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A team of neurosurgeons and engineers has developed wireless brain sensors that monitor intracranial pressure and temperature and then are absorbed by the body, negating the need for surgery to remove the devices.

Such implants, developed by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, potentially could be used to monitor patients with traumatic brain injuries, but the researchers believe they can build similar absorbable sensors to monitor activity in organ systems throughout the body. Their findings are published online Jan. 18 in the journal Nature.

“Electronic devices and their biomedical applications are advancing rapidly,” said co-first author Rory K. J. Murphy, MD, a neurosurgery resident at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. “But a major hurdle has been that implants placed in the body often trigger an immune response, which can be problematic for patients. The benefit of these new devices is that they dissolve over time, so you don’t have something in the body for a long time period, increasing the risk of infection, chronic inflammation and even erosion through the skin or the organ in which it’s placed. Plus, using resorbable devices negates the need for surgery to retrieve them, which further lessens the risk of infection and further complications.”

Murphy is most interested in monitoring pressure and temperature in the brains of patients with traumatic brain injury.

About 50,000 people die of such injuries annually in the United States. When patients with such injuries arrive in the hospital, doctors must be able to accurately measure intracranial pressure in the brain and inside the skull because an increase in pressure can lead to further brain injury, and there is no way to reliably estimate pressure levels from brain scans or clinical features in patients.

“However, the devices commonly used today are based on technology from the 1980s,” Murphy explained. “They’re large, they’re unwieldy, and they have wires that connect to monitors in the intensive care unit. They give accurate readings, and they help, but there are ways to make them better.”

Murphy collaborated with engineers in the laboratory of John A. Rogers, PhD, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, to build new sensors. The devices are made mainly of polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) and silicone, and they can transmit accurate pressure and temperature readings, as well as other information.

“With advanced materials and device designs, we demonstrated that it is possible to create electronic implants that offer high performance and clinically relevant operation in hardware that completely resorbs into the body after the relevant functions are no longer needed,” Rogers said. “This type of bio-electric medicine has great potential in many areas of clinical care.”

The researchers tested the sensors in baths of saline solution that caused them to dissolve after a few days. Next, they tested the devices in the brains of laboratory rats.

Having shown that the sensors are accurate and that they dissolve in the solution and in the brains of rats, the researchers now are planning to test the technology in patients.

“In terms of the major challenges involving size and scale, we’ve already crossed some key bridges,” said co-senior author Wilson Z. Ray, MD, assistant professor of neurological and orthopaedic surgery at Washington University.

In patients with traumatic brain injuries, neurosurgeons attempt to decrease the pressure inside the skull using medications. If pressure cannot be reduced sufficiently, patients often undergo surgery. The new devices could be placed into the brain at multiple locations during such operations.

“The ultimate strategy is to have a device that you can place in the brain — or in other organs in the body — that is entirely implanted, intimately connected with the organ you want to monitor and can transmit signals wirelessly to provide information on the health of that organ, allowing doctors to intervene if necessary to prevent bigger problems,” Murphy said. “And then after the critical period that you actually want to monitor, it will dissolve away and disappear.”

Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have solved a problem in micro- and nanofabrication — how to quickly, gently and precisely handle tiny particles — that will allow researchers to more easily build tiny machines, biomedical sensors, optical computers, solar panels and other devices.

They have developed a device and technique, called bubble-pen lithography, that can efficiently handle nanoparticles — the tiny pieces of gold, silicon and other materials used in nanomanufacturing. The new method relies on microbubbles to inscribe, or write, nanoparticles onto a surface.

Researchers’ interest in nanoparticles, which are between 1 and 100 nanometers in size, has grown rapidly because of their versatility and strength. Some nanoparticles have optical properties that are useful for electronics. Others have the ability to absorb solar energy. In biomedical applications, nanoparticles can serve as drug carriers or imaging agents.

But working with these particles while keeping their properties and functions intact can be difficult. And existing lithography methods, which are used to etch or pattern materials on a substrate, are not capable of fixing nanoparticles to a specific location with precise and arbitrary control.

A research team led by Texas Engineering assistant professor Yuebing Zheng has invented a way to handle these small particles and lock them into position without damaging them. Using microbubbles to gently transport the particles, the bubble-pen lithography technique can quickly arrange particles in various shapes, sizes, compositions and distances between nanostructures. This advanced control is key to harnessing their properties. The team, which includes Cockrell School associate professor Deji Akinwande and professor Andrew Dunn, describe their patented device and technique in a paper published in the Jan. 13 issue of Nano Letters.

Using their bubble-pen device, the researchers focus a laser underneath a sheet of gold nanoislands (nanoscale islands) to generate a hotspot that creates a microbubble out of vaporized water. The bubble attracts and captures a nanoparticle through a combination of gas pressure, thermal and surface tension, surface adhesion and convection. The laser then steers the microbubble to move the nanoparticle on a site on the surface. When the laser is turned off, the microbubble disappears, leaving the particle on the surface. If necessary, the researchers can expand or reduce the size of the microbubble by increasing or decreasing the laser beam’s power.

“The ability to control a single nanoparticle and fix it to a substrate without damaging it could open up great opportunities for the creation of new materials and devices,” Zheng said. “The capability of arranging the particles will help to advance a class of new materials, known as metamaterials, with properties and functions that do not exist in current natural materials.”

The technique could be especially helpful for science and medicine because researchers would be able to precisely control cells, biological material, bacteria or viruses for study and testing, Zheng added.

Moreover, bubble-pen lithography can leverage a design software program in the same way as a 3-D printer, so it can deposit nanoparticles in real time in a pre-programmed pattern or design. The researchers were able to write the UT Austin Longhorn symbol and create a dome shape out of nanoparticle beads.

In comparison to other existing lithography methods, bubble-pen lithography has several advantages, Zheng says. First, the technique can be used to test prototypes and ideas for devices and materials more quickly. Second, the technique has the potential for large-scale, low-cost manufacturing of nanomaterials and devices. Other lithography techniques require more resources and a clean room environment.

Zheng says he hopes to advance bubble-pen lithography by developing a multiple-beam processing technique for industrial-level production of nanomaterials and nanodevices. He is also planning to develop a portable version of the technique that works like a mobile phone for use in prototyping and disease diagnosis.

This research received funding from the Beckman Young Investigator Award.

Cloudtag and imec, the nanoelectronics research center, today presented the first results of their collaboration on accurate frictionless wearable health solutions. Cloudtag Track, a new wearable fitness tracker, that was launched today at CES 2016, combines fitness and health monitoring with design, to pave the way to innovation in fitness wearables as well as in the care, cure and prevention cycle by providing immediate access to accurate medical data and personalized feedback.

Within the framework of their collaboration, imec develops algorithms for CloudTag’s wearable sensor devices that enable accurate monitoring of physiological parameters. At CES 2016, CloudTag has launched the Cloudtag Track, its first wearable multisensor device. The Cloudtag Track stands out among other wearable devices due to its unique combination of high user comfort with unparalleled data quality. The light and ultra-small device integrates imec’s proprietary algorithm that retrieves physiological parameters with an exceptionally high level of accuracy. Imec’s algorithm accurately recognizes activity, measures energy expenditure, heart rate and other physiological data.

Cloudtag Track can be tailored to match different needs and blends reliable technology with frictionless usabilityto improve the user experience and to help increase adoption. Cloudtag Track gives immediate, accurate and personalized feedback on one’s lifestyle, enabling the individual to put unhealthy habits into perspective while persuading lifestyle changes to adopt healthier diet and activity habits.

“Imec and Holst Centre develop ultra-small low-power, high-quality sensors and specialized algorithms that turn data into valuable knowledge, paving the way to next generation wearables that offer medical quality data monitoring in a frictionless way. These sophisticated wearables can support doctors in diagnosis and follow-up of illnesses, and they offer a huge opportunity in illness prevention by serving as a virtual personal coach,” stated Chris Van Hoof, program director of imec’s wearable health program. “Our collaboration with Cloudtag is an exciting example of how imec’s technology can support the industry in realizing the next generation of wearable devices.”

“I am extremely pleased with this collaboration with imec, as I believe this firmly validates the joint work we are doing and the future of our relationship,” commented Amit Ben-Haim, CloudTag CEO. “This is underscored by the results of the collaboration, and in particular, the accuracy of imec’s algorithms to retrieve physiological parameters which provides us with a unique selling point. I look forward to our continued collaboration and to future product development.”

Teams of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have demonstrated a biosensor capable of counting the blood cells electrically using only a drop of blood. The blood cell count is among the most ubiquitous diagnostic tests in primary health care. The gold standard routinely used in hospitals and testing laboratories is a hematology analyzer, which is large and expensive equipment, and requires trained technicians and physical sample transportation. It slows turn-around time, limits throughput in hospitals, and limits accessibility in resource-limited settings. Bashir and his team have developed a biosensor to count red blood cell, platelet, and white blood cell counts, and its 3-part differential at the point-of-care while using only 11 microL of blood.

(a) Schematic of the biosensor used for total leukocyte and its differential counts. The inset shows the micro-fabricated coplanar electrodes aligned with the cell counting aperture of cross-section 15 µm x 15 µm. (b) Representative voltage pulses generated as the individual cells pass over the electrodes. (c) The pulse amplitude histogram shows the distinct populations of lymphocytes and granulocytes + monocytes. CREDIT: TECHNOLOGY

The microfluidic device can electrically count the different types of blood cells based on their size and membrane properties. To count leukocyte and its differentials, red blood cells are selectively lysed and the remaining white blood cells were individually counted. The specific cells like neutrophils were counted using multi-frequency analysis, which probe the membrane properties of the cells. However, for red blood cells and platelets, 1 microL of whole blood is diluted with PBS on-chip and the cells are counted electrically. The total time for measurement is under 20 minutes. The report appears in the December 2015 issue of the journal TECHNOLOGY.

“Our biosensor exhibits the potential to improve patient care in a spectrum of settings. One of the compelling is in resource-limited settings where laboratory tests are often inaccessible due to cost, poor prevalence of laboratory facilities, and the difficulty of follow-up upon receiving results that take days to process,” says Professor Rashid Bashir of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Principal Investigator on the paper.

There exists a huge potential to translate our biosensor commercially for blood cell counts applications,” says Umer Hassan, Ph.D., the lead author on this paper. “The translation of our technology will result in minimal to no experience requirement for device operation. Even, patients can perform the test at the comfort of their home and share the results with their primary care physicians via electronic means too.” “The technology is scalable and in future, we plan to apply it to many other potential applications in the areas of animal diagnostics, blood transfusion analysis, ER/ICU applications and blood cell counting for chemotherapy management” says Professor Bashir. The clinical trials of the biosensor are done in collaboration with Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, IL.

The team from UIUC is working now to further develop a first portable prototype of the cell counter. “The cartridges will be disposable and the size of a credit card. The base unit or the reader will be portable and possibly hand-held. Our technology has the potential to reduce the cost of the test to less than $10 as compared to $100 or more currently charged,” says Umer.

At last week’s IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2015, nanoelectronics research center imec, KU Leuven, and Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders (NERF, set up by VIB/KU Leuven and imec) presented a set of silicon neural probes that combine 12 monolithically integrated optrodes using a CMOS compatible process. The probes enable optical stimulation and electronic detection of individual neurons, based on optogenetics techniques. They pave the way to a greater understanding of the brain and towards novel treatments for brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and epilepsy.

The enormous burden that brain disorders pose on affected individuals and health care systems calls for new ways to prevent, treat and cure these diseases. Currently available devices for recording neural activity to study the functioning of the brain typically have a limited number of electrical channels. Additionally, the brain is composed of many genetically and functionally distinct neuron types, and conventional probes cannot disambiguate recorded electrical signals with respect to their source. Imec’s and KU Leuven’s novel neural probes tackle these challenges, set a path towards greater understanding of the brain, and enable novel treatment options for brain disorders.

Imec’s and KU Leuven’s novel probes combine electronics and photonics to perform extremely sensitive measurements. The fully integrated implantable neural microsystems have advanced capabilities to detect, process and interpret neural data at a cellular scale. The systems feature a very high density of electrodes and nanophotonic circuits (optrodes). Such optrodes are used to optically stimulate single neurons using optogenetics, a technology in which neurons are genetically modified to make them light-sensitive and thus susceptible to stimulation through light pulses.

This research is supported by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT) through the OptoBrain project.

Probe tip with activated light output

Probe tip with activated light output

Using a new procedure researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich (LMU) can now produce extremely thin and robust, yet highly porous semiconductor layers. A very promising material – for small, light-weight, flexible solar cells, for example, or electrodes improving the performance of rechargeable batteries.

Filled with suitable organic polymers the highly porous germanium nanofilm becomes a hybrid solar cell. Because the germanium nanostructure forms an inverse opal-structure, the material shimmers like opal. Credit: Andreas Battenberg / TUM

Filled with suitable organic polymers the highly porous germanium nanofilm becomes a hybrid solar cell. Because the germanium nanostructure forms an inverse opal-structure, the material shimmers like opal. Credit: Andreas Battenberg / TUM

The coating on the wafer that Professor Thomas Fässler, chair of Inorganic Chemistry with a Focus on Novel Materials at TU Munich, holds in his hands shimmers like an opal. And it has amazing properties: It is hard as a crystal, exceptionally thin and – since it is highly porous – light as a feather.

By integrating suitable organic polymers into the pores of the material, the scientists can custom tailor the electrical properties of the ensuing hybrid material. The design not only saves space, it also creates large interface surfaces that improve overall effectiveness.

“You can imagine our raw material as a porous scaffold with a structure akin to a honeycomb. The walls comprise inorganic, semiconducting germanium, which can produce and store electric charges. Since the honeycomb walls are extremely thin, charges can flow along short paths,” explains Fässler.

The new design: bottom-up instead of top-down

But, to transform brittle, hard germanium into a flexible and porous layer the researchers had to apply a few tricks. Traditionally, etching processes are used to structure the surface of germanium. However, this top-down approach is difficult to control on an atomic level. The new procedure solves this problem.

Together with his team, Fässler established a synthesis methodology to fabricate the desired structures very precisely and reproducibly. The raw material is germanium with atoms arranged in clusters of nine. Since these clusters are electrically charged, they repel each other as long as they are dissolved. Netting only takes place when the solvent is evaporated.

This can be easily achieved by applying heat of 500 °C or it can be chemically induced, by adding germanium chloride, for example. By using other chlorides like phosphorous chloride the germanium structures can be easily doped. This allows the researchers to directly adjust the properties of the resulting nanomaterials in a very targeted manner.

Tiny synthetic beads as nanotemplates

To give the germanium clusters the desired porous structure, the LMU researcher Dr. Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing has developed a methodology to enable nanostructuring: Tiny polymer beads form three-dimensional templates in an initial step.

In the next step, the germanium-cluster solution fills the gaps between the beads. As soon as stable germanium networks have formed on the surface of the tiny beads, the templates are removed by applying heat. What remains is the highly porous nanofilm.

The deployed polymer beads have a diameter of 50 to 200 nanometers and form an opal structure. The germanium scaffold that emerges on the surface acts as a negative mold – an inverse opal structure is formed. Thus, the nanolayers shimmer like an opal.

“The porous germanium alone has unique optical and electrical properties that many energy relevant applications can profit from,” says LMU researcher Dr. Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing, who, in collaboration with Fässler, developed the material. “Beyond that, we can fill the pores with a wide variety of functional materials, thereby creating a broad range of novel hybrid materials.”

Nanolayers pave the road to portable photovoltaic solutions

“When combined with polymers, porous germanium structures are suitable for the development of a new generation of stable, extremely light-weight and flexible solar cells that can charge mobile phones, cameras and laptops while on the road,” explains the physicist Peter Müller-Buschbaum, professor of functional materials at TU Munich.

Manufacturers around the world are on the lookout for light-weight and robust materials to use in portable solar cells. To date they have used primarily organic compounds, which are sensitive and have relatively short lifetimes. Heat and light decompose the polymers and cause the performance to degrade. Here, the thin but robust germanium hybrid layers provide a real alternative.

Nanolayers for new battery systems

Next, the researchers want to use the new technology to manufacture highly porous silicon layers. The layers are currently being tested as anodes for rechargeable batteries. They could conceivably replace the graphite layers currently used in batteries to improve their capacity.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers are seeing the light, but in an altogether different way. And how they are doing it just might be the semiconductor industry’s ticket for extending its use of optical microscopes to measure computer chip features that are approaching 10 nanometers, tiny fractions of the wavelength of light.

Using a novel microscope that combines standard through-the-lens viewing with a technique called scatterfield imaging, the NIST team accurately measured patterned features on a silicon wafer that were 30 times smaller than the wavelength of light (450 nanometers) used to examine them. They report that measurements of the etched lines–as thin as 16 nanometers wide–on the SEMATECH-fabricated wafer were accurate to one nanometer. With the technique, they spotted variations in feature dimensions amounting to differences of a few atoms.

Measurements were confirmed by those made with an atomic force microscope, which achieves sub-nanometer resolution, but is considered too slow for online quality-control measurements. Combined with earlier results, the NIST researchers write, the new proof-of-concept study* suggests that the innovative optical approach could be a “realistic solution to a very challenging problem” facing chip makers and others aiming to harness advances in nanotechnology. All need the means for “nondestructive measurement of nanometer-scale structures with sub-nanometer sensitivity while still having high throughput.

“Light-based, or optical, microscopes can’t “see” features smaller than the wavelength of light, at least not in the crisp detail necessary for making accurate measurements. However, light does scatter when it strikes so-called subwavelength features and patterned arrangements of such features. “Historically, we would ignore this scattered light because it did not yield sufficient resolution,” explains Richard Silver, the physicist who initiated NIST’s scatterfield imaging effort. “Now we know it contains helpful information that provides signatures telling us something about where the light came from.”

With scatterfield imaging, Silver and colleagues methodically illuminate a sample with polarized light from different angles. From this collection of scattered light–nothing more than a sea of wiggly lines to the untrained eye–the NIST team can extract characteristics of the bounced lightwaves that, together, reveal the geometry of features on the specimen.

Light-scattering data are gathered in slices, which together image the volume of scattered light above and into the sample. These slices are analyzed and reconstructed to create a three-dimensional representation. The process is akin to a CT scan, except that the slices are collections of interfering waves, not cross-sectional pictures.

“It’s the ensemble of data that tells us what we’re after,” says project leader Bryan Barnes.” We may not be able see the lines on the wafer, but we can tell you what you need to know about them–their size, their shape, their spacing.”

Scatterfield imaging has critical prerequisites that must be met before it can yield useful data for high-accuracy measurements of exceedingly small features. Key steps entail detailed evaluation of the path light takes as it beams through lenses, apertures and other system elements before reaching the sample. The path traversed by light scattering from the specimen undergoes the same level of scrutiny. Fortunately, scatterfield imaging lends itself to thorough characterization of both sequences of optical devices, according to the researchers. These preliminary steps are akin to error mapping so that recognized sources of inaccuracy are factored out of the data.

The method also benefits from a little advance intelligence–the as-designed arrangement of circuit lines on a chip, down to the size of individual features. Knowing what is expected to be the result of the complex chip-making process sets up a classic matchup of theory vs. experiment.

The NIST researchers can use standard equations to simulate light scattering from an ideal, defect-free pattern and, in fact, any variation thereof. Using wave analysis software they developed, the team has assembled an indexed library of light-scattering reference models. So once a specimen is scanned, the team relies on computers to compare their real-world data to models and to find close matches.

From there, succeeding rounds of analysis homes in on the remaining differences, reducing them until the only ones that remain are due to variations in geometry such as irregularities in the height, width, or shape of a line.

Measurement results achieved with the NIST approach might be said to cast light itself in an entirely new light. Their new study, the researchers say, shows that once disregarded scattered light “contains a wealth of accessible optical information.”

Next steps include extending the technique to even shorter wavelengths of light, down to ultraviolet, or 193 nanometers. The aim is to accurately measure features as small as 5 nanometers.

This work is part of a larger NIST effort to supply measurement tools that enable the semiconductor industry to continue doubling the number of devices on a chip about every two years and to help other industries make products with nanoscale features. Recently, NIST and Intel researchers reported using an X-ray technique to accurately measure features on a silicon chip to within fractions of a nanometer.

Scientists and engineers are engaged in a global race to make new materials that are as thin, light and strong as possible. These properties can be achieved by designing materials at the atomic level, but they are only useful if they can leave the carefully controlled conditions of a lab.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have now created the thinnest plates that can be picked up and manipulated by hand.

Even though they are less than 100 nanometers thick, the researchers’ plates are strong enough to be picked up by hand and retain their shape after being bent and squeezed. Credit: University of Pennsylvania

Despite being thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper and hundreds of times thinner than household cling wrap or aluminum foil, their corrugated plates of aluminum oxide spring back to their original shape after being bent and twisted.

Like cling wrap, comparably thin materials immediately curl up on themselves and get stuck in deformed shapes if they are not stretched on a frame or backed by another material.

Being able to stay in shape without additional support would allow this material, and others designed on its principles, to be used in aviation and other structural applications where low weight is at a premium.

The study was led by Igor Bargatin, the Class of 1965 Term Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, along with lab member Keivan Davami, a postdoctoral scholar, and Prashant Purohit, an associate professor of mechanical engineering. Bargatin lab members John Cortes and Chen Lin, both graduate students; Lin Zhao, a former student in Engineering’s nanotechnology master’s program; and Eric Lu and Drew Lilley, undergraduate students in the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research, also contributed to the research.

They published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

“Materials on the nanoscale are often much stronger than you’d expect, but they can be hard to use on the macroscale” Bargatin said. “We’ve essentially created a freestanding plate that has nanoscale thickness but is big enough to be handled by hand. That hasn’t been done before.”

Graphene, which can be as thin as a single atom of carbon, has been the poster-child for ultra-thin materials since it’s discovery won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Graphene is prized for its electrical properties, but its mechanical strength is also very appealing, especially if it could stand on its own. However, graphene and other atomically thin films typically need to be stretched like a canvas in a frame, or even mounted on a backing, to prevent them from curling or clumping up on their own.

“The problem is that frames are heavy, making it impossible to use the intrinsically low weight of these ultra-thin films,” Bargatin said. “Our idea was to use corrugation instead of a frame. That means the structures we make are no longer completely planar, instead, they have a three-dimensional shape that looks like a honeycomb, but they are flat and contiguous and completely freestanding.”

“It’s like an egg carton, but on the nanoscale,” said Purohit.

The researchers’ plates are between 25 and 100 nanometers thick and are made of aluminum oxide, which is deposited one atomic layer at a time to achieve precise control of thickness and their distinctive honeycomb shape.

“Aluminum oxide is actually a ceramic, so something that is ordinarily pretty brittle,” Bargatin said. “You would expect it, from daily experience, to crack very easily. But the plates bend, twist, deform and recover their shape in such a way that you would think they are made out of plastic. The first time we saw it, I could hardly believe it.”

Once finished, the plates’ corrugation provides enhanced stiffness. When held from one end, similarly thin films would readily bend or sag, while the honeycomb plates remain rigid. This guards against the common flaw in un-patterned thin films, where they curl up on themselves.

This ease of deformation is tied to another behavior that makes ultra-thin films hard to use outside controlled conditions: they have the tendency to conform to the shape of any surface and stick to it due to Van der Waals forces. Once stuck, they are hard to remove without damaging them.

Totally flat films are also particularly susceptible to tears or cracks, which can quickly propagate across the entire material.

“If a crack appears in our plates, however, it doesn’t go all the way through the structure,” Davami said. “It usually stops when it gets to one of the vertical walls of the corrugation.”

The corrugated pattern of the plates is an example of a relatively new field of research: mechanical metamaterials. Like their electromagnetic counterparts, mechanical metamaterials achieve otherwise impossible properties from the careful arrangement of nanoscale features. In mechanical metamaterials’ case, these properties are things like stiffness and strength, rather than their ability to manipulate electromagnetic waves.

Other existing examples of mechanical metamaterials include “nanotrusses,” which are exceptionally lightweight and robust three-dimensional scaffolds made out of nanoscale tubes. The Penn researchers’ plates take the concept of mechanical metamaterials a step further, using corrugation to achieve similar robustness in a plate form and without the holes found in lattice structures.

That combination of traits could be used to make wings for insect-inspired flying robots, or in other applications where the combination of ultra-low thickness and mechanical robustness is critical.

“The wings of insects are a few microns thick, and can’t thinner because they’re made of cells,” Bargatin said. “The thinnest man-made wing material I know of is made by depositing a Mylar film on a frame, and it’s about half a micron thick. Our plates can be ten or more times thinner than that, and don’t need a frame at all. As a result, they weigh as little as than a tenth of a gram per square meter.”

By Sue Davis, Director of Business Development & Senior Analyst, Techcet

IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2015, held in Santa Clara, CA Nov 18-19, is one mega conference with 8 co-located tracks ranging from sensor technology & wearables to IoT, energy harvesting & storage to electric vehicles, 3D printing and graphene. IDTechEx completely occupied the Santa Clara Convention Center; throughout the day attendees and exhibitors commented attendance was up over prior years. To the dismay of some late arrivals, parking spaces were at a premium.

A venue with >200 exhibitors showcasing new technologies and applications connected conference attendees with equipment and materials suppliers, OEMs, end users, research institutes and academia.

Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, kicked off the conference by sharing a key trends including:

  • Structural electronics are here now!
  • The Fashion industry is converging with technology (and evidenced by a number of exhibitors from this sector)
  • Stretchable electronics R&D has ramped significantly in the last 12 months
  • Printed and flexible electronics manufacturing is becoming center stage

Dr. Mounir Zok, a keynote speaker and biomedical engineering specialist for the US Olympic committee started his talk with a quote “The blink of an eye dictates gold vs no medal.” He emphasized that technology is a key enabler to continually improve sports performance.

Highlights from exhibitors and speakers follow.

Keith McMillen, founder and CEO of BeBop Sensors and avid musician, shared his journey of developing smart fabric cylindrical sensors to analyze a violinist’s bow movement led to utilizing this technology for the Internet of Things and the founding of BeBop Sensors.

BeBop Sensor Examples

BeBop Sensor Examples

Dream car in every facet; aesthetics, functionality and environmental impact understates the design of the Blade Car. Keith Czinger, CEO and Founder of Divergent discussed the foundation for Blade’s development was deeply rooted in reducing environmental impact while ensuring high performance. Divergent reports that manual chassis assembly can be completed within 30 minutes utilizing its’ node network. Nodes are manufactured of a metal alloy and produced using 3D printers. The light and strong chassis is comprised of these nodes and with carbon fiber tubes.

Divergent Blade utilizing 3D printing for node-tube chassis

Divergent Blade utilizing 3D printing for node-tube chassis

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) manufactured via additive 3D printing technology, vs. conventional processing labor, material and time intensive processes was demonstrated at NanoDimension’s booth. Simon Fried, CMO and Co-Founder of NanoDimension discussed the benefit of 3D printed circuit boards (prototyping in hours vs weeks, design flexibility, process repeatability, …). In addition to development the DragonFly 3D printer, NanoDimension has developed a line of specialty conductive inks.

NanoDimension DragonFly 200 3D Printer

NanoDimension DragonFly 200 3D Printer

Sensoria Fitness has developed a line of wear fitness clothing and integrated running system that communicates with iOS and Android apps. A key use case is the gait analysis capability to assist with performance running and to assist clinicians with treatment plans for dysfunctional gait patterns.

Sensoria Fitness Socks (Innovation Awards at CES 2015 & IDTechEx 2015 USA)

Sensoria Fitness Socks (Innovation Awards at CES 2015 & IDTechEx 2015 USA)

View Technologies, a joint venture between Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. and RF Controls, has developed the inView Platform that enables 3rd party applications to run more efficiently and accurately. This platform is comprised of Echo antenna(s) and three tiers of service that allow you Locate, Track and Act depending on business needs. Location service provide as real-time stream of 3D position data for Passive UHF RFID tags.

View Technologies - Manufacturing Application

View Technologies – Manufacturing Application

Valencell develops high-performance biometric sensor technology and licenses its technology to a variety of consumer electronics manufacturers, mobile device and accessory makers, sports and fitness brands, gaming companies, and first-responder/military suppliers for integration into their products.

Products utilizing Valencell’s Biometric Sensor Technolgy

Products utilizing Valencell’s Biometric Sensor Technolgy

Another show highlight was Demonstration Street, a dedicated area on the show floor for product demonstrations in various stages of development – prototype to commercialization- featured printed flexible displays including posters, e-readers, audio paper, interactive games, OLED displays, electronics in fabrics, interactive printed controls and menus, printed RFID and more.

IDTechEx 2015 USA offered a myriad of opportunities to interact with technologists and exhibitors attend hundreds of insightful presentations. Master classes covering an array of topics and company tours bookended the two-day conference and exhibition. The main challenge was to create a “show plan” in hopes that one would be able to attend desired presentations and exhibits.

Security by design


November 13, 2015

Chowdary_Yanamadala-150x150By Chowdary Yanamadala, Senior Vice President of Business Development, ChaoLogix

The advent of Internet-connected devices, the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), offers myriad opportunities and significant risks. The pervasive collection and sharing of data by IoT devices constitutes the core value proposition for most IoT applications. However, it is our collective responsibility, as an industry, to secure the transport and storage of the data. Failing to properly secure the data risks turning the digital threat into a physical threat.  

Properly securing IoT systems requires layering security solutions. Data must be secured at both the network and hardware level. As a hardware example, let’s concentrate, on the embedded security implemented by semiconductor chips.

Authentication and encryption are the two main crypto functions utilized to ensure data security. With the mathematical security of the standardized algorithms (such as AES, ECDSA, SHA512, etc.) is intact, hackers often exploit the implementation defects to compromise the inherent security provided by the algorithms.

One of the most dangerous and immediate threats to data security is a category of attacks called Side Chanel Analysis attacks (SCA). SCA attacks exploit the power consumption signature during the execution of the crypto algorithms. This type of attack is called Differential Power Analysis (DPA). Another potent attack form of SCA is exploiting the Electromagnetic emanations that are occurring during the execution of the crypto algorithm – or Differential Electromagnetic Analysis attacks (DEMA).

Both DPA and DEMA attacks rely on the fact that sensitive data, such as secret keys, leaks via the power signature (or EM signature) during execution of the crypto algorithm.

DPA and DEMA attacks are especially dangerous, not only because of their effectiveness in exploiting security vulnerabilities but also due the low cost of the equipment required for the attack. An attacker can carry out DPA attacks against most security chips using equipment costing less than $2,000.

There are two fundamental ways to solve the threat of DPA and DEMA. One approach is to address the symptoms of the problem. This involves adding significant noise to the power signature in order to obfuscate the sensitive data leakage. This is an effective technique.  However, it is an ad-hoc and temporary measure against a potent threat to data security. Chip manufacturers can also apply this technique as a security patch, or afterthought, once  and architecture work is completed.

Another way (and arguably a much better way) to solve the threat of DPA is to address the problem at the source. The source of the threat derives from the leakage of sensitive data the form of power signature variations. The power signature captured during the crypto execution is dependent on the secret key that is processed during the crypto execution. This makes the power signature indicative of the secret key.

What if we address the problem by minimizing the relation between the power signature and the secret key that is used for crypto computation? Wouldn’t this offer a superior security? Doesn’t addressing the problem at the source provide more fundamental security? And arguably a more permanent security solution?

Data security experts call this Security By Design. It is obvious that solving a problem at the source is a fundamentally better approach than providing symptomatic relief to the problems. This is true in the case of data security as well. In order to achieve the solution (against the threat of DPA and DEMA) at the source, chip designers and architects need to build the security into the architecture.

Security needs to be a deliberate design specification and needs to be worked into the fabric of the design. Encouragingly, more and more chip designers are moving away from addressing security as an afterthought and embracing security by design.

As an industry, we design chips for performance, power, yield and testability. Now it is time to start designing for security. This is especially true for chips used in IoT applications. These chips tend to be small, have limited computational power and under tight cost constraints. It is, therefore, difficult, and in some cases impossible, to apply security patches as an afterthought. The sound approach is to start weaving security into the building blocks of these chips.

In sum, designing security into a chip is as much about methodology as it is about acquiring various technology and tools. As IoT applications expand and the corresponding demand for inherently secure chips grows, getting this methodology right will be a key to successful deployment of secure IoT systems.

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