haydale has confirmed that The University of Manchester's Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre ("GEIC") is set to join this collaboration.

The project aims to develop an intelligent new product pairing Haydale's functionalized graphene sensor technology with Wheelsure's failsafe locking solution. The sensor will be developed by applications engineers at the GEIC using Haydale's functionalised graphene. The project is expected to be showcased at the official opening of the GEIC in December 2018.

Researchers from Southeast University and Suzhou University of Science and Technology in China have combined the properties of graphene and paraffin to create a novel material that exhibits controllable, reversible transition between a slippery and a rough surface. They fabricated a graphene-based film with a porous surface filled with paraffin that allows droplets of water and other fluids to stick or slide on demand, while following complicated pathways.

The research team used near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation to control the surface behavior of the film and form patterned flow pathways on it. Their work can simplify the manipulation of liquids inside microplates that are extensively used for bioassays in biomedical and clinical laboratories; it may also prove to be a valuable tool for blood grouping diagnosis.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted simulations suggesting that graphene can be modified with special pores to act as a tunable filter or strainer for ions in a liquid.

The concept could have applications like nanoscale mechanical sensors, drug delivery, water purification and sieves or pumps for ion mixtures similar to biological ion channels, which are critical to the function of living cells.

Graphenea recently launched a graphene foundry service GFAB. The company will manufacture custom circuit designs on graphene wafers up to 6. The service is aimed at enabling fast device prototyping and accelerating development of new applications, lowering entry barriers to graphene-based solutions.

Graphenea states that in view of the market demands, the offer now includes small batch sizes (1-3 wafers). Lithography masks can be manufactured by Graphenea or provided by the customer. GFAB includes graphene growth, transfer on 4 and 6 wafers, metal contact deposition and lift-off, and graphene lithography with etching.

Researchers at NPL, University of Surrey, University of London, Chalmers University and Linköping University have demonstrated proof-of-concept graphene-based sensors for environmental monitoring of ultra-low concentration NO₂ in complex environments.

The team reports that robust detection in a wide range of NO₂ concentrations, 10-154 ppb, was achieved, highlighting the great potential for graphene-based NO₂ sensors, with applications in environmental pollution monitoring, portable monitors, automotive and mobile sensors for a global real-time monitoring network.