Hybrid Core-Shell TiCN@SiO Nanoparticles in Percolation-Based Polyvinylidene Fluoride Dielectrics for Improved High-Voltage Capacitive Energy Storage.

Solid-state polymer dielectrics offer an exceptional dielectric breakdown, but require an enhanced energy density to be competitive with alternative electrolyte-based energy storage technologies. Therefore, this research introduces conductive titanium carbonitride (TiCN) nanoparticles in a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) matrix to obtain flexible percolation-based nanodielectrics by ultrasonication-based suspension processing and hot pressing. Well-dispersed TiCN nanoparticles in PVDF were obtained for a wide range of filler volume fractions, and an exceptional peak in the dielectric constant equal to 1130 (0.

Opportunities in optical and electrical single-cell technologies to study microbial ecosystems.

New techniques are revolutionizing single-cell research, allowing us to study microbes at unprecedented scales and in unparalleled depth. This review highlights the state-of-the-art technologies in single-cell analysis in microbial ecology applications, with particular attention to both optical tools, i.e.

Full-electric microfluidic platform to capture, analyze and selectively release single cells.

Current single-cell technologies require large and expensive equipment, limiting their use to specialized labs. In this paper, we present for the first time a microfluidic device which demonstrates a combined method for full-electric cell capturing, analyzing, and selectively releasing with single-cell resolution. All functionalities are experimentally demonstrated on .

A 134 DB Dynamic Range Noise Shaping Slope Light-to-Digital Converter for Wearable Chest PPG Applications.

This paper presents a low power, high dynamic range (DR), light-to-digital converter (LDC) for wearable chest photoplethysmogram (PPG) applications. The proposed LDC utilizes a novel 2-order noise-shaping slope architecture, directly converting the photocurrent to a digital code. This LDC applies a high-resolution dual-slope quantizer for data conversion.

A 119dB Dynamic Range Charge Counting Light-to-Digital Converter For Wearable PPG/NIRS Monitoring Applications.

This paper presents a low power, high dynamic range (DR), reconfigurable light-to-digital converter (LDC) for photoplethysmogram (PPG), and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) sensor readouts. The proposed LDC utilizes a current integration and a charge counting operation to directly convert the photocurrent to a digital code, reducing the noise contributors in the system. This LDC consists of a latched comparator, a low-noise current reference, a counter, and a multi-function integrator, which is used in both signal amplification and charge counting based data quantization.