The electrical energy from batteries powers not only the ignition system that turns the engine and moves electric vehicles but also powers almost every sensing feature of today’s automobiles. Electricity turns on the car headlights for night travel, rolls the windows up and down, senses numerous actions within the car to keep drivers aware and…
Laser Light Examines how Epilepsy Arises in the Healthy Brain
Scientists at McGill University have developed a new method to study how seizures arise in the healthy brain. Using laser light guided through ultra-thin optic fibers in the brain of rodents, the researchers “turned on” light-sensitive proteins in selective brain cells and were able to eventually cause seizures through repeated laser stimulation. These findings were…
Sensor Tracks Brain Chemical Gone Rogue Following Neurotrauma
Your chances of getting a nasty migraine increase following a spinal cord injury, thanks to a chemical messenger in the brain that spikes to toxic levels, past studies have suggested. For treatment to get any better, researchers need to catch that split-second spike in action and closely follow its path of destruction. Purdue University engineers…
Graphene Sensors Detect Ultralow Concentrations of NO2
The National Physical Laboratory has, as part of an international research collaboration, discovered a novel technique to monitor extremely low concentrations of NO2 in complex environments, using epitaxial sensors containing the “wonder material” graphene. The research, as published in ACS Sensors, was led by an international collaboration of scientists from Linköping University, Chalmers University of…
Research Probes Graphene-silicon Devices for Photonics Applications
If you use a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, then you benefit from research in photonics, the study of light. At the University of Delaware, a team led by Tingyi Gu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is developing cutting-edge technology for photonics devices that could enable faster communications between devices and thus, the…
Researchers Develop Miniaturized, Laser-driven Particle Accelerator
Munich physicists have succeeded in demonstrating plasma wakefield acceleration of subatomic particles in a miniaturized, laser-driven model. The new system provides a broader basis for the development of the next generation of particle accelerators. The plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) technique is regarded as a highly promising route to the next generation of particle accelerators. In…
Innovative Cellulose-based Material Embodies Three Sensors in One
Cellulose soaked in a carefully designed polymer mixture acts as a sensor to measure pressure, temperature and humidity at the same time. The measurements are completely independent of each other. The ability to measure pressure, temperature and humidity is important in many applications, such as monitoring patients at home, robotics, electronic skin, functional textiles, surveillance…
Cleanroom Static Control Glove Safeguards and Qualification Protocols for Risk Mitigation
Due to suspect counterfeit and noncompliant static control gloves buys from online, catalogs and offshore sourcing, one cannot rely upon a supplier Technical Data Sheet as proof of compliance. Contrary to many government and industry practices, static control or electrostatic discharge (ESD) products cannot be qualified by a visual inspection process. Today, the risk of…
Computational Fluid Dynamics: Analysis of a Minienvironment Cleanroom
A Minienvironment is an enclosure equipped with a fan and filter unit which isolates the product or process from its surrounding environment. Minienvironment or barrier cleanrooms are commonly employed in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries to create isolated spaces within a cleanroom to provide better control on cleanliness and prevent contamination. Minienvironments also isolate products…
Gold Soaks Up Boron to Produce Borophene
In the heat of a furnace, boron atoms happily dive into a bath of gold. And when things get cool, they resurface as coveted borophene. The discovery by scientists from Rice University, Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University is a step toward practical applications like wearable or transparent electronics, plasmonic sensors or energy storage for…
Lasers Probe the Limits of Gravitational Wave Instruments
Since the historic finding of gravitational waves from two black holes colliding over a billion light years away was made in 2015, physicists are advancing knowledge about the limits on the precision of the measurements that will help improve the next generation of tools and technology used by gravitational wave scientists. LSU Department of Physics…
Controlled Environments Announces Fifth Annual Readers’ Choice Awards Winners
In its fifth year, the Controlled Environments Readers’ Choice Awards highlight the cleanroom equipment and supplies that readers judge most effective and trusted in their work. Cleanroom equipment and product suppliers were invited to submit their products for these prestigious awards. Winners in each category were chosen based on a voting survey sent to a…
Energy Monitor Senses Electrical Failures Before They Happen
A new system devised by researchers at MIT can monitor the behavior of all electric devices within a building, ship, or factory, determining which ones are in use at any given time and whether any are showing signs of an imminent failure. When tested on a Coast Guard cutter, the system pinpointed a motor with…
New Friends for Curiosity
The web page for the Mars 2020 mission has a countdown clock of nearly 500 days until launch. For much of the time until then, the rover will spend its days in a cleanroom at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, before being sent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final assembly…
Cleanroom Trends: Roll-up and Bi-parting High-speed Doors
The pharmaceutical industry requires some of the most strictly monitored environments in any manufacturing sector, with cleanrooms the most monitored areas of all. Although cleanrooms vary in size and complexity, the prevention of access-related contaminant infiltration is crucial to almost all of them, and high-speed doors play an integral role in it. Recent advancements in…
Cleanroom Tip: Comply with the HACCP System
Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) is a system that was originally intended to promote food safety—and remains most commonly associated with that function—but it has found increasing acceptance in other industries as well, such as the pharmaceutical sector. The HACCP system consists of seven “points” that collectively help eliminate safety issues: 1. Conduct…
How It Works: Closed System for Fluid Sampling
Problem: In biopharmaceutical manufacturing, a major change has taken place with the ongoing and rapid growth of single-use products and systems for multiple bioprocessing steps. Biopharma manufacturers are finding that single-use flow paths offer an efficiency advantage by eliminating the need for cleaning between unit batch operations. In addition, the wider adoption of single-use products…
Need to Analyze Data? Ask ‘Dave’
Professor Andreas Schütze and his team of experts in measurement and sensor technology at Saarland University have released a free data processing tool called simply “Dave”—a MATLAB toolbox that allows rapid evaluation of signals, pattern recognition and data visualization when processing huge datasets. The free software enables very large volumes of data, such as those…
Sensor System Improves High-temperature Humidity Measurements
A new sensor system developed in Saarbrücken, Germany can not only carefully control drying processes in industrial ovens, but can deliver reliable air humidity measurements even at high temperatures and in the presence of other background vapors. Professor Andreas Schütze, project manager Tilman Sauerwald and their research team at Saarland University have developed with partner…
Virtual Cleanroom Seeks to Minimize Risk
A deadly meningitis outbreak linked to a Massachusetts pharmaceutical lab has drawn new interest to the way drugs are made in the United States and the training for those who work in pharmacies. Read more: Compounding Center Employee: Safety was ‘Secondary’ Now, a Purdue University-affiliated startup has come up with an interactive and virtual way to…
Ultrathin Graphene-based Film Offers New Concept for Solar Energy
Researchers at the University of Sydney, Swinburne University of Technology and the Australian National University have collaborated to develop a solar absorbing, ultrathin film with unique properties that has great potential for use in solar thermal energy harvesting. The 90-nanometer material is 1,000 times finer than a human hair and can be rapidly heated up…
Researchers Develop On-chip, Electronically Tunable Frequency Comb
Lasers play a vital role in everything from modern communications and connectivity to bio-medicine and manufacturing. Many applications, however, require lasers that can emit multiple frequencies—colors of light—simultaneously, each precisely separated like the tooth on a comb. Optical frequency combs are used for environmental monitoring to detect the presence of molecules, such as toxins; in…
Minuscule Magnetic Fields Measured with Quantum Sensing Method
A new way of measuring atomic-scale magnetic fields with great precision, not only up and down but sideways as well, has been developed by researchers at MIT. The new tool could be useful in applications as diverse as mapping the electrical impulses inside a firing neuron, characterizing new magnetic materials, and probing exotic quantum physical…
Researchers Produce Transparent, Self-healing Electronic Skin
National University of Singapore scientists have taken inspiration from underwater invertebrates like jellyfish to create an electronic skin with similar functionality. Just like a jellyfish, the electronic skin is transparent, stretchable, touch-sensitive, and self-healing in aquatic environments. It can be used in everything from water-resistant touchscreens to aquatic soft robots. The team, led by NUS…
Laser Light Controls Chirality of Molecules
Seven of the ten most frequent medications contain chiral agents. These are molecules that occur in right- or left-handed forms. During chemical synthesis both forms usually occur in equal parts and have to be separated afterward, because chirality determines the agent’s effect in the body. Physicists at Goethe University have now succeeded in using laser…