Flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on interdigital electrodes with porous microneedle arrays for physiological signal monitoring

Flexible pressure sensors have many potential applications in the monitoring of physiological signals because of their good biocompatibil-ity and wearability.However,their relatively low sensitivity,linearity,and stability have hindered their large-scale commercial application.Herein,aflexible capacitive pressure sensor based on an interdigital electrode structure with two porous microneedle arrays(MNAs)is pro-posed.The porous substrate that constitutes the MNA is a mixed product of polydimethylsiloxane and NaHCO3.Due to its porous and interdigital structure,the maximum sensitivity(0.07 kPa-1)of a porous MNA-based pressure sensor was found to be seven times higher than that of an imporous MNA pressure sensor,and it was much greater than that of aflat pressure sensor without a porous MNA structure.Finite-element analysis showed that the interdigital MNA structure can greatly increase the strain and improve the sensitivity of the sen-sor.In addition,the porous MNA-based pressure sensor was found to have good stability over 1500 loading cycles as a result of its bilayer parylene-enhanced conductive electrode structure.Most importantly,it was found that the sensor could accurately monitor the motion of afinger,wrist joint,arm,face,abdomen,eye,and Adam’s apple.Furthermore,preliminary semantic recognition was achieved by monitoring the movement of the Adam’s apple.Finally,multiple pressure sensors were integrated into a 33 array to detect a spatial pressure distribu-×tion.Compared to the sensors reported in previous works,the interdigital electrode structure presented in this work improves sensitivity and stability by modifying the electrode layer rather than the dielectric layer.

Near-infrared metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector based on semi-insulating GaAs and interdigital electrodes

Metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors on semi-insulating Ga As with interdigital electrodes showed significant enhancement in the spectral response in the near-infrared region as the electrode spacing is reduced. The photocurrent for the device with 5 μm interdigital spacing is five orders of magnitude higher than the dark current, and the room temperature detectivity is on the order of 2.4 × 1012cm Hz1∕2W-1at 5 V bias. Furthermore,the spectral response of this device possesses strong dependence on the polarization of incident light showing potential plasmonic effects with only microscale dimensions. These experimental data were analyzed using optical simulation to confirm the response of the devices.

Polyaniline Based Gas Sensor for NO_2 by Langmuir-Blodgett Technology

In this paper,pure polyaniline (PAN:Emeraldine base (EB) form) films and the mixed LB films of PAN and acetic acid (AA) with various layers were prepared by Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique.PAN based gas sensors were fabricated by deposited PAN based LB thin films on the interdigitated electrodes.The gas-sensitivity to NO_2 of PAN based gas sensors with different layers was studied.It is found that pure polyaniline LB films present higher sensitivity,responsivity and reversibility to NO_2 gas compared with polyaniline and acetic acid mixed LB films.The response time of 3-layer and 15-layer pure polyaniline LB films to 20μg/g NO_2 gas is about 10 s and 30 s,respectively.The recovery time of the 15-layer pure polyaniline LB films is close to 5 min.

Coupling electro-mechanical behaviors in the interdigital electrode device of ferroelectrics

The electro-mechanical coupling behaviors of ferroelectric devices with interdigital electrodes may become complicated due to the material inhomogeneity and local field concentration under the complex working conditions.In this paper,a ferroelectric model,drawn from the typical interdigital electrode structure of a ferroelectric sensor,is established based on phase field theory,to study the polarization evolution and explore the evolution laws in ferroelectrics.Numerical results show that there appears ferroelectric creep even under an applied electric field below the coercive field value.Also,the configurational force theory is introduced to investigate the mechanical behaviors related to polarization switching in the ferroelectric samples with interdigital electrodes.It is found that configurational force and polarization have similar evolution laws in both time evolving and space distribution.And considering the configurational force as the driving force,it is possible to predict the potential direction of polarization evolution and explore its evolution mechanism in ferroelectrics,demonstrating the configurational force as a useful parameter for describing mechanical behavior during the polarization evolution and a powerful tool for investigating the evolution mechanism of microstructure with coupling effects in ferroelectric materials.

Efficiency of terahertz detection in electro-optic polymer sensors with interdigitated coplanar electrodes

We discuss the efficiency of an electro-optic （EO） polymer sensor with interdigitated coplanar electrodes. The developed EO sensor is used to detect terahertz radiation via EO sampling. Results show that the sensor improves more significantly detection sensitivity than does a sensor with sandwich configurations.

通过柔性微针阵列集成的叉指电极装置产生电刺激用于癌症免疫治疗

免疫疗法通过化学或生物制剂来激活免疫系统,改变了癌症治疗的传统方式.但大多数免疫类药物在肿瘤组织内的渗透性差,容易产生副作用而使疗效不尽人意.电刺激疗法是一种新颖的癌症疗法,其可以不利用化学、生物制剂产生抑癌效果,但存在操作复杂和难以制备微米级小型电刺激装置的问题.本文通过将光学3D微打印技术与化学镀工艺结合,成功制备了柔性微针阵列集成的叉指电极装置.其能够生成交变电场触发肿瘤细胞内线粒体的钙离子过载和细胞内活性氧的产生,导致损伤相关分子模式释放,从而激活免疫应答并引起肿瘤免疫原性细胞死亡.实验结果显示,本文的通电微针装置具有良好的生物安全性和全身抑瘤作用,抑制了原发肿瘤和远处肿瘤的生长以及黑色素瘤肺转移.因此,本文将电刺激与免疫疗法相结合,为无药物癌症治疗提供了新方向并为癌症治疗领域提供了创新思路.

Au modified ZnO nanowires for ethanol gas sensing

We demonstrated the application of sensors for ethanol gas detection.The ZnO nanowires based sensors with interdigital electrodes were fabricated,and a platform was constructed to test the properties of the sensors.To acquire better response and shorter response/recovery time,the ZnO nanowires were modified with Au.The ethanol gas sensing performance of the pure sensors and those modified with Au nanoparticles were investigated for comparison,and the optimal test temperature of 350℃ was obtained.We found that the response/recovery time for the modified sensor towards 500 ppm of the ethanol gas was reduced by 1.35 and1.42 times compared with the pure sensors,and the sensitivities towards 500 and 10 ppm of the ethanol gas were also increased by 3.18 and 1.35 times,respectively.These proved the enhancement of the Au nanoparticles in the ZnO nanowires based sensors for ethanol gas sensing.

Epitaxial growth and in-plane dielectric properties of orthorhombic HoMnO_3 films

Orthorhombic HoMnO3(HMO) thin films were grown epitaxially on LaAlO3(001) substrates by using pulsed laser deposition technique. The films showed perfect orthorhombic crystallization and were well-aligned with the substrates. The in-plane dielectric constant and loss of HMO films were measured as functions of temperature(80–300 K) and frequency(120 Hz–100 kHz) by using coplanar interdigital electrodes. Two thermally activated dielectric relaxations were found, and the respective peaks shifted to higher temperatures as the measuring frequency increased. The in-plane dielectric properties of epitaxial orthorhombic HMO films were considered as universal dielectric response behavior, and the dipolar effects and the hopping conductivity induced by the charge carriers were used to explain the results.