Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    PCNS 2025 Final Program Announced!

    DigiKey Expands Inventory with Over 32,000 Stocking NPIs in Q2 2025

    YAGEO Offers High-Performance Diplexers for Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6E/7Integration

    European Components Distribution (DMASS) Faces Continued Decline in Q2 2025

    TDK Announced Wide Frequency Automotive Wirewound POC Inductors

    Bourns Released Rugged, High-Power TO-247 Thick Film Resistor

    Bourns Announced Shielded Power Inductor with High Saturation and Low Radiation

    Würth Elektronik Expands MagI³C with Variable Step-Down Modules

    KYOCERA AVX Releases 600MHz Band71 Compact SAW Duplexer

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Switched Capacitor Converter Explained

    Understanding Inductor Dot Markings and Their Application in LTspice

    Accelerating Full Bridge LLC Resonant Converter Design with Frenetic AI

    Understanding Switched Capacitor Converters

    Coupled Inductors Circuit Model and Examples of its Applications

    Inductor Resonances and its Impact to EMI

    Highly Reliable Flex Rigid PCBs, Würth Elektronik Webinar

    Causes of Oscillations in Flyback Converters

    How to design a 60W Flyback Transformer

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    PCNS 2025 Final Program Announced!

    DigiKey Expands Inventory with Over 32,000 Stocking NPIs in Q2 2025

    YAGEO Offers High-Performance Diplexers for Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6E/7Integration

    European Components Distribution (DMASS) Faces Continued Decline in Q2 2025

    TDK Announced Wide Frequency Automotive Wirewound POC Inductors

    Bourns Released Rugged, High-Power TO-247 Thick Film Resistor

    Bourns Announced Shielded Power Inductor with High Saturation and Low Radiation

    Würth Elektronik Expands MagI³C with Variable Step-Down Modules

    KYOCERA AVX Releases 600MHz Band71 Compact SAW Duplexer

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Switched Capacitor Converter Explained

    Understanding Inductor Dot Markings and Their Application in LTspice

    Accelerating Full Bridge LLC Resonant Converter Design with Frenetic AI

    Understanding Switched Capacitor Converters

    Coupled Inductors Circuit Model and Examples of its Applications

    Inductor Resonances and its Impact to EMI

    Highly Reliable Flex Rigid PCBs, Würth Elektronik Webinar

    Causes of Oscillations in Flyback Converters

    How to design a 60W Flyback Transformer

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
No Result
View All Result
Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result

Wearable sensors and capacitors allow precise measurements of UV exposure

11.12.2018
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

Source: Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering news

World’s smallest wearable device introduced by Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering warns of UV exposure and enables precision photo-therapy thanks to advanced, miniaturized sensors and capacitors. 
Smaller than an M&M and thinner than a credit card, the device can optimize treatment of neonatal jaundice, skin diseases, seasonal affective disorder, and reduce risk of sunburns, and skin cancer.

RelatedPosts

PCNS 2025 Final Program Announced!

DigiKey Expands Inventory with Over 32,000 Stocking NPIs in Q2 2025

YAGEO Offers High-Performance Diplexers for Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6E/7Integration

The world’s smallest wearable, battery-free device has been developed by Northwestern Medicine and Northwestern Engineering scientists to measure exposure to light across multiple wavelengths, from the ultra violet (UV) to visible and even infrared parts of the solar spectrum. It can record up to three separate wavelengths of light at one time.

The device’s underlying physics and extensions of the platform to a broad array of clinical applications are reported in a study published December 5 in Science Translational Medicine. These foundational concepts form the basis of consumer devices launched in November to alert consumers to their UVA exposure, enabling them to take action to protect their skin from sun damage.

When the solar-powered, virtually indestructible device was mounted on human study participants, it recorded multiple forms of light exposure during outdoor activities, even in the water. The device monitored therapeutic UV light in clinical phototherapy booths for psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, as well as blue light phototherapy for newborns with jaundice in the neonatal intensive care unit. It also demonstrated the ability to measure white light exposure for seasonal affective disorder.

As such, it enables precision phototherapy for these health conditions, and it can monitor, separately and accurately, UVB and UVA exposure for people at high risk for melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. For recreational users, the sensor can help warn of impending sunburn.

How the tiny sensor works
Light passes through a window in the sensor and strikes a millimeter-scale semiconductor photodetector. This device produces a minute electrical current with a magnitude proportional to the intensity of the light. This current passes to an electronic component called a capacitor where the associated charge is captured and stored. A communication chip embedded in the sensor reads the voltage across this capacitor and passes the result digitally and wirelessly to the user’s smartphone. At the same time, it discharges the capacitor, thereby resetting the device.

Multiple detectors and capacitors allow measurements of UVB and UVA exposure separately. The device communicates with the users’ phone to access weather and global UV index information (the amount of light coming through the clouds). By combining this information, the user can infer how much time they have been in the direct sun and out of shade. The user’s phone can then send an alert if they have been in the sun too long and need to duck into the shade.

First accurate dosing of phototherapy
Currently, the amount of light patients actually receive from phototherapy is not measured. “We know that the lamps for phototherapy are not uniform in their output — a sensor like this can help target problem areas of the skin that aren’t getting better,” Xu said. Doctors don’t know how much blue light a jaundiced newborn is actually absorbing or how much white light a patient with seasonal affective disorder gets from a light box. The new device will measure this for the first time and allow doctors to optimize the therapy by adjusting the position of the patient or the light source.

Because the device operates in an “always on” mode, its measurements are more precise and accurate than any other light dosimeter now available, the scientists said. Current dosimeters only sample light intensity briefly at set time intervals and assume that the light intensity at times between those measurements is constant, which is not necessarily the case, especially in active, outdoor use scenarios. They are also clunky, heavy, and expensive.

About the invention
The device was designed by a team of researchers in the group of John Rogers, the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and a professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“From the standpoint of the user, it couldn’t be easier to use – it’s always on yet never needs to be recharged,” Rogers said. “It weighs as much as a raindrop, has a diameter smaller than that of an M&M and the thickness of a credit card. You can mount it on your hat or glue it to your sunglasses or watch.”

It’s also rugged, waterproof and doesn’t need a battery. “There are no switches or interfaces to wear out, and it is completely sealed in a thin layer of transparent plastic,” Rogers said. “It interacts wirelessly with your phone.We think it will last forever.”

Rogers tried to break it. His students dunked devices in boiling water and in a simulated washing machine. They still worked.

Northwestern scientists are particularly excited about the device’s use for measuring the entire UV spectrum and accumulating total daily exposure.

“There is a critical need for technologies that can accurately measure and promote safe UV exposure at a personalized level in natural environments,” said co-senior author Dr. Steve Xu, instructor in dermatology at Feinberg and a Northwestern Medicine dermatologist.

“We hope people with information about their UV exposure will develop healthier habits when out in the sun,” Xu said. “UV light is ubiquitous and carcinogenic. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer worldwide. Right now, people don’t know how much UV light they are actually getting. This device helps you maintain an awareness, and for skin cancer survivors, could also keep their dermatologists informed.”

Light wavelengths interact with the skin and body in different ways, the scientists said.

“Being able to split out and separately measure exposure to different wavelengths of light is really important,” Rogers said. “UVB is the shortest wavelength and the most dangerous in terms of developing cancer. A single photon of UVB light is 1,000 times more erythrogenic, or redness inducing, compared to a single photon of UVA.”

In addition, the intensity of the biological effect of light changes constantly depending on weather patterns, time, and space.

“If you’re out in the sun at noon in the Caribbean, that sunlight energy is very different than noon on the same day in Chicago,” Xu said.

Skin cancer is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the skin account for more than 5.4 million cases per year at a cost of $8.1 billion dollars yearly. In 2018, there will be an estimated 178,000 new cases of melanoma, causing 9,000 deaths. Every hour, one person dies of melanoma.

 

featured image: miniaturized, battery-free wireless device monitors UV exposure, credit: John Rogers Group, Northwest University

 

Related

Recent Posts

PCNS 2025 Final Program Announced!

31.7.2025
3

European Components Distribution (DMASS) Faces Continued Decline in Q2 2025

30.7.2025
5

Würth Elektronik Expands MagI³C with Variable Step-Down Modules

30.7.2025
10

Switched Capacitor Converter Explained

28.7.2025
12

Samsung Releases 1000V 1812 X7R 100nF MLCC for Electric Vehicles

28.7.2025
16

Samsung Electro-Mechanics Releases Molded MLCC Capacitors

28.7.2025
22

Researchers Demonstrated 200C Polymer Film Dielectric

28.7.2025
10

Researchers Demonstrated Zinc-Ion Based Photo-Supercapacitor

28.7.2025
9

Phillips Medisize Launches TheraVolt Medical Connectors

25.7.2025
4

TDK Presents Various Large-Size Ferrite Cores for Industrial Applications

25.7.2025
15

Upcoming Events

Sep 22
September 22 @ 13:00 - September 25 @ 15:15 EDT

Pre Cap Visual Inspection per Mil-Std-883 (TM 2017)

Sep 30
September 30 @ 12:00 - October 2 @ 14:00 EDT

MIL-Std-883 TM 2010

Oct 17
12:00 - 14:00 EDT

External Visual Inspection per MIL-STD-883 TM 2009

Oct 21
October 21 @ 12:00 - October 23 @ 14:15 EDT

Space and Military Standards for Hybrids and RF Microwave Modules

Nov 4
November 4 @ 12:00 - November 6 @ 14:15 EST

Wirebond Materials, Processes, Reliability and Testing

View Calendar

Popular Posts

  • Buck Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Boost Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Flyback Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • LLC Resonant Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is a Dielectric Constant and DF of Plastic Materials?

    4 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 0
  • Dual Active Bridge (DAB) Topology Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Ripple Current and its Effects on the Performance of Capacitors

    3 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 0
  • How to Design an Inductor

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • MLCC Case Sizes Standards Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • MLCC and Ceramic Capacitors

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter Subscription

 

Passive Components Blog

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • EPCI Membership & Advertisement
  • About

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Premium Suppliers

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Go to mobile version