In a bioinspired approach, we are mimicking various types of naturally occurring materials to fabricate hybrid antibacterial and biocompatible thin films for a range of applications. Natural chitin and chitinoid materials have outstanding physical and biological properties, among those being antimicrobial properties, which inspired us to develop a process for growing biomimetic organic chitinoid and hybrid organic-inorganic metallochitin thin films by applying Molecular Layer Deposition (MLD).
This work highlights a novel method to prepare conformal ultrathin films of chitin and hybrid chitin-based biomaterials from the gas phase by Molecular Layer Deposition (MLD) technique. MLD is a thin film growth technique, where the structure is built through sequential self-terminating gas–solid reactions.
This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska -Curie grant agreement No 765378.
Naser Koshro Pour, Maher Kayal, Guobin Jia, Bjoern Eisenhawer, Fritz Falk, Adrian Nightingale, John DeMello, Yordan Georgiev, Nikolay Petkov, Justin Holmes, Michael Nolan, Giorgos Fagas
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Solar cells, Silicon, Microfluidics, Energy harvesting, Solar energy, Temperature metrology, Chemical fiber sensors, Liquids, Nanowires
A micro-power energy harvesting system based on core(crystalline Si)-shell(amorphous Si) nanowire solar cells together
with a nanowire-modified CMOS sensing platform have been developed to be used in a dust-sized autonomous chemical
sensor node. The mote (SiNAPS) is augmented by low-power electronics for power management and sensor interfacing,
on a chip area of 0.25mm2. Direct charging of the target battery (e.g., NiMH microbattery) is achieved with end-to-end
efficiencies up to 90% at AM1.5 illumination and 80% under 100 times reduced intensity. This requires matching the
voltages of the photovoltaic module and the battery circumventing maximum power point tracking. Single solar cells
show efficiencies up to 10% under AM1.5 illumination and open circuit voltages, Voc, of 450-500mV. To match the
battery’s voltage the miniaturised solar cells (~1mm2 area) are connected in series via wire bonding. The chemical sensor
platform (mm2 area) is set up to detect hydrogen gas concentration in the low ppm range and over a broad temperature
range using a low power sensing interface circuit. Using Telran TZ1053 radio to send one sample measurement of both
temperature and H2 concentration every 15 seconds, the average and active power consumption for the SiNAPS mote are
less than 350nW and 2.1 μW respectively. Low-power miniaturised chemical sensors of liquid analytes through
microfluidic delivery to silicon nanowires are also presented. These components demonstrate the potential of further
miniaturization and application of sensor nodes beyond the typical physical sensors, and are enabled by the nanowire
materials platform.
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