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A Korean research team has developed a large-scale stretchable and transparent electrode for use as a stretchable display. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that a research team, led by Dr. Sang-Soo Lee and Dr. Jeong Gon Son at KIST’s Photo-Electronic Hybrids Research Center, has developed a technology to fabricate a large-area (larger than an A4 sized paper) wavy silver nanowire network electrode that is structurally stretchable with a high degree of conductivity and transparency.

Transparent electrodes, through which electricity flows, are essential for solar cell-and touchscreen-based display devices. An indium tin oxide (ITO)-based transparent electrode is currently commercialized for use. The ITO-based transparent electrode is made of a thin layer of metallic oxides that have very low stretchability and is very fragile. Thus, the ITO electrode is not well suited for flexible and wearable devices, which are expected to quickly become mainstream products in the electronic device market. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new transparent electrode with stretchability as one of its main features.

A silver nanowire is tens of nanometers in diameter, and the nano material itself is long and thin like a stick. The small size of the nanowire allows it to be bent when an external force is applied. Since it is made of silver, a silver nanowire has excellent electrical conductivity and can be used in a random network of straight nanowires to fabricate a highly transparent and flexible electrode. However, despite the fact that silver nanowire is bendable and flexible, it cannot be used as a stretchable material.

Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology and Southern University of Science and Technology have fabricated bifunctional flexible electrochromic energy-storage devices based on silver nanowire flexible transparent electrodes.

Publishing in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, the team used silver nanowire flexible transparent electrodes as the current collector for a bifunctional flexible electrochromic supercapacitor.

This bifunctional flexible device can exhibit its energy status through color changes, and can serve as an energy supplier for various wearable electronics, such as physiological sensors. The findings could have a widespread impact on the future development of smart windows for energy-efficient buildings.

The study authors claim their microscope can provide colored real-time images of hard-to-reach parts of the spinal cord that couldn’t be accessed previously.

Pain is a powerful feeling but have you ever wondered how pain works on a cellular level? Well, a team of scientists at the San Diego-based Salk Insitute has actually figured out a way to see the internal neural mechanism associated with pain.

In their recently published study, they propose wearable microscopes using which they were able to check how nerve cells in the spinal cord of mice process pain signals.

Continue reading “Wearable microscopes show HD images of pain processed” »

New technologies can greatly advance research in various fields, including medicine and neuroscience. In recent years, for instance, engineers have created increasingly sophisticated devices to record brain activity and other biological signals with high precision.

A multi-disciplinary research team at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and other institutes in the U.S. have recently developed the Neuro-stack, a new wearable technology that can record the activity of single neurons in the brain as a human being is walking or moving. This device, presented in a paper published in Nature Neuroscience, could help to gather valuable insight about neuronal activity during walking, while also potentially improving treatments for brain disorders.

“Our study was motivated by the need for smaller size and more flexible devices for clinical neuroscience,” Dejan Markovic, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. “Our primary objectives were to make a device that is small enough to be wearable, for mobile experiments, and to provide broadband recordings including local field potentials and single units.”

Wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and virtual reality headsets are becoming commonplace. They are powered by flexible electronics that consist of electrodes with plastic or metal foil as substrates. However, both of these come with their own drawbacks. Plastics suffer from poor adhesion and low durability, while metal foils make the devices bulky and less flexible.

In light of this, paper is a promising alternative. It is porous, light, thin, foldable, and flexible. Moreover, paper has randomly distributed fibers that provide a large surface area for depositing active electrode material, making for excellent electrochemical properties.

Accordingly, researchers have developed various paper-based supercapacitors, devices that store electric charge and energy, by stacking multiple sheets, acting as positive and negative electrodes and separators. However, such an arrangement increases device size and resistance. In addition, they tend to form creases, peel off, and slip over each other, which further deteriorate device performance.

The stylish and stealthy microphone may be useful for monitoring patient health or as aids to its hearing impaired wearers.

The congealed mat of yeast and bacteria cells that forms on top of the brewed drink kombucha could be used to make light, cheap and flexible circuit boards for wearable electronics or even partially living rudimentary computers.

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced the invention of a nanowire, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, which can be cheaply grown by common bacteria and can be tuned to “smell” a vast array of chemical tracers—including those given off by people afflicted with different medical conditions, such as asthma and kidney disease.

Thousands of these specially tuned wires, each sniffing out a different chemical, can be layered onto tiny, wearable sensors, allowing health-care providers an unprecedented tool for monitoring potential health complications. Since these wires are grown by bacteria, they are organic, biodegradable and far greener than any inorganic nanowire.

To make these breakthroughs, which were detailed in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectrics, senior authors Derek Lovley, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at UMass Amherst, and Jun Yao, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, needed to look no farther than their own noses.

Previous studies recommended keeping electronics at a six-inch distance from implantable cardiac devices.