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Category: wearables

Why this $10 spectrometer chip could bring real-time chemical sensing to wearables

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and GlitterinTech, a startup founded by the same research group, have unveiled a fundamentally new type of optical spectrometer that delivers laboratory-grade precision in a device small enough to be embedded in portable and wearable technologies. By rethinking how spectra are measured and processed, the team has demonstrated a spectrometer costing only around $10, operating at a centimeter scale, and capable of applications ranging from industrial quality control to real-time health care monitoring.

Optical spectrometers underpin countless technologies, from chemical analysis and manufacturing to environmental sensing and medicine. Yet shrinking these instruments has historically involved painful trade-offs: Miniaturized devices typically sacrifice bandwidth, resolution or accuracy, limiting them to rough identification rather than true metrological measurements. The newly reported convolutional spectrometer overcomes these barriers by introducing a conceptually elegant operating principle grounded in the convolution theorem, offering unprecedented performance metrics compared with existing dispersive, Fourier-transform and reconstructive spectrometers.

Jumping spiders inspire ultra-efficient 3D camera

This 3D camera estimates depth by comparing blur across two differently focused images of the same scene. The prototype generates real-time 3D maps while using less than a watt of power, sidestepping more energy-intensive approaches.

By borrowing a trick from tiny jumping spiders, Northwestern University engineers have developed an extremely energy-efficient 3D camera. Called SpiderCam, the new device senses depth the same way that jumping spiders judge distances before making a high-precision hop. To estimate depth, the system captures two images of the same scene with slightly different focus settings and measures subtle differences in blurriness between the two images.

With this strategy, the camera produces real-time 3D maps while consuming less than a watt of power. That’s less energy than used by a standard nightlight.

The innovation could enable a new generation of battery-powered devices that need to gauge their surroundings, like wearable technologies, assistive devices, robots and drones.

Light-activated gel could transform wearables, soft robotics, and more

Consider the chief difference between living systems and electronics: the first is generally soft and squishy, while the latter is hard and rigid. Now, in work that could impact human-machine interfaces, biocompatible devices, soft robotics, and more, MIT engineers and colleagues have developed a soft, flexible gel that dramatically changes its conductivity upon the application of light.

Enter the growing field of ionotronics, which involves transferring data through ions, or charged molecules. Electronics does the same with electrons. But while the latter is well established, ionotronics is still being developed, with one huge exception: living systems. The cells in our bodies communicate with a variety of ions, from potassium to sodium.

Ionotronics, in turn, can provide a bridge between electronics and biological tissues. Potential applications range from soft wearable technology to human-machine interfaces.

Low-power, flexible radio-frequency transistors break 100 GHz barrier

Over the past decades, electronics engineers worldwide have been trying to develop devices that could enable even faster communications between devices, all while consuming less energy. To meet the demands of the sixth generation (6G) of wireless communication technology, these devices should operate at frequencies above 100 gigahertz (GHz).

So far, developing flexible electronic components that can operate at these high frequencies while consuming little power has proved challenging. One promising approach for fabricating these devices entails the use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), extremely thin and cylindrical structures with advantageous electrical and thermal properties.

Researchers at Peking University and Stanford University recently developed new flexible and low-power CNT-based transistors that operate at frequencies above 100 GHz. These transistors, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, could potentially help to speed up communications between future smartphones, sensors, wearable devices, and other flexible devices.

AI speeds up discovery of next-gen computer chips and electronic materials

An international study team, led by Flinders University in collaboration with Khalifa University UAE, built the machine-learning platform to act like a “smart materials discovery engine,” which is capable of dramatically reducing the time spent on complex computer or lab experiments to test and find new materials for future semiconductors.

Semiconductors are used in high-tech applications from wearable electronics, communication systems and smartphones to medical and LED devices and solar panels.

“The challenge is that there are millions of possible material combinations, and testing them one by one in the laboratory or with complex computer simulations is extremely slow and expensive,” says Flinders University ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Vi-Khanh Truong, lead author of a new article in ACS Materials Letters, titled “Bayesian optimization-guided discovery of gallium-containing semiconductors with targeted band gaps.”

AI-powered stretchable computing patch can run algorithms directly on the body

A new skin-like computing patch developed at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) can analyze health data using artificial intelligence in an unprecedented way. Unlike today’s wearable devices, it carries out its AI computations directly on the body, in mere milliseconds, without relying on a wireless connection.

While your current smartwatch may be able to track your heart rate or movements, it doesn’t analyze what it finds. The analysis happens elsewhere, after it shuttles data to an external server. In some situations—detecting ventricular fibrillation in the heart, for instance—that few-seconds lag to communicate with the server is too long.

The new device, designed and tested in collaboration with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, was made possible by the development of manufacturing processes that allow organic electrochemical transistors to be printed onto flexible surfaces.

Biodegradable sensors attached to plants detect pesticides in 3 minutes

Researchers at the São Carlos Institute of Physics at the University of São Paulo (IFSC-USP) in Brazil, led by Paulo Augusto Raymundo-Pereira, have created biodegradable, “wearable” sensors for plants to monitor their health, including the presence of pesticides. The sensors are made from carbon ink and are screen-printed onto transparent cellulose acetate bioplastics.

The study was published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X. The World Economic Forum selected wearable sensor engineering as one of the top ten emerging technologies of 2023 for its potential to improve plant health and increase agricultural productivity.

However, most wearable devices today are made from nonrenewable plastic polymers derived from petroleum and have poor adhesion to uneven, wavy, and curved surfaces.

Battery-free skin-conformal wearable system can measure electrocardiogram signals

A research team led by Prof. Jerald Yoo from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU) has developed a skin-conformal wearable health care system, “SkinECG,” capable of measuring electrocardiogram (ECG) signals without a battery. By combining energy harvesting with human body–coupled power transfer, the study presents a new solution to one of the most critical challenges in wearable devices: power supply.

The findings are published in Science Advances.

Wearable health care systems are emerging as next-generation medical technologies that enable real-time monitoring of physiological signals through body-worn sensors, allowing early detection of disease-related abnormalities.

‘Solar-blind’ 2D heterostructure delivers 422-fold responsivity gain for UV sensing

Photodetectors remain a critical component in the development of advanced electronics and photonics, particularly in the role of signal readout through the conversion of photons into electrons. These digital imaging components are ubiquitous in sensors, cameras, adaptive displays, telecommunications, LiDAR systems, health monitoring wearables, and oximeters.

In the quest toward the next generation of optoelectronic devices, the spotlight lands upon ultrathin 2D materials with improved performance for integrated circuits and wearable electronics. In a recent study published in ACS Applied Electronic Materials, a team of researchers led by Haizhao Zhi and Eng Tuan Poh introduced a series of wide bandgap 2D materials—transition metal thio(seleno)phosphates into the light.

The team focused on manganese thiophosphate (MnPS3), a wide-bandgap semiconductor that is naturally “solar-blind,” meaning it is highly sensitive to UV light while remaining transparent to much of the visible spectrum. While MnPS3 is an excellent candidate for UV sensing, its performance as a standalone material is often limited by low carrier mobility—it acts almost like a “near-perfect insulator.”

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