Sensors and biosensors articles within Nature Materials

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  • Article |

    The magnetism-mediated assembly of non-Brownian magnetic colloidal particles into a three-dimensional oriented and ramified magnetic network yields permanent fluidic magnets that are used in a self-powered, liquid-based wireless cardiovascular sensor.

    • Xun Zhao
    • , Yihao Zhou
    •  & Jun Chen

  • Research Briefing |

    Soft pressure sensors drift under prolonged high stress because of the creep of soft materials, which causes inaccurate measurements. Now, through molecular-level design, a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte elastomer is synthesized, and an iontronic sensor using the polyelectrolyte elastomer shows very low signal drift under a high static pressure.

  • Article |

    Conventional iontronic pressure sensors suffer from signal drift and inaccuracy owing to creep of soft materials and ion leakage. Here the authors report a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte-elastomer-based iontronic sensor that achieves a drift rate two to three orders of magnitude lower than those of conventional iontronic sensors.

    • Yunfeng He
    • , Yu Cheng
    •  & Chuan Fei Guo

  • Feature |

    Frustrated by reproducibility in electrical measurements on ferroelectric films, Lane Martin, Jon-Paul Maria and Darrell Schlom discuss tactics to reliably synthesize ‘good’ ferroelectric samples, especially in the search for superior materials and device heterostructures.

    • Lane W. Martin
    • , Jon-Paul Maria
    •  & Darrell G. Schlom

  • Article |

    Solid-state pressure sensors have performance limitations in liquid environments. Here, the authors design a pressure sensor using solid–liquid–liquid–gas multiphasic interfaces where a trapped air layer modulates capacitance changes with pressure to achieve near-friction-free contact line motions for near-ideal pressure sensing.

    • Wen Cheng
    • , Xinyu Wang
    •  & Benjamin C. K. Tee

  • News & Views |

    Nanomembranes of GaN grown by remote epitaxy form the basis of surface acoustic wave sensors in wireless electronic skins for health monitoring.

    • Jong Uk Kim
    • , Seung Gi Seo
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • News & Views |

    Slow, tunable dissociation of non-covalent host–guest complexes confers supramolecular polymer networks with excellent compressive strength and self-recovery.

    • Matthew J. Webber

  • Article |

    Stacked elastomeric arrays containing plasmonic nanoparticles show efficient chiral responses that can be fully controlled by mechanical compression and stack rotation. These simple layered materials may be useful modulators for photonic applications.

    • Patrick T. Probst
    • , Martin Mayer
    •  & Andreas Fery

  • News & Views |

    Organic neuromorphic devices are now able to take direct input from cellular neurotransmitter release.

    • Tobias Cramer

  • Letter |

    A cell culture interfacing an organic neuromorphic device in a microfluidic system reversibly modifies the device synaptic weight through chemical reactions mediated by the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter used in biological synapses.

    • Scott T. Keene
    • , Claudia Lubrano
    •  & Francesca Santoro

  • News & Views |

    A high-speed, high-gain enhancement-mode ion-gated transistor shows promise for low-power chronically implanted bioelectronic systems.

    • Scott Keene
    •  & Yoeri van de Burgt

  • Article |

    Sensing hydrogen by the change in plasmonic response upon metal hydride formation is safe, but trace gas poisoning and low sensitivity can occur. Here, a PdAu alloy/polymer sensor is poison resistant and can sense 3 ppm H2 with a response time of 1 s.

    • Ferry A. A. Nugroho
    • , Iwan Darmadi
    •  & Christoph Langhammer

  • Editorial |

    Much academic and industrial effort has been devoted to the study of multiferroics, but if related technologies are to have real-world impact, market awareness and reproducibility are also key.

  • Q&A |

    Nian Sun, a professor at Northeastern University (Electrical and Computer Engineering Department), talks to Nature Materials about the potential applications of multiferroic materials, and issues associated with commercializing these technologies.

    • Stephen Shevlin

  • News & Views |

    Use of graphene in a transistor configuration offers an alternative to metal electrodes for the recording of ultraslow neural potentials that occur in neurologic diseases.

    • Jed A. Hartings

  • Article |

    Tuning ionic permeation across nanoscale pores is important for areas ranging from nanofluidic computing to drug delivery. Complex formation between crown ethers and dissolved metal ions is used to demonstrate graphene-based ion channels with high mechanosensitivity.

    • A. Fang
    • , K. Kroenlein
    •  & A. Smolyanitsky

  • News & Views |

    Ultrahigh piezoelectricity in relaxor-ferroelectric ceramics is engineered by chemical and structural heterogeneities at the nanoscale.

    • Barbara Malic
    •  & Tadej Rojac

  • Article |

    Simulations were used to investigate the effects of local structural heterogeneity on piezoelectricity in ceramics. From this, a Sm-doped PMN–PT composition was designed with an extremely high piezoelectric coefficient for polycrystalline systems.

    • Fei Li
    • , Dabin Lin
    •  & Shujun Zhang

  • News & Views |

    • Philip Ball

  • Editorial |

    Medical professionals and robotics engineers count on materials scientists for the development of electronic skins with lifelike tactile sensing capabilities.

  • Commentary |

    Tactile sensors provide robots with the ability to interact with humans and the environment with great accuracy, yet technical challenges remain for electronic-skin systems to reach human-level performance.

    • Chiara Bartolozzi
    • , Lorenzo Natale
    •  & Giorgio Metta

  • News & Views |

    An implantable, flexible mesh with embedded electrodes for sensing neural activity in vivo improves brain-sampling efficiency and reduces the amount of cortical tissue injured.

    • Tarun Saxena
    •  & Ravi V. Bellamkonda

  • News & Views |

    Ultrathin and conformal piezoelectric transducers enable high-resolution mapping of the mechanical properties of human skin.

    • Stéphanie P. Lacour

  • Article |

    A strategy for assessing blood microcirculation and tissue hydration relies on monitoring the temperature and thermal conductivity of skin, respectively. It is now shown that arrays of micrometre-sized sensors and heaters can be integrated on stretchable substrates that conformably adhere to the skin; these devices allow spatially resolved heating and real-time temperature mapping in patients without limiting their motion.

    • R. Chad Webb
    • , Andrew P. Bonifas
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • Letter |

    Flexible devices mimicking the sensitivity of human skin typically turn pressure stimuli into electronic signals, which must be further processed to be interpreted by the user. By integrating an active matrix of organic light-emitting diodes in these foldable sensors, pressure can now control the brightness of each coloured pixel, enabling the direct visualization and quantification of the applied stimulus.

    • Chuan Wang
    • , David Hwang
    •  & Ali Javey

  • Article |

    A transparent organic field-effect transistor allows the stimulation and recording of the bioelectrical activity of primary neural cells. The cells grow, differentiate and function on the device, which then provides the electrical stimulation, and enables the recording of extracellular current and optical imaging of the modulation of neuronal membrane potential.

    • Valentina Benfenati
    • , Stefano Toffanin
    •  & Michele Muccini

  • Article |

    The monitoring of cell survival and functionality following their in vivo transplantation remains a challenge in clinical cell therapy. Now, using magnetic resonance imaging techniques and microcapsules with pH-sensitive components, in vivo cell death and cell viability patterns can be assessed with high anatomical accuracy.

    • Kannie W. Y. Chan
    • , Guanshu Liu
    •  & Michael T. McMahon

  • News & Views |

    A biocompatible method for fabricating three-dimensional photonic crystals opens up unique opportunities for structurally coloured biodegradable materials, but also for implantable biosensing and targeted therapeutics on the microscale.

    • Jennifer MacLeod
    •  & Federico Rosei

  • Letter |

    A suitably engineered plasmonic metamaterial featuring topologically protected sharp phase variations close to a zero-reflection point of incident lightwaves has now been demonstrated. Exploiting the high sensitivity of the abrupt phase changes, and by using reversible hydrogenation of graphene and binding of streptavidin–biotin, the detection of individual biomolecules and an areal mass sensitivity of the order of fg mm−2 is reported.

    • V. G. Kravets
    • , F. Schedin
    •  & A. N. Grigorenko

  • Article |

    Nanoplasmonic structures that can detect trace analytes via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy typically require sophisticated nanofabrication techniques. Self-assembly of gold nanoparticles into close-packed arrays at liquid/liquid and liquid/air interfaces is now used for the detection of multi-analytes from aqueous, organic or air phases.

    • Michael P. Cecchini
    • , Vladimir A. Turek
    •  & Joshua B. Edel

  • News & Views |

    Toxic metal cations in environmental samples can be detected with ultrahigh sensitivity through measurements of the tunnelling current across crosslinked films of nanoparticles decorated with striped monolayers of organic ligands.

    • Knut Rurack

  • Article |

    Solid-state sensors for the detection of heavy-metal cations require for the most part sophisticated chemistry and equipment. It is now shown that toxic cations in environmental samples can be detected with ultrahigh sensitivity and over a broad range of cation concentrations by measuring the tunnelling current across films of nanoparticles decorated with striped monolayers of organic ligands.

    • Eun Seon Cho
    • , Jiwon Kim
    •  & Bartosz A. Grzybowski

  • Article |

    Flexible strain-gauge sensors, which could eventually be used in electronic skin, generally require complex device architectures. A simple and highly sensitive resistive sensor for the detection of pressure, shear and torsion with discernible strain-gauge factors has now been fabricated using two interlocked arrays of platinum-coated polymer nanofibres.

    • Changhyun Pang
    • , Gil-Yong Lee
    •  & Kahp-Yang Suh

  • News & Views |

    Enzyme-modified plasmonic nanoparticles that generate a signal that is larger when the concentration of the target molecule is lower can detect ultralow levels of the cancer biomarker prostate-specific antigen in whole serum.

    • Mikael Käll

  • Letter |

    Conventional sensors generate a signal that is directly proportional to the concentration of the target molecule. Now, by means of an enzyme that controls the growth of silver nanocrystals on plasmonic transducers, a nanosensor with sensitivity that is inversely proportional to concentration and that can detect ultralow concentrations of the cancer biomarker prostate-specific antigen in whole serum is demonstrated.

    • Laura Rodríguez-Lorenzo
    • , Roberto de la Rica
    •  & Molly M. Stevens

  • Article |

    Magnetoelectric composite materials are of interest for sensitive magnetic-field sensors. The realization of a magnetoelectric composite that does not require an applied external magnetic field, but instead relies on internal bias via exchange coupling, promises sensitive sensors even for small magnetic fields.

    • Enno Lage
    • , Christine Kirchhof
    •  & Dirk Meyners

  • Letter |

    The slow decay of photoconductivity in amorphous oxide semiconductors hampers their use in photosensor arrays with viable frame rates. A gated sensor architecture now provides direct control over the Fermi-level position in the semiconductor layer, and eliminates persistent photoconductivity by accelerating electron recombination with ionized oxygen vacancy sites.

    • Sanghun Jeon
    • , Seung-Eon Ahn
    •  & Kinam Kim

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