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- Volume 8, Issue 2, 2016
Micro and Nanosystems - Volume 8, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 8, Issue 2, 2016
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Leading Edge R on Micro-Nano-Bio-Info Technologies and Integrated Systems: An Overview of EU-Funded Activities
Authors: Ana Sofía Morillo-Candas, Andreas Lymberis and Eric Fribourg-BlancBackground: Research and development at the edge of micro & nano electronics, nanotechnologies, photonics, materials and biotechnology and their integration into smart miniaturised systems open new opportunities for better quality of life. The area has received substantial public funding and support from the late 90s from the European Union Research Framework Programmes, including the currently running Horizon 2020. We undertook data collection, clustering and analysis of 119 projects (with about 500 M EU funding and 890 public and private organisations) covering the area of Micro-Nano-Bio-info technologies and Systems (MNBS) to document the allocation of public money spent on research, development and innovation in this field, to identify synergies, gaps and major trends as well as to verify the alignment with the relevant EU policies and define future challenges and next opportunities for support. Methodology: The projects, funded through several topics of the EC programmes, e.g. Bio-electronics, Biophotonics, Nanomedicine and Healthcare & Well-Being, have been clustered through a semi-automated process based on text mining, using RapidMiner software, with the text describing the projects and their tasks as the input. Text mining-based clustering is grounded in the words contained in the documents provided, and includes basically 2 steps: (i) document pre-processing and (ii) document clustering based on the word frequencies. The hierarchical clustering obtained provide us information related to the proximity of the projects with regard to the meaningful words related to the technologies, processes, applications, etc., which have been kept. This type of grouping provides certainty that projects are grouped with the closest projects in terms of overall content (e.g. objectives, tasks and technologies involved). Results: Classification: Eleven differentiated project categories have been defined, each containing from 6 to 17 projects. These categories can be further re-grouped in broader categories in several ways depending on the purpose, e.g. considering the link to either in-vivo (patient-centred devices) or in-vitro (portable devices and systems and analytical detection platforms) applications, to the level of portability (portable devices vs. platforms), or to the manufacturing importance. Participating (EU and non-EU) organisations include research and academic (37%), private companies (56%), end-users e.g. hospitals or clinical related institutions (4,7%) as well as public authorities and endusers associations in health, food and environment sectors (2,3%). Participation: The participants come from European countries and from Russia, Australia, Japan and the United States. The EU funding is spread all over Europe, though higher concentration is observed in the Western part of Europe. Driving forces: the large majority of projects is driven by two main requirements i.e. avoid the use of specialized laboratory- based (mainly hospital-centred), skilled labour-handled, expensive and time-consuming bio-samples and data analysis; and achieve lower cost, quasi-real-time monitoring or analysis using non-specialized infrastructures, at the Point of Care/Need (out-of-lab). Achievements and Challenges: overall the projects have delivered significant technological progress beyond the state-of-the-art and in some cases integrated prototypes have been validated at the laboratory and in fewer cases tested in real application environments. However, further R effort is needed in order to achieve better and compatible interfaces, higher system integration and technology readiness level, better connectivity, efficient manufacturing processes & technologies and validation in real application conditions. Additionally, a critical collaborative effort should be put on effective technology translation of research into new products, speeding up product development, market introduction and cost reduction. This should encompass product design, supply chain setup, user targeting, clinical validation, manufacturing and commercial roll-out. Conclusion: The projects' portfolio analysis allowed sizing the EU funding and clustering of MNBS research and innovation activities, as well as identifying synergies, major trends, gaps and lessons to be learned for future public investment. Supporting further system integration and validation in real life environments as well as the creation of collaborative interdisciplinary platforms and innovation ecosystems will strongly contribute to new business and markets. It will accelerate the digitization of the European industry in key sectors like healthcare, food and security and support innovation through the full supply chains, thus will positively impact the EU's single market fit for the digital age.
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MEMS Applications of NiTi Based Shape Memory Alloys: A Review
Authors: Mehrshad Mehrpouya and Hossein Cheraghi BidsorkhiShape Memory Alloys (SMAs), famous class of smart materials with unique functional and intelligence properties, have attracted much attention in recent decades. These materials offer a potential solution for microstructure devices due to their high mechanical performances, high power to weight ratio, large deformation, biocompatibility, etc. Nickel-Titanium (NiTi) is the most applied SMAs thin film due to its high recoverable strain and massive forces. Therefore, these high-performance materials are able to make microactuators in Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS). This paper investigates the recent development of material processing approaches for NiTi thin films and introduces various types of MEMS applications such as microvalves, micropumps, microgrippers, microsensors, etc.
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Gold Nanoparticle-Mediated High-Performance Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Detection of Tuberculosis ESAT-6 Protein
Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a life-threatening human disease and ESAT-6 protein in TB is vital for the effective diagnosis, treatment, disease prevention and control. ESAT-6 is an early secretory protein by the pathogen (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), a suitable candidate to detect TB at an early stage. Methods: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is the standard assay used to detect pathogens with higher sensitivity. Since Gold nanoparticle (GNP) is a sensitivity improvement material in biosensor, in this study, we proposed ELISA combined GNP to detect the low abundance of ESAT-6. Results: GNP-assisted ELISA exhibited ~7.5-fold improved detection compared to the conventional ELISA. Larger (80 nm) sized GNP provided a higher sensitivity than smaller (10 nm) sized GNP. The detection limit of this method has attained the level of 1 nM of ESAT-6. Conclusion: This method can be used to detect the presence of ESAT-6 and provides a model for sensitive detection of other pathogens such as HIV and Influenza.
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Mitigation of Contact Bounces in Electrostatically Actuated Nonprismatic Microbeams
Authors: Rajendra K. Godara and Manish M. JoglekarBackground: This article presents a feedforward control technique to mitigate the contact bounces in electrostatically driven beam type nonprismatic microswitches. A comprehensive electromechanical model incorporates the effect of variable electrode geometry, large displacement effects, fringing field effect and squeeze film damping. The model allows the movable electrode to make an elastic contact with the dielectric substrate. In the investigation, the dielectric substrate is modeled as nonlinear spring-damper system. In order to discretize the resulting partial differential equation into ordinary differential equations, the Galerkin’s method is applied. The proposed technique relies on force equilibrium at a point during the transition between ON and OFF state of the switch. In order get reduced switching time variations in the geometry of the micro switch are exploited. The maximum reduction in switching time is 48% in the case of fixed-free microbeam and 54% in the case of the fixed-fixed microswitch. It is observed that the proposed technique mitigates the contact bounces significantly with reduced switching time. Methods: A feedforward control technique is proposed for controlling the contact bounces of electrostatically driven nonprismatic microbeams. To obtain the fundamental eigenfrequencies and associated modes shapes of nonprismatic microbeams the differential transform technique is employed. Further, to simulate the electromechanical response of electrostatically actuated beam type nonprismatic microswitches the Galerkin’s modal superposition technique is used. Results: A feed-forward control technique has been devised in order to suppress the contact bounces in the continuous microsystems. Further, the geometry variation of the micro switches is exploited in order to get reduced switching time. It has been demonstrated that over the range of taper parameter taken into consideration the proposed control strategy works well and is able to suppress the contact bounces significantly. Conclusion: The simultaneous application of nonlinear shapes of microbeams and proposed feedforward control technique result into the enhanced dynamic performance of the electrostatic MEMS switches.
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Doping Level Effect on the Luminescence Efficiency of Tb3+/Tb4+-Doped BaWO4 Phosphors Prepared by a Sol-Gel Process
By H.-Y. HeBackground: Rare earth ions in many matrices can emit various luminescences under ultraviolet and/or infrared excitation and so have widely studied for many luminescence applications such as in fluorescent lamps, cathode ray tubes, X-ray intensifying screens, etc. Terbium (Tb) ion is commonly one of the trivalent rare earth ions and widely used for green phosphors material. Method: The Tb-doped BaWO4 phosphor powders with Tb content of 0–7.5 at.% were fabricated with a sol-gel method. X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and photoluminescence spectra analysis were used to characterize the microstructural and photoluminescence efficiency. Conclusion: The effect of Tb doping level was studied. Granular particle morphology and decreased nano-scale average particles size with increasing Tb-doping level were observed. The Tb3+/Tb4+ in the BaWO4 matrix showed green emission with cool color temperature of 12764 K. A maximal doping level of Tb3+/Tb4+ cation was observed for a highest emission efficiency of Tb3+/Tb4+ cation.
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Study on Design Modification of Serpentine Micromixers for Better Throughput for Microfluidic Circuitry
Authors: Pranjal Sarma and Promod K. PatowariBackground: Mixing of fluids and reagents at the micro level is a very crucial phenomenon for various microfluidic applications. Objective: This work focuses on the analysis of serpentine micromixers and various design modifications of them for faster and better mixing purpose. Method: CFD simulations of the designed micromixers have been carried out at an ultra-low Reynolds number region (Re < 0.25). The designs are modified by incorporating obstacles on their walls in terms of different obstacles. Also a new design of micromixer, the garland micromixer is proposed and its micromixing performance characteristics are evaluated. Results: Numerical analyses with COMSOL Multiphysics reveal that placing obstacles to the flow in the micromixer can enhance the mixing process significantly. Rectangular shaped obstacles give the better mixing results than the triangular shaped obstacles; on the other hand the triangular shaped obstacles are associated with the least pressure drop among the protruded geometries of the serpentine micromixers. Moreover, the layout having obstacles placed at the mid horizontal portion is giving better mixing as compared to placing obstacle of same size and shape at the corners. Study shows that the mixing efficiency increases as the length of the obstacle increases with a slight deviation as in the case when the obstacles form symmetrical structure with another design element. Conclusion: The proposed garland design of micromixer is found to be better than the existing serpentine designs for micromixing. These designing concepts can be further explored in conjunction with other flow manipulation techniques for getting enhanced mixing performance.
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