Chemistry - Conference Items

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    SmartVista: Smart Autonomous Multi Modal Sensors for Vital Signs Monitoring
    (VDE Verlag, 2019-04) Razeeb, Kafil M.; O'Murchu, Cian; Todri-Sanial, Aida; Sebelius, Frederik; Horizon 2020
    Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain the leading cause of mortality and a major cause of morbidity in Europe. Every year there are more than 6 million new cases of CVD in the EU and more than 11 million in Europe as a whole. With almost 49 million people living with the disease in the EU, the cost to the EU economies is 210 billion EUR a year. There is a growing demand for a reliable cardiac monitoring system to catch the intermittent abnormalities and detect critical cardiac behaviours which, in extreme cases, can lead to sudden death. The objective of the Smart Autonomous Multi Modal Sensors for Vital Signs Monitoring (SmartVista) project is to develop and demonstrate a next generation, cost-effective, smart multimodal sensing platform to reduce incidences of sudden death caused by CVD, and will contribute to the EU vision of an Internet of Things for healthcare. The key innovation in SmartVista is to integrate 1D/2D nanomaterials based sensors to monitor the heart, thermoelectric energy harvesters to extract energy from the body to power the system and printable battery systems to store this energy. Together these will result in a self-powered device that will autonomously monitor the electrocardiograph, respiratory flow, oxygen flow and temperature of the patient. This information will then be transmitted wirelessly for online health processing. This real-time self-powered monitoring of a patient's health is currently not available. Thus, the technology that will be developed in SmartVista will position us at the forefront of digital health and wearable biosensor technology for wireless monitoring in hospitals and of remote patients, both of which are necessary in this era of an aging population.
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    SMARTProbe -: An informative biopsy needle with bioimpedance sensing for real-time breast lesion screening
    (VDE Verlag, 2019-04) Ugwah, Justina A.; Bennett, Bill; O'Donnell, Brian; O'Sullivan, Martin; Moore, Eric
    Patients who present with a breast lesion require clinical and radiological examination for breast disease detection. For a definitive diagnosis, biopsy under ultrasound guidance is performed for histological assessment to determine if lesion is malignant or benign. The biopsy needle, currently a passive instrument, if integrated with impedance sensing, can give real time information for use as a tissue discriminating tool. Bio-impedance is a technique which enables the use of three variables (resistance, reactance and phase angle) as indices of structural and functional biological variables. The frequency dependent electrical impulse gives the physiology and pathological information about the conductive and dielectric properties of cells. The differences in electrical properties of malignant and healthy tissues are associated with increased water and mineral content within tumor cells, the changes in membrane permeability, altered packing density as well as orientation of cells. The prototype SMARTProbe, with bioimpedance sensing, is able to discriminate healthy tissue from malignant and benign lesions in ex-vivo clinical investigation. The fabrication process of sensors allows for defined and constant electrode distance, which enables small alternate current to be used, thus, decreasing variability as a result of tissue heterogeneity.
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    Multi-scale theory and simulation of direct-gap group-IV semiconductor alloys
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2020-07-13) Broderick, Christopher A.; O'Halloran, Edmond J.; Dunne, Michael D.; Kirwan, Amy C.; Andreev, Aleksey D.; Schulz, Stefan; O'Reilly, Eoin P.; Science Foundation Ireland; National University of Ireland
    Alloying of Ge with other group-IV elements - C, Sn or Pb - represents a promising route to realise direct-gap group-IV semiconductors for applications in Si-compatible devices, including light-emitting diodes and lasers, as well as tunnelling field-effect transistors and multi-junction solar cells. To develop a quantitative understanding of the properties and potential of group-IV alloys, we have established a multi-scale simulation framework to enable predictive analysis of their structural and electronic properties. We provide an overview of these simulation capabilities, and describe previously overlooked fundamental aspects of the electronic structure evolution and indirect- to direct-gap transition in (Si)Ge1-x(C, Sn, Pb)x alloys. We further describe ongoing work related to exploiting this simulation platform to compute the optical and transport properties of (Si)Ge1-xSnx alloys and heterostructures.
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    Ni, Pt, and Ti stanogermanide formation on Ge0.92Sn0.08
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2019-04) Galluccio, Emmanuele; Petkov, Nikolay; Mirabelli, Gioele; Doherty, Jessica; Lin, Shih-Va; Lu, Fang-Liang; Liu, Chee Wee; Holmes, Justin D.; Duffy, Ray; Science Foundation Ireland
    The aim of this work is to provide a systematic and comparative study on the material characteristics and electrical contact performance for a germanium-tin (GeSn) alloy with a high percentage of Sn (8%). Thin metal films (10 nm) of Nickel (Ni), Titanium (Ti), or Platinum (Pt) were deposited on Ge 0.92 Sn 0.08 layers and subsequently annealed at different temperatures ranging from 300°C up to 500°C. Various experimental techniques were employed to characterize the metal morphology and the electrical contact behavior, with the intention of identifying the most promising metal candidate, in terms of low sheet resistance and low surface roughness, considering a low formation temperature. The investigations carried out show that for nano-electronic contact applications, nickel-stanogermanide (NiGeSn) turns out to be the most promising candidate among the three different metals analyzed. NiGeSn presents low sheet resistance combined with low formation temperatures, below 400°C; PtGeSn shows better thermal stability when compared to the other two options while, Ti was found to be unreactive below 500°C, resulting in incomplete TiGeSn formation.
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    A simple synthesis of polymer coated gold and silver nanoparticles in water for potential use in biomedical applications
    (TechConnect, 2018-05) Rahme, Kamil; Minassian, G.; Ghanem, Esther.; Nakhl, Michel; El Hage, Rolan; Souaid, Eddy; Holmes, Justin D.; National Council for Scientific Research
    In this study Silver (Ag) and Gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) of different surface charges (positively charged, negatively charged, or nearly neutral) and sizes were obtained using ascorbic acid as a reducing agent and multiple polymers such as Chitosan (Chit), Poly-L-Lysine (PLL), Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), Polyethylene glycol (PEG) or sodium citrate as stabilizing ligands. The obtained NPs were characterized using UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), and Zeta Potential (Q measurements. On the other hand, AuNPs with different coating (PLL, PVA and PEG) and charges were tested on whole human blood samples, specifically on neutrophils using a Neutrophil Function Test (NFT). Our results demonstrated that AuNPs-PVA with a slight negative charge (C = -15 mV) and PEgylated AuNPs-PLL (AuNPs-PLL-PEG) with a slight positive charge (ζ = + 9 mV) were found to be the least detected by neutrophils making them suitable for biomedical applications.