Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are found in common household and industrial products. These toxic and/or carcinogenic compounds such as toluene, benzene and styrene are difficult to detect and pers...
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Proteins contain carboxyl groups. These charged groups make it difficult for any protein to enter a human (or other eukaryotic) cell. Modifying proteins to enter cells could revolutionize medicine, e....
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Germanium (Ge), a group-IV semiconductor material, is crucial to many established and potential technologies. In optoelectronics, Ge has been used as a photodetector material for on-chip data distribu...
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Surface mounted and exposed sensors are used in objects commonly found in a modern society that range from simple temperature monitors to complex airbag ejection systems. But sensors located on the su...
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Load bearing structures experience stresses and/or strains that deform the material from which they are made. Regardless of a building component’s size, exposure to or tolerance for stress and s...
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Electrodes routinely are used in electrochemical sensing, fuel cells, batteries and numerous other applications. Critically, the surface of an electrode must be clean before sensing elements can be at...
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Tracking emissions, sensing earthquakes and monitoring patient brain waves are just a few of the applications that rely on changing, real-world information. In typical systems, sensors pass on raw dat...
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In ultrasonic welding, work pieces are clamped between a horn and anvil and then joined using high-frequency vibration energy. Friction and heat between the surfaces causes them to soften and meld tog...
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Remote spectrographic measurements can be made using a fiber optic guide attached to a “U-bench,” an optical component that supports a light emitter opposite from a light collector or a mirror acr...
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Detection of magnetic fluctuations is vital to endeavors from space navigation to oil exploration. UW–Madison researchers previously developed a method that utilizes sensitive alkali atoms—polariz...
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A magnetometer is a scientific instrument used to measure the strength and/or direction of magnetic fields. It has applications in areas such as navigation systems, geophysics and drilling/mining expl...
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Liquid crystal materials are promising candidates for many sensing and interfacial applications. Liquid crystals respond to and amplify small changes in temperature, electric or magnetic fields, shear...
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Placing sensors that can monitor properties such as temperature and strain directly into a manufacturing environment can allow effective monitoring and control of manufacturing processes. By continuou...
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Night vision systems utilize cameras that are sensitive to wavelengths such as infrared (IR) to produce image frames. The IR image frames may be displayed alone in sequence to provide a moving picture...
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Power converters change energy from one form to another form more suitable to a specific application. Parallel power converter modules for power sources, such as those used for computer servers, have ...
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Liquid crystals can serve as molecular magnifying glasses, amplifying molecular and biomolecular events so they may be seen with the naked eye.  Microwells and other microfabricated structures pr...
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Controlled micrometer-scale oil droplets have applications in nano-materials, meso-materials, responsive materials, optical materials, filters, sensors and opto-electronic technologies.  Emulsion...
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Embedding sensors into a mass of material allows them to assess the material in a way that is not often possible with surface-mounted sensors. In addition, it is frequently necessary to embed sensors ...
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PIN diodes are semiconductor devices that include an undoped intrinsic semiconductor region between the p-type and n-type regions. These diodes are commonly integrated as photodetectors on silicon CMO...
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Currently, most schemes for detecting bioagents or other biological molecules are based on relatively complex electronic, photonic and/or electrochemical methods, or on more elegant biomolecular metho...
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Most schemes for detecting toxins or other chemicals are based on complex electronic, photonic and/or electrochemical methods, or on more elegant biomolecular methods, such as ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Imm...
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Sensors currently used for detecting the presence of a given analyte, such as a toxin, in solution or in air require direct contact with a power supply. Distributed sensing systems or “sensor ne...
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Liquid crystals have been widely explored for applications such as display and sensing technologies. Lyotropic liquid crystals, which become more ordered as they become more concentrated within a solv...
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