Design of Arbitrary Magnetic Patterns on Magnetic Polymer Composite Objects: A Finite Element Modelling Tool.

Magnetic sensor systems integrate a sensing element and magnetic field generators to determine their relative position or to measure movement. Typically, the magnetic fields are produced by permanent magnets, which have high intensity but are hard to machine into custom shapes. However, novel solutions using magnetic polymer composites (MPCs) have emerged as field generators due to their low cost, weight and patterning freedom.

Spintronic Eyeblink Gesture Sensor With Wearable Interface System.

This work presents an eyeblink system that detects magnets placed on the eyelid via integrated magnetic sensors and an analogue circuit on an eyewear frame (without a glass lens). The eyelid magnets were detected using tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) bridge sensors with a sensitivity of 14 mV/V/Oe and were positioned centre-right and centre-left of the eyewear frame. Each eye side has a single TMR sensor wired to a single circuit, where the signal was filtered (<0.

Integrated Pico-Tesla Resolution Magnetoresistive Sensors for Miniaturised Magnetomyography.

Magnetomyography (MMG) is the measurement of magnetic signals generated in the skeletal muscle of humans by electrical activities. However, current technologies developed to detect such tiny magnetic field are bulky, costly and require working at the temperature-controlled environment. Developing a miniaturized, low cost and room temperature magnetic sensors provide an avenue to enhance this research field.

Spintronic Sensors Based on Magnetic Tunnel Junctions for Wireless Eye Movement Gesture Control.

The tracking of eye gesture movements using wearable technologies can undoubtedly improve quality of life for people with mobility and physical impairments by using spintronic sensors based on the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) effect in a human-machine interface. Our design involves integrating three TMR sensors on an eyeglass frame for detecting relative movement between the sensor and tiny magnets embedded in an in-house fabricated contact lens. Using TMR sensors with the sensitivity of 11 mV/V/Oe and ten <1 mm embedded magnets within a lens, an eye gesture system was implemented with a sampling frequency of up to 28 Hz.

Magneto-mechanical actuation of magnetic responsive fibrous scaffolds boosts tenogenesis of human adipose stem cells.

Tendons are highly specialized load-bearing tissues with very limited healing capacity. Given their mechanosensitive nature, the combination of tendon mimetic scaffolds with remote mechanical actuation could synergistically contribute to the fabrication of improved tissue engineered alternatives for the functional regeneration of tendons. Here, hybrids of cellulose nanocrystals decorated with magnetic nanoparticles were produced to simultaneously reinforce and confer magnetic responsiveness to tendon mimetic hierarchical fibrous scaffolds, resulting in a system that enables remote stimulation of cells in vitro and, potentially, in vivo after construct transplantation.

Portable sensing system based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for the simultaneous quantification of free and total microcystin-LR in freshwaters.

Microcystins are the most worldwide extended and common toxins produced by cyanobacteria in freshwater. Microcystin-leucine arginine (MC-LR), associated with the most toxic incidents involving microcystins, are within the cyanobacteria (intracellular) until released into the surrounding waters (extracellular) during cell lysis. Therefore, the relationship between intracellular and extracellular cyanotoxins will allow a comprehensive risk of cyanobacteria-containing waters, preventing disease and improving human safety.

Development of Inhalable Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (SPIONs) in Microparticulate System for Antituberculosis Drug Delivery.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease which affects millions of people worldwide. Inhalable polymeric dry powders are promising alternatives as anti-TB drug carriers to the alveoli milieu and infected macrophages, with potential to significantly improve the therapeutics efficiency. Here, the development of a magnetically responsive microparticulate system for pulmonary delivery of an anti-TB drug candidate (P3) is reported.

Multifunctional magnetic-responsive hydrogels to engineer tendon-to-bone interface.

Photocrosslinkable magnetic hydrogels are attracting great interest for tissue engineering strategies due to their versatility and multifunctionality, including their remote controllability ex vivo, thus enabling engineering complex tissue interfaces. This study reports the development of a photocrosslinkable magnetic responsive hydrogel made of methacrylated chondroitin sulfate (MA-CS) enriched with platelet lysate (PL) with tunable features, envisioning their application in tendon-to-bone interface. MA-CS coated iron-based magnetic nanoparticles were incorporated to provide magnetic responsiveness to the hydrogel.

Magnetoresistive nanosensors: controlling magnetism at the nanoscale.

The ability to detect the magnetic fields that surround us has promoted vast technological advances in sensing techniques. Among those, magnetoresistive sensors display an unpaired spatial resolution. Here, we successfully control the linear range of nanometric sensors using an interfacial exchange bias sensing layer coupling.

Exploring the Potential of Starch/Polycaprolactone Aligned Magnetic Responsive Scaffolds for Tendon Regeneration.

The application of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) in tissue engineering (TE) approaches opens several new research possibilities in this field, enabling a new generation of multifunctional constructs for tissue regeneration. This study describes the development of sophisticated magnetic polymer scaffolds with aligned structural features aimed at applications in tendon tissue engineering (TTE). Tissue engineering magnetic scaffolds are prepared by incorporating iron oxide MNPs into a 3D structure of aligned SPCL (starch and polycaprolactone) fibers fabricated by rapid prototyping (RP) technology.

Ordered arrays of tilted silicon nanobelts with enhanced solar hydrogen evolution performance.

Well-ordered tilted silicon nanobelt arrays have been fabricated over a large area (≥2.5 cm(2)) by metal assisted chemical etching of pre-patterned silicon, which demonstrated markedly enhanced solar hydrogen evolution performance, compared with planar silicon of the same type and previously reported silicon nanowires prepared in a similar way.