Short Review and Opinion: New Matter Properties and Applications Based on Hybrids Graphene Based Metamaterials

: Graphene as Organic material showed special attention due to their electronic and conductive properties. Moreover, its highly conjugated chemical structures and relative easy modification permitted varied design and control of targeted properties and applications. In addition, this Nanomaterial accompanied with pseudo Electromagnetic fields permitted photonics, electronics and Quantum interactions with their surrounding that generated new materials properties. In this context, this short Review, intends to discuss many of these studies related with new materials based on graphene for light and electronic interactions, conductions, and new modes of non-classical light generation. It should be highlighted that these new materials and metamaterials are currently in progress. For this reason it was showed and discussed some representative examples from Fundamental Research with Potential Applications as well as for their incorporations to real Advanced devices and miniaturized instrumentation. In this way, it was proposed this Special issue entitled “Design and synthesis of Hybrids Graphene based Metamaterials”, in order to open and share the knowledge of the Current State of the Art in this Multidisciplinary field.

Performance Assessment of Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS)

Accurate representation of atmospheric aerosol properties is a long-standing problem in atmospheric research. Modern pilotless aerial systems provide a new platform for atmospheric in situ measurement. However, small airborne platforms require miniaturized instrumentation due to apparent size, power, and weight limitations. A Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS) is an emerged instrument to measure ambient aerosol size distribution with high time and size resolution, designed for deployment on a small unmanned aerial system (UAS) or tethered balloon system (TBS) platforms. This study evaluates the performance of a POPS with an upgraded laser heater and additional temperature sensors in the aerosol pathway. POPS maintains its performance under different environmental conditions as long as the laser temperature remains above 25 °C and the aerosol flow temperature inside the optical chamber is 15 °C higher than the ambient temperature. The comparison between POPS and an Ultra-High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer (UHSAS) suggests that the coincidence error is less than 25% when the number concentration is less than 4000 cm−3. The size distributions measured by both of them remained unaffected up to 15,000 cm−3. While both instruments’ sizing accuracy is affected by the aerosol chemical composition and morphology, the influence is more profound on the POPS.

Short Review and opinion: New matter properties and applications based on Hybrids Graphene based Metamaterials

: Graphene as Organic material showed special attention due to their electronic and conductive properties. Moreover, its highly conjugated chemical structures and relative easy modification permitted varied design and control of targeted properties and applications. In addition, this Nanomaterial accompanied with pseudo Electromagnetic fields permitted photonics, electronics and Quantum interactions with their surrounding that generated new materials properties. In this context, this short Review, intends to discuss many of these studies related with new materials based on graphene for light and electronic interactions, conductions, and new modes of non-classical light generation. It should be highlighted that these new materials and metamaterials are currently in progress. For this reason it was showed and discussed some representative examples from Fundamental Research with Potential Applications as well as for their incorporations to real Advanced devices and miniaturized instrumentation. In this way, it was proposed this Special issue entitled “Design and synthesis of Hybrids Graphene based Metamaterials”, in order to open and share the knowledge of the Current State of the Art in this Multidisciplinary field.

KickStat: A Coin-Sized Potentiostat for High-Resolution Electrochemical Analysis

The demand for wearable and point-of-care devices has led to an increase in electrochemical sensor development to measure an ever-increasing array of biological molecules. In order to move from the benchtop to truly portable devices, the development of new biosensors requires miniaturized instrumentation capable of making highly sensitive amperometric measurements. To meet this demand, we have developed KickStat, a miniaturized potentiostat that combines the small size of the integrated Texas Instruments LMP91000 potentiostat chip (Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX, USA) with the processing power of the ARM Cortex-M0+ SAMD21 microcontroller (Microchip Technology, Chandler, AZ, USA) on a custom-designed 21.6 mm by 20.3 mm circuit board. By incorporating onboard signal processing via the SAMD21, we achieve 1 mV voltage increment resolution and an instrumental limit of detection of 4.5 nA in a coin-sized form factor. This elegant engineering solution allows for high-resolution electrochemical analysis without requiring extensive circuitry. We measured the faradaic current of an anti-cocaine aptamer using cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry and demonstrated that KickStat’s response was within 0.6% of a high-end benchtop potentiostat. To further support others in electrochemical biosensors development, we have made KickStat’s design and firmware available in an online GitHub repository.

A highly sensitive eco-scale method for mercury determination in water and food using photochemical vapor generation and miniaturized instrumentation for capacitively coupled plasma microtorch optical emission spectrometry

A sensitive method with a green profile for Hg determination in food and water was developed.

Miniaturized Raman instrumentation detects carotenoids in Mars-analogue rocks from the Mojave and Atacama deserts

This study is primarily focused on proving the potential of miniaturized Raman systems to detect any biomolecular and mineral signal in natural geobiological samples that are relevant for future application of the technique within astrobiologically aimed missions on Mars. A series of evaporites of varying composition and origin from two extremely dry deserts were studied, namely Atacama and Mojave. The samples represent both dry evaporitic deposits and recent evaporitic efflorescences from hypersaline brines. The samples comprise halite and different types of sulfates and carbonates. The samples were analysed in two different ways: (i) directly as untreated rocks and (ii) as homogenized powders. Two excitation wavelengths of miniaturized Raman spectrometers were compared: 532 and 785 nm. The potential to detect carotenoids as biomarkers on Mars compared with the potential detection of carbonaceous matter using miniaturized instrumentation is discussed.