The role of Bioinspiration for Ultrasensitive Optical Sensors Development
In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; researchers from Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Vitória, Brazil and University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal discuss the role of bioinspiration for ultrasensitive optical sensors development.
Since the earliest scientific developments, researchers look to the nature as an inspiration source for the design of novel functional devices. The so-called bioinspiration and biomimetic designs enabled the development of multifunctional sensors. Recently, Professor Arnaldo Leal-Junior (from Telecommunications Laboratory and Mechanical Engineering Department at Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil) and Professor Carlos Marques (from I3N & Physics department at University of Aveiro, Portugal) research groups reported the development of an Ultrasensitive Flexible Optical Waveguide Sensor bioinspired in orb webs, the so-called bioinspired multifunctional flexible optical sensor (BioMFOS).
The multifunctional feature of the structure is achieved by using transparent resins that present both mechanical and optical properties for structural integrity and strain/deflection transmission as well as the optical signal transmission properties with core/cladding configuration of a waveguide. The BioMFOS has small dimensions (around 2 cm) and lightweight (0.8 g), making it suitable for wearable application and clothing integration with an ultra-high sensitivity and resolution, where forces in the μN range can be detected and the location of the applied force can also be detected with a sub-millimeter spatial resolution. The sensor is integrated in clothing for respiration monitoring as well as movement analysis such as trunk and finger positions, depending on the BioMFOS positioning with a correlation coefficient higher than 0.9 when compared with a gold-standard inertial measurement unit. Thus, the proposed multifunctional device opens new avenues for novel bioinspired photonic devices and can be used in many applications of biomedical, biomechanics, and micro/nanotechnology.
Article reference: Leal-Junior A, Avellar L, Biazi V, Soares MS, Frizera A et al. Multifunctional flexible optical waveguide sensor: on the bioinspiration for ultrasensitive sensors development. Opto-Electron Adv. doi: 10.29026/oea.2022.210098
Keywords: optical sensors / optical waveguides / bioinspired design / multifunctional structures / wearable sensors
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The research groups of Prof. Arnaldo Leal-Junior from Federal University of Espirito Santo (Brazil) and Prof. Carlos Marques from University of Aveiro (Portugal) work mainly work with the development, fabrication, signal processing and applications of photonic sensors in their many variants. Technologies such as intensity variation principle, gratings-based devices, distributed and low-cost multiplexing approaches as well as interferometers and plasmonic sensors are applied in many important applications. In addition, the developments in nanomaterials and devices in conjunction with polymer processing, characterizations and additive manufacturing techniques resulted in the development of multiparameter devices and novel developments in optical sensors. The sensors applications of the research groups include oil and gas industry, structural health monitoring, robotics, aquaculture, immunosensing, biomedical and biomechanics. The groups include professors, researchers, PhD and masters’ candidates as well as undergraduate students. Recently, novel bioinspired devices have been developed with higher customizability and flexibility combined with low production costs and high performance. Such devices can be used in the next generation of robotics and wearable devices as well as in the applications related to the fish market. The groups also have extensive collaborations with other groups around the world including all continents. This background resulted in collaborations with the industry for the development of prototypes, such as the optical fiber system for fish tanks monitoring, multi-interface level sensor in oil fields, wearable devices for remote monitoring of patients, smart textiles and smart clothing for human activity monitoring and on exoskeleton’s benchmarking applications.
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Opto-Electronic Advances (OEA) is a high-impact, open access, peer reviewed monthly SCI journal with an impact factor of 9.682 (Journals Citation Reports for IF 2020). Since its launch in March 2018, OEA has been indexed in SCI, EI, DOAJ, Scopus, CA and ICI databases over the time and expanded its Editorial Board to 36 members from 17 countries and regions (average h-index 49).
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