Macquarie University engineers have developed a new technique to make the manufacture of nanosensors far less carbon-intensive, much cheaper, more efficient, and more versatile, substantially improving a key process in this trillion-dollar global industry.
The team has found a way to treat each sensor using a single drop of ethanol instead of the conventional process that involves heating materials to high temperatures.
Their research, published in Advanced Functional Materials, is titled, ‘Capillary-driven self-assembled microclusters for highly performing UV detectors.’
“Nanosensors are usually made up of billions of nanoparticles deposited onto a small sensor surface—but most of these sensors don’t work when first fabricated,” says corresponding author Associate Professor Noushin Nasiri, head of the Nanotech Laboratory at Macquarie University’s School of Engineering.
The nanoparticles assemble themselves into a network held together by weak natural bonds which can leave so many gaps between nanoparticles that they fail to transmit electrical signals, so the sensor won’t function.
2023-08-05 15:48:03
Article from phys.org