pH-sensing materials and configurations are rapidly evolving toward exciting new applications, especially those in biomedical applications. In this review, we highlight rapid progress in electrochemical pH sensors over the past decade (2008–2018) with an emphasis on key considerations, such as materials selection, system configurations, and testing protocols. In addition to recent progress in optical pH sensors, our main focus in this review is on electromechanical pH sensors due to their significant advances, especially in biomedical applications. We summarize developments of electrochemical pH sensors that by virtue of their optimized material chemistries (from metal oxides to polymers) and geometrical features (from thin films to quantum dots) enable their adoption in biomedical applications. We further present an overview of necessary sensing standards and protocols. Standards ensure the establishment of consistent protocols, facilitating collective understanding of results and building on the current state. Furthermore, they enable objective benchmarking of various pH-sensing reports, materials, and systems, which is critical for the overall progression and development of the field. Additionally, we list critical issues in recent literary reporting and suggest various methods for objective benchmarking. pH regulation in the human body and state-of-the-art pH sensors (from ex vivo to in vivo) are compared for suitability in biomedical applications. We conclude our review by (i) identifying challenges that need to be overcome in electrochemical pH sensing and (ii) providing an outlook on future research along with insights, in which the integration of various pH sensors with advanced electronics can provide a new platform for the development of novel technologies for disease diagnostics and prevention.
Solid-state memory is an essential component of the digital age. With advancements in healthcare technology and the Internet of Things (IoT), the demand for ultra-dense, ultra-low-power memory is increasing. In this review, we present a comprehensive perspective on the most notable approaches to the fabrication of physically flexible memory devices. With the future goal of replacing traditional mechanical hard disks with solid-state storage devices, a fully flexible electronic system will need two basic devices: transistors and nonvolatile memory. Transistors are used for logic operations and gating memory arrays, while nonvolatile memory (NVM) devices are required for storing information in the main memory and cache storage. Since the highest density of transistors and storage structures is manifested in memories, the focus of this review is flexible NVM. Flexible NVM components are discussed in terms of their functionality, performance metrics, and reliability aspects, all of which are critical components for NVM technology to be part of mainstream consumer electronics, IoT, and advanced healthcare devices. Finally, flexible NVMs are benchmarked and future prospects are provided.
In today's traditional electronics such as in computers or in mobile phones, billions of high-performance, ultra-low-power devices are neatly integrated in extremely compact areas on rigid and brittle but low-cost bulk monocrystalline silicon (100) wafers. Ninety percent of global electronics are made up of silicon. Therefore, we have developed a generic low-cost regenerative batch fabrication process to transform such wafers full of devices into thin (5 μm), mechanically flexible, optically semitransparent silicon fabric with devices, then recycling the remaining wafer to generate multiple silicon fabric with chips and devices, ensuring low-cost and optimal utilization of the whole substrate. We show monocrystalline, amorphous, and polycrystalline silicon and silicon dioxide fabric, all from low-cost bulk silicon (100) wafers with the semiconductor industry's most advanced high-κ/metal gate stack based high-performance, ultra-low-power capacitors, field effect transistors, energy harvesters, and storage to emphasize the effectiveness and versatility of this process to transform traditional electronics into flexible and semitransparent ones for multipurpose applications.
To augment the quality of our life, fully compliant personalized advanced health-care electronic system is pivotal. One of the major requirements to implement such systems is a physically flexible high-performance biocompatible energy storage (battery). However, the status-quo options do not match all of these attributes simultaneously and we also lack in an effective integration strategy to integrate them in complex architecture such as orthodontic domain in human body. Here we show, a physically complaint lithium-ion micro-battery (236 μg) with an unprecedented volumetric energy (the ratio of energy to device geometrical size) of 200 mWh/cm 3 after 120 cycles of continuous operation. Our results of 90% viability test confirmed the battery's biocompatibility. We also show seamless integration of the developed battery in an optoelectronic system embedded in a threedimensional printed smart dental brace. We foresee the resultant orthodontic system as a personalized advanced health-care application, which could serve in faster bone regeneration and enhanced enamel health-care protection and subsequently reducing the overall health-care cost.
A flexible version of traditional thin lead zirconium titanate ((Pb1.1Zr0.48Ti0.52O3)‐(PZT)) based ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) on silicon shows record performance in flexible arena. The thin PZT layer requires lower operational voltages to achieve coercive electric fields, reduces the sol‐gel coating cycles required (i.e., more cost‐effective), and, fabrication wise, is more suitable for further scaling of lateral dimensions to the nano‐scale due to the larger feature size‐to‐depth aspect ratio (critical for ultra‐high density non‐volatile memory applications). Utilizing the inverse proportionality between substrate's thickness and its flexibility, traditional PZT based FeRAM on silicon is transformed through a transfer‐less manufacturable process into a flexible form that matches organic electronics' flexibility while preserving the superior performance of silicon CMOS electronics. Each memory cell in a FeRAM array consists of two main elements; a select/access transistor, and a storage ferroelectric capacitor. Flexible transistors on silicon have already been reported. In this work, we focus on the storage ferroelectric capacitors, and report, for the first time, its performance after transformation into a flexible version, and assess its key memory parameters while bent at 0.5 cm minimum bending radius.
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