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Company: Break | Date: 9-10 Feb 2022 | Full Presentation Join TechBlick on an annual pass to join all live online conference or online version of onsite conference access library of on-demand talks (600 talks + PDFs) portfolio of expert led masterclass year-round platform https://www.techblick.com/ Our next battery-related event will take place on 15-16 FEB 2023, covering 1) Solid-State Batteries: Innovations, Promising Start-Ups, & Future Roadmap 2) Battery Materials: Next-Generation & Beyond Lithium Ion The speakers include: General Motors, Graphenix Development, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fraunhofer IKTS, RWTH Aachen University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Meta Materials Inc, Skeleton Technologies, Solid State Battery Inc, Argonne National Laboratories, OneD Battery Sciences, VTT, Leyden Jar Technologies B.V., b-Science, Rho Motion, Wevo-Chemie, LiNA Energy, CNM Technologies, Ionblox, Empa, Zinc8 Energy Solutions, Avicenne Energy, Echiontech, South8 Technologies, Basquevolt, NanoXplore, Chasm, Li Metal, Sila Nanotechnologies, Quantumscape (tentative), Fraunhofer ISI, etc https://www.techblick.com/

Ynvisible InteractiveInc. (the "Company" or"Ynvisible") (TSX-V: YNV, FSE: 1XNA, OTCQB: YNVYF), on 15th March 2022, plans on releasing an updated version of their display, positioning it as the lowest energy-consuming printed e-paper display on the market. ‍ The upgraded ultra-low-power display now consumes 50% less energy per switch than its predecessor and can last 10 times longer when switched on and off, positioning the technology as the lowest energy-consuming display in the e-paper industry. Other upgrades include boosted performance, particularly at lower temperatures, faster processing speeds, and a higher quality print, display. Ynvisible's new e-paper displays are also the thinnest displays on the market and are capable of fitting in the card holder of your wallet, providing incredible benefits when creating products in the emerging smart label and packaging market. ‍ These upgrades, along with the highly customizable screen-printing production processes, are set to position Ynvisible’s e-paper display as a compelling contender in the printed display space. Carolos Pinheiro, CTO at Ynvisible, said: “We are continuously collecting market feedback to prioritize our development efforts and technology roadmap. With this new generation display release, we know that we are responding to our customers’ needs whilst expanding the use of our printed display technology in a wider range of e-paper devices” “This latest upgrade will significantly benefit specific industries such digital signage, smart monitoring labels, authenticity & security, and retail.” Ynvisible showcasing the new product at a live online event Ynvisible will be showcasing the upgraded display at an online event, where Carlos Pinheiro Baptista (CTO), Jani-Mikael Kuusisto (Senior VP of Ventures), and Keith Morton (VP of Sales) will be introducing the new technology and answering live questions. ‍ The live webinar takes place at 4.30-5.30 PM CET / 7.30-8.30 AM PST on March 15, 2022. If you would like to attend the live event, you can sign up here. ‍ About Ynvisible‍ Ynvisible is a leading company in the emerging e-paper display market. They have the experience, know-how, and intellectual property in electrochromic materials, inks, and systems. Ynvisible's interactive printed graphics solutions solve the need for ultra-low power, mass deployable, and easy-to-use electronic displays and indicators for everyday smart objects, IoT devices, and ambient intelligence (intelligent surfaces). Ynvisible offers a mix of services, materials, and technology to brand owners developing smart objects and IoT products. Additional information on Ynvisible is available at www.ynvisible.com. ‍ On behalf of the board of directors: Ramin Heydarpour Executive Chairman & CEO Ynvisible Interactive Inc. For further information, please contact: Investor Relations +1 778-683-4324 ir@ynvisible.com Source:Ynvisible

Speaker: Filip Granek | Company: XTPL | Date: 11-12 May 2021 | Full Presentation We introduce the ultra-precise deposition (UPD) technology for rapid prototyping of microelectronic devices. UPD allows maskless deposition of high-viscosity metallic and non-metallic inks with the printed feature size as small as 1 μm. XTPL technology answers some of the key challenges in the fabrication of high-density microelectronics, including the ability to print on complex 3D substrates and obtain structures with arbitrary shapes, including lines, dots, crosses, and meshes. Join TechBlick on an annual pass to join all live online conference or online version of onsite conference access library of on-demand talks (600 talks + PDFs) portfolio of expert led masterclass year-round platform https://www.techblick.com/ And do NOT miss our flagship event in Berlin on 17-18 OCT 2023 focused on Reshaping the Future of Electronics. This event attracts 550-600 participants from all the world and offers a superb ambience and dynamic exhibition floor. To learn more visit https://www.techblick.com/electronicsreshaped To see feedback about previous event see https://www.techblick.com/events-agenda

This is auto-transcriped from the presentation without human control You are probably familiar with no Novacentric as as our kind of parent company and we have over the past of. Few months have migrated to to establish a new division within the company called Pulse Launch. So we bring the same innovative team to this foray, and we were working to solve a lot of the problems that that people are having with various processing challenges that they're facing. We're based in Austin, Texas. Then we always love to host you guys. So if you're ever in the Texas area of the United States, come visit us. So we're in the business of delivering light and we use that light to heat up or do some work on a different material. And the key that we bring to the table is that we can deliver this this energy in a very digital manner, in a non non-contact digital format, whereby we can really target what material we're heating up and we heat it up. Whereas the lead precisely and and repeated. So this heating can be done above the thermal equilibrium thermal damage threshold of most materials, enabling us to really get into creating value for our customers. This can be attributed. This type of pulsing can be attributed to processing a wide range of different materials. So that allows us to really get Spring Valley to a lot of different applications. So these are just some sample applications that we have. But for today's discussion, I want to talk about soldering and the ability for us to place components on substrates that have conductive pathways with few flashes of light actually solder. And the video you see on the left is a normalization of what that's happening. But on the right is actually a live video of how this happens within a two second timescale where the solder melt and the component moves it. We have a lot of advantages. One of the advantages that's very easily represented on the video is the ability to alter on a non flat surface, which is very unique because we don't actually have moving air. This also this ability also allows us to really process with low amounts of thermal input so we get a very good improvement and energy efficiency of the process as well as the tools are inherently smaller than the floor. And so we get a lot of space savings as well for our customers. Here's to to really be able to do solder components onto temperature sensitive substrates like PET, we need this delta. So this is a video of how the soldering is happening as measured by a thermal camera. And we can have a very, very high ramp rate of the of the component without really damaging the without really heating up the underlying substrate. So underlying so that this allows us to really process materials in a wide range of different substrates and different kind of conductive conductors. Enabling us to get. Performance comparable if not better than what we get in the reflow. So these are some chip components. These are showing the entire metallic chip components and how they behave. So these are line of sight exposure. We do work with components that don't have line of sight. So these are some examples of phones that don't have line of sight exposure and you're able to cure them. So we get really good attachment to it to a similar degree that we would achieve in a conventional reflow. But we can do this on temperature sensitive substrates like. So the tools that we have in the field that are able to deliver this performance are our kind of our small scale pilot line or our small production scale on the left, as you call the bag system. And underwriters are kind of in-line system that's more controlled for the process. There are a lot of advantages for this material. Of all the big advances in one minute, yes, we can take advantage of a lot of a lot of properties that are built into solder paste. So here's an example of these components being misplaced intentionally. And then using the sorting process, we can actually realign them and make it work. Another thing that we talk about, there's no inherent movement to the system, so we actually get better performance with smaller components. So we don't necessarily have the same limitations as heating up as you would have in a reflow process. With that, I would like to thank you for coming here and just give you an example of what we call the leaf design, which is a set of LEDs on top of a substrate that we get we give out a trade show. So if you run into any of my colleagues in near future trade shows, ask him for one. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the excellent presentation. Very.

This is an auto transcriped version of the talk without human control All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation to come talk about our materials. So first, I want to go into an introduction of motivation and 5G. So in response to society's increasing appetite for more and more data, telecommunication networks are looking to increase wireless communication, bandwidth and connectivity. And a critical aspect of this is the hardware, the devices that will that will need to operate at higher frequencies, at frequencies known as millimeter wave or about 20 gigahertz. Unfortunately, current device designs use materials that will not deliver the efficiency in terms of power utilization or with practical economics. But if you could integrate the semiconductor chips in the same modules as the passives and the switches and the filters and the antenna structures, this will shorten wiring distances and increase electrical efficiency as well as miniaturizing devices which are all good things using materials that I only use that only not only allow for increased integration, but also have stable performance at high frequency and at a myriad of operating conditions are critical to realize the advanced designs that these higher frequencies that will give us more data, but they also will provide hard hardware that will give a robust build out and avoid things like field failures or unnecessary maintenance cost in the field. And so that's why we focused on 5G. And so what I really am here to talk today about today is our product line called DuPont Green Tape Ltsc. And if you're not familiar with this technology, we take cast a ceramic slurry of precursor particles. It's a flexible tape that can be have vias punched in it filled with metal paste, have screenprint advanced screen printing of x, y, traces of conductors and then layers stacked, laminated and co fired at what's a relatively low temperature for ceramic processing and what results from that. I put on a chart here in the middle, a traditional printed circuit board that's ubiquitous around the electronics industry are ceramic. LTC is a similar 3D layer to construction of a circuit where here now instead of the dielectric being something like f floor, which is pre break filled epoxy or plated copper, we have a very high quality, dense ceramic material with metallization pastes created conductor lines. In this case, I'm going to talk about silver today. And so this is takes advantage of all the great material properties of ceramic but in the same laminar kind of construction to make very complex circuits. And like PKD, like PCB, you can make chip packages, components, all kinds of things. So LTC is a relatively mature technology. It's been around for four decades. It's been used for antennas and components and even antennas, but you can use it as a chip package. To date, it has somewhat fallen out of favor and has a current perception, and I would say a misperception that it's fundamentally hard for prototype or expensive or a costly process. The PCB is ubiquitous, LTSC is a little bit lower installed base, and so I think that's just a transient state of the technology. But really what justifies the use in revisiting this material is the great material properties. So I show here one of our systems, the lost tangent on the left here is the lowest for any commercially available material in the millimeter wave frequency regime. And you can see over a wide range of frequencies the loss stays very low, the dielectric constant is stable. But not only is it a good dielectric material, it's stable under a host of conditions. So under a wide temperature regime, the loss and dielectric constant don't shift. It's impervious to moisture or hermetic. And so there's no fear like there is in FR for printed circuit board materials that humidity will address dielectric properties and change device design. And in addition, the thermal properties are superior to any organic solution. So in order of magnitude higher thermal conductivity that's matched to the semiconductor devices and a strong flexible strength. So ceramics are fragile, but these ceramics are tough and so they're strong, rigid substrates. And material properties are not the deciding factor in how to make an electronics device, and we recognize that. So we partnered with a research institute in Taiwan and made what I show here is a module. The basis is ltsc. And so this is a multilayer package with antennas on one side and the ability to assemble the chips and passes on the other side. I show a picture of it fully assembled and a schematic of what it looks like in cross section. This was put into an into a system that's represented by this block diagram where all the ltsc is the emitter. We can characterize all kinds of antenna properties of this phaser array beam steering beam formed system. But the real proof here is that we can build a system that transmits 4K video up to ten meters across a conference room. And this is a relatively simple design that was quickly prototyped and really had no hiccups in thermal design, which is unusual for a high power, high frequency device with multiple antennas. And so we think this kind of references on kind of proves the point that LTC is a superior material and easier to design. And so in conclusion, I think LTC has a lot of myths associated with it. But if you think of it from a total solution standpoint, these great material properties that we're quite proud of can be utilized in a design when you think about the total cost of the whole solution. And although there may be some differences in the value chain and the prices, I think if you think of the total solution, it justifies the Watts already occurring increase manufacturing base. And so we'd like to talk to whoever would be interested and work with them to try and make designs to sort of unlock the power of these materials in current designs. Thank you. Speaker 100:06:44Well done, Brian. Impressive work. I've seen thumbs up and applause coming up the whole time during the presentation. So people like to talk and that this went smoothly is really great.

Victoria, B.C. (February 2022): Solaires Entreprises Inc (Solaires), a Canadian cleantech startup based in Victoria BC, is raising USD 2.1 million in pre-seed funding at a pre-money valuation of USD 9 million. Investors and recognized angel groups in British Columbia, such as eFund, Cindicates, and Keiretsu forum members are participating in this round. “We have developed a solution that will enable innovative solar energy applications to revolutionize solar energy harvesting. We are currently in advanced discussions with key partners for this product as they are interested in Solaires’ vitally important work in accelerating our transition to a low-carbon economy”, said Chief Development Officer, Ernest Daddey. The proceeds from the pre-seed round will be directed towards purchasing materials and equipment to ramp up the production capabilities of the company and scale up their product sales of Solar Ink™. “We are very grateful for the continued support we receive from our partners, our communities, and our investors. Our progress in the pre-seed raise and product launch has demonstrated that we have an excellent team and proven technology. Now onwards, we will be ramping up production and delivery to start order fulfilment,” said CEO & Co-founder, Fabian de la Fuente. About Solaires Entreprises Inc.: Solaires Entreprises Inc. is a Canadian cleantech company located in Victoria, focused on developing the next generation of solar cells by replacing silicon with perovskite through an innovative and sustainable manufacturing process resulting in affordable solar photovoltaics with higher energy conversion efficiency and higher stability. Solaires’ business model includes the sale of their product, Solar Ink™, and the licensing of their perovskite solar cell technology manufacturing process to selected roll to roll coaters, solar cell manufacturers, and OEMs. Solaires focuses its team of scientists on developing new and innovative patents relevant to the photovoltaic industry. Contact: Dr. Sahar Sam +1 (888) 464-2532 sahar@solaires.net For more information about Solaires, visit www.solaires.net

This is an auto transcriped version of the presentation without any human control. Speaker 200:00:04Yes, we can hear you. We can see you and your slides are perfect. So you have your 5 minutes now. Speaker 100:00:09Okay. Thank you very much. So today we're going to talk about high output, aerosol printing for high conductivity, printed electronic applications. The first thing we're going to talk about is sort of the sweet spot for aerosol printing, the traditional sweet spot. And then we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing to enhance the aerosol printing capability and expand it into other areas. So the slides here show the typical sweet spot for for aerosol printing is fine printing of fine lines. A lot of effort for aerosol printing has been focused, no pun intended, on printing of very fine features. So we can reliably print features down to 15 microns. And with our and a lot of our customers actually have printed features at ten microns or less. The image on the right shows gold printed conductors, they're 20 microns wide at 100 micron, and they have really good line edge quality. I can show you some better higher magnification images of the type of image quality you would expect for our aerosol printing. Another unique advantage that we have for the aerosol printing is that we have a large working distance between the nozzle and the substrate that we're printing on. This really makes aerosol printing unique or provides a unique advantage over a lot of the other digital printing technology used used in printing printed electronics. So the printing stand up distance can be anywhere from 2 to 5 millimeters typically. And customers even recently have demonstrated ten millimeter stand up distance with good with good print quality. And it's one of the misnomers that we have talked about focusing of the aerosol stream, but in fact, it's actually largely carbonated as opposed to focus. So the large stand of distance gives us the ability to print over features such as the one shown here on the left, on the right, the this is the 3D printed dome structure. And we printed a strain gauge on here for one of our projects. And we did this with 3D three axis motion control for motion control, sorry for all the pop ups. And then I'm going to step into what we're doing now to really enhance our output rate as we start to kind of move more towards production applications or being able to print larger features and how we're doing that. One application that we're looking at is replacing wire bonding with the formation of stud months with printed forms instead. This is particularly useful for people in the medical field where they're making medical devices or high performance electronic applications, where the volume of of a single design is small or the throughput is anyway high make, high mix, low volume applications and so on. The image on the ratio is one of the stud pumps that we printed recently, and this is still under development, but the features about 40 microns tall and 70 microns wide on the bottom. And we've developed a unique formulation that allows us to kind of print these features with minimal overspray and get really good definition. And none of these bumps would generally be printed on to the conductive or the circuit substrate, and then the integrated circuit would be flip flip chip bonded to using the bumps. Part of what we've done recently, we've actually looked at our ink formulations and we've been able to increase our output rate by a factor of about 17 times by modifying and working with the writings that are able to be pretty aerosolized with viscosity, but also be able to output our printing technology. And then we also are some of the things we're looking at are at the high flow rates is also some better focusing capabilities. The image on the right shows a line we recently printed using some some advances in our focusing capabilities. We were able to output these printed lines at five millimeters. Print speed is five millimeters per second, a single pass, and the line is about 15 microns tall and about 90 microns wide at the base. And we're able to demonstrate using this technique also to print features up to 200 microns. And this is a significant advancement and our output rate material for a volumetric material output rate, I think this was like 5 million, 5 million cubic microns per minute, I believe was the calculation. We're also continuing to make sure that the performance of the Printheads remain consistent. The data on the right shows the typical tests that we're using on our practice for qualification, and it shows that the average deal this shows for a 70. Micron private line. We have an average standard standard deviation of the printed line with about three 3% over the eight hour period. And the tolerance on that is about 5%. The lines in the upper ratio of the lines that were printed for this eight hour test, the unique design for a print head really avoids clogging. And what was typically known is satellites are largely eliminated with the printing technology. The images on the lower right show the printed types of printed line edge quality you expect with the nano aerosol printing technology. In contrast on the image on the right shows, aerosol printing on a different technology from a different company that was more traditional. It was original aerosol printing technology. So our technology, with the way we're focusing using multiple air than they. Speaker 200:05:53Have one minute just just an issue. Speaker 100:05:56All right. Thank you. Allows us to avoid overspray and provides consistent, reliable, long term printing performance. Because of the high output rate, we're able to print features like the one being shown on the video on the right. So we're able to print features that have substantial thickness at a high output rate. This is a coil that's being printed on an embedded medical device that's being used as a stimulator. And so the coils actually have 20 or 20 ohms. They take about 10 minutes to print and they're used for both power transfer and telemetry for the embedded device. So you basically can power remotely and read the signals back from a patient. So between the medical embedded device and the step bumping application, these are two applications that we're looking at for the higher output rate, the printing technology. Thank you very much. Speaker 200:06:48Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, David, and thank you for joining us. As always. It's really interesting to learn about the capabilities of aerosol printing and amazing how what kind of features we'll.

Speaker: Katharina Gerber | Company: LiCap Technologies | Date: 9-10 Feb 2022 | Full Presentation Solid state #electrolytes (SSEs) can improve safety of batteries due to the reduced possibility of thermal runaway that is more likely to occur in the presence of liquid electrolytes used in lithium ion batteries. However, lack of scalable processes allowing to produce SSEs with the necessary combination of thickness, uniformity, interfacial impedance and mechanical strength, hinders commercialization of solid-state batteries (SSBs). Whether as glass or in ceramic form, SSEs usually require high temperature sintering or vapor deposition to consolidate the films and manage interfacial impedance. The resulting films are brittle, and available manufacturing methods are limited to production of tiny cells with low capacity. LiCAP Technologies, Inc. has a patented Activated Dry Electrode technology, which makes processing of battery materials more cost-effective and sustainable and, is uniquely suitable for handling of sensitive SSB materials. R2R Activated Dry Electrode process is already proven on industrial scale in world’s fastest manufacturing of ultracapacitor electrodes and has been piloted in R2R production of electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. In 2022 LiCAP will launch development of scalable R2R process for the solid-state battery industry. Join TechBlick on an annual pass to join all live online conference or online version of onsite conference access library of on-demand talks (600 talks + PDFs) portfolio of expert led masterclass year-round platform https://www.techblick.com/ Our next battery-related event will take place on 15-16 FEB 2023, covering 1) Solid-State Batteries: Innovations, Promising Start-Ups, & Future Roadmap 2) Battery Materials: Next-Generation & Beyond Lithium Ion The speakers include: General Motors, Graphenix Development, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fraunhofer IKTS, RWTH Aachen University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Meta Materials Inc, Skeleton Technologies, Solid State Battery Inc, Argonne National Laboratories, OneD Battery Sciences, VTT, Leyden Jar Technologies B.V., b-Science, Rho Motion, Wevo-Chemie, LiNA Energy, CNM Technologies, Ionblox, Empa, Zinc8 Energy Solutions, Avicenne Energy, Echiontech, South8 Technologies, Basquevolt, NanoXplore, Chasm, Li Metal, Sila Nanotechnologies, Quantumscape (tentative), Fraunhofer ISI, etc https://www.techblick.com/

Speaker: Jean-Charles Souriau | Company: CEA| Date: 11-12 May 2021 | Full Presentation ChipInFlex is CEA-Leti's latest development towards the integration of ultra-thin, bare silicon chips within a flexible film. Today, electronic systems are becoming smaller, thinner and, above all, flexible. Flexibility makes possible new functions and hence new usages. With Chip-In-Flex, CEA-Leti is introducing a new paradigm for integrating ultra-thin, bare chips into a flexible label made on a silicon wafer. Join TechBlick on an annual pass to join all live online conference or online version of onsite conference access library of on-demand talks (600 talks + PDFs) portfolio of expert led masterclass year-round platform https://www.techblick.com/ And do NOT miss our flagship event in Berlin on 17-18 OCT 2023 focused on Reshaping the Future of Electronics. This event attracts 550-600 participants from all the world and offers a superb ambience and dynamic exhibition floor. To learn more visit https://www.techblick.com/electronicsreshaped To see feedback about previous event see https://www.techblick.com/events-agenda

Engineers at UC Berkeley have developed a new technique for making wearable sensors that enables medical researchers to prototype test new designs much faster and at a far lower cost than existing methods. The new technique replaces photolithography—a multistep process used to make computer chips in clean rooms—with a $200 vinyl cutter. The novel approach slashes the time to make small batches of sensors by nearly 90% while cutting costs by almost 75%, said Renxiao Xu (Ph.D.'20 ME), who developed the technique while pursuing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Berkeley. "Most researchers working on medical devices have no background in photolithography," Xu said. "Our method makes it easy and inexpensive for them to change their sensor design on a computer and then send the file to the vinyl cutter to make." A description of the technique was published in ACS Nano. Xu, who now works at Apple, and Liwei Lin, professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, were the lead researchers. Wearable sensors are often used by researchers to gather medical data from patients over extended periods of time. They range from adhesive bandages on the skin to stretchable implants on organs, and harness sophisticated sensors to monitor health or diagnose illnesses. These devices consist of flat wires, called interconnects, as well as sensors, power sources, and antennas to communicate data to smartphone apps or other receivers. To maintain full functionality, they must stretch, flex and twist with the skin and organs they are mounted on—without generating strains that would compromise their circuitry. To achieve low-strain flexibility, engineers use an "island-bridge" structure, Xu said. The islands house rigid electronics and sensor components, such as commercial resistors, capacitors, and lab-synthesized components like carbon nanotubes. The bridges link the islands to one another. Their spiral and zigzag shapes stretch like springs to accommodate large deformations. In the past, researchers have built these island-bridge systems using photolithography, a multistep process that uses light to create patterns on semiconductor wafers. Making wearable sensors this way requires a clean room and sophisticated equipment. The new technique is simpler, faster, and more economical, especially when making the one or two dozen samples that medical researchers typically need for testing. Making sensors starts by attaching an adhesive sheet of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to a Mylar (biaxially oriented PET) substrate. Other plastics would also work, Xu said. A vinyl cutter then shapes them using two types of cuts. The first, the tunnel cut, slices through only the top PET layer but leaves the Mylar substrate untouched. The second type, the through cut, carves through both layers. This is enough to produce island-bridge sensors. First, tunnel cuts are used in the upper adhesive PET layer to trace the path of the interconnects; then the cut PET segments are peeled off, leaving behind the pattern of interconnects on the exposed Mylar surface. Next, the entire plastic sheet is coated with gold (another conductive metal could be used as well). The remaining top PET layer is peeled away, leaving a Mylar surface with well-defined interconnects, as well as exposed metal openings and contact pads on the islands. Sensor elements are then attached to the contact pads. For electronic devices, such as resistors, a conductive paste and a common heat plate are used to secure the bond. Some lab-synthesized components, such as carbon nanotubes, can be applied directly to the pads without any heating. Once this step is done, the vinyl cutter uses through cuts to carve the sensor's contours, including spirals, zigzags, and other features. To demonstrate the technique, Xu and Lin developed a variety of stretchable elements and sensors. One mounts under the nose and measures human breath based on the tiny changes in temperatures it creates between the front and back of the sensor. "For a breath sensor, you don't want to something bulky," Lin said. "You want something thin and flexible, almost like a tape beneath your nose, so you can fall asleep while it records a signal over a long period of time." Another prototype consists of an array of water-resistant supercapacitors, which store electrical power like a battery but release it more rapidly. Supercapacitors could provide power for some types of sensors. "We could also make more complex sensors by adding capacitors or electrodes to make electrocardiogram measurements, or chip-sized accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure motion," Xu said. Size is sensor cutting's one key limitation. Its smallest features are 200 to 300 micrometers wide, while photolithography can produce features that are tens of micrometers wide. But most wearable sensors do not require such fine features, Xu noted. The researchers believe this technique could one day become a standard feature in every lab studying wearable sensors or new diseases. Prototypes could be designed using high-powered computer-aided design (CAD) software or simpler apps made especially for vinyl printers. More information: https://phys.org/news/2022-02-technique-wearable-sensors-faster-costly.amp

ETH Zurich researchers have created artificial colors by 3D printing certain nanostructures inspired by those of a butterfly. This principle can be used in the future to produce color screens. For their new technology, scientists in the group of Andrew deMello, Professor of Biochemical Engineering, drew inspiration from butterflies. The wings of the species Cynandra opis, native to tropical Africa, are decorated with brilliant colors. These are produced by extremely intricate regular surface structures in the size range of the wavelength of visible light. By deflecting light rays, these structures either amplify or cancel out individual color components of the light. Led by deMello, the researchers have succeeded in replicating the surface structures of Cynandra opis, as well as other modified structures, using a nano-​3D printing technique. In this way, they created an easy-to-use principle for the production of structures that generate structural colors. There are numerous examples of such structural coloration in nature, including irregular surface structures – for example, found in other butterfly species. “The regular nanostructures on the wings of Cynandra opis, however, were particularly well suited to reconstruction using 3D printing,” explains Xiaobao Cao, a former doctoral student of the deMello group and lead author of this study. The Cynandra opis structures consist of two grid layers stacked perpendicular to each other, with a lattice spacing of about 1/2 to 1 micrometer. Entire color palette By varying this lattice spacing and the height of the lattice rods in the range between 250 nanometres and 1.2 micrometers, the ETH researchers were able to produce 3D printed structures that generate all the colors of the visible spectrum. Many of these colors do not occur in the natural model (the butterfly) their structures are based on. The researchers succeeded in producing such surfaces using different materials, including a transparent polymer. “This made it possible to illuminate the structure from behind to bring out the color,” explains Stavros Stavrakis, a senior scientist in deMello group and co-author of the study. “This is the first time we’ve managed to produce all the colors of the visible spectrum as structural colors in a translucent material.” Security feature As part of the study, the scientists produced a miniature image of multi-hued structural-color pixels measuring 2 by 2 micrometers. Such tiny images could one day be used as a security feature on banknotes and other documents. Because the colors can be produced with transparent material, it would also be possible to manufacture color filters for optical technologies. This fits well with the main research activity of ETH Professor deMello’s group, which develops microfluidic systems – miniaturized systems for chemical and biological experiments. Large-scale production of nanostructures is also conceivable, the researchers say. A negative structure could be 3D printed to serve as a template, which would make it possible to produce large numbers of reproductions. This means the principle could be suitable for the manufacture of high-resolution color displays, such as thin bendable screens. And finally, the scientists point out that structural colors could replace the pigments used today in printing and painting. Structural colors have certain advantages over conventional pigments: they last longer because they do not fade when exposed to light, and in most cases, they have a better environmental footprint. Reference Cao X, Du Y, Guo Y, Hu G, Zhang M, Wang L, Zhou J, Gao Q, Fischer P, Wang J, Stavrakis S, deMello A: Replicating the Cynandra opis Butterfly's Structural Color for Bioinspired Bigrating Color Filters, Advanced Materials, 4. Januar 2022, doi: 10.1002/adma.202109161call_made More information: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2022/02/applying-the-butterfly-principle.html

Innovative Portfolio Powers Solutions for Anti-counterfeiting, Tamper Detection, and Batteryless Condition Sensing Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ: INVE), a global leader in digital security and identification in the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced its portfolio of near field communication (NFC)-enabled status detection tags for advanced IoT security. Identiv’s range of NFC tags is among the first available with NXP® NTAG® Semiconductors 22x DNA chip devices, adding unique capabilities for advanced anti-counterfeiting, new-to-market tamper detection, and batteryless condition sensing. Identiv’s sophisticated NFC tag designs based on NXP’s new NTAG 22x DNA chip series enable a wide range of sensing solutions for customers in healthcare and pharma, retail, smart packaging, supply chain control (e.g., blockchain), and augmented user experiences. The cutting-edge tamper-proof portfolio secures everyday objects in mobile anti-counterfeit authentication applications and closed-loop systems, tamper proof medications, beverages, and consumables, and senses specific conditions such as moisture, pressure, or fill level powered by an NFC field, all without a battery. The sensing tags with conductive and capacitive capabilities are ideal for status-aware applications enhancing quality assurance along the supply chain, verifying fill levels for refill orders or patient compliance, and wet/dry sensing for smart wound recovery or skin patches. “Our collaboration with Identiv catalyzes our constant quest for innovation in the smart, secure product space,” said Philippe Dubois, NXP Semiconductors Vice President, and General Manager Secure Edge Identification. “The NTAG 22x DNA series, NXP’s new NFC single-chip solutions, provide CC EAL3+ certified security, dual-mode tamper detection, and simple battery-free sensing for a broad range of IoT applications. With Identiv’s specialized tagging solutions for the NTAG 22x DNA series, manufacturers can now protect product authenticity and integrity, while enabling a new level of condition monitoring to assure product quality and correct handling.” The innovative status detection products enable advanced IoT security with a Secure Unique NFC (SUN) message authentication feature using AES-128 cryptography. SUN dynamically verifies message authenticity and integrity. Mutual authentication can further enhance security by protecting data against unauthorized access or malicious change attempts. According to a comprehensive research report by Market Research Future (MRFR), the global capacitive sensor market was valued at 27.03 billion in 2019 and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2020 and 2027 is predicted to be 5.2%. NFC-enabled capacitive sensing technology benefits the demanded market by simply adding high security to the solution. “As the demand for status detection and sensing solutions grow, Identiv is proud to expand our strategic collaboration with NXP to bring our customers and the broader market the latest in innovative technologies,” said Amir Khoshniyati, Identiv VP and GM, Transponders Business. “Whether regulating dosage in an insulin pump or determining when you need to order a refill of your favorite beauty care product, NFC tags with status detection and sensing capabilities improve our customers’ products and improve our everyday lives.” More information: https://www.identiv.com/community/2022/02/14/identiv-collaborates-with-nxp-on-nfc-enabled-secure-sensing-tags-for-product-integrity-and-condition-monitoring/