MetaMembranes for the Sensitivity Enhancement of Wearable Piezoelectric MetaSensors.

The low stretchability of plain membranes restricts the sensitivity of conventional diaphragm-based pressure and inflatable piezoelectric sensors. Using theoretical and computational tools, we characterized current limitations and explored metamaterial-inspired membranes (MetaMems) to resolve these issues. This paper develops two MetaMem pressure sensors (MPSs) to enrich the sensitivity and stretchability of the conventional sensors. Two auxetic hexagonal and kirigami honeycombs are proposed to create a negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) in the MetaMems which enables them to expand the piezo-element of sensors in both longitudinal and transverse directions much better, and consequently provides the MPSs' diaphragm a higher capability for flexural deformation. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polycarbonate (PC) are considered as the preferable materials for the piezo-element and MetaMem, respectively. A finite element analysis was conducted to investigate the stretchability behavior of the MetaMems and study its effect on the PVDF's polarization and sensor sensitivity. The results obtained from theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed MetaMems enhance the sensitivity of pressure sensors up to 3.8 times more than an equivalent conventional sensor with a plain membrane. This paper introduces a new class of flexible MetaMems to advance wearable piezoelectric metasensor technologies.

Distance and Angle Correction System (DACS) for a kHz A-Scan Rate Pump-Probe Laser-Ultrasound Inspection.

Non-contact optical detection of ultrasound critically depends on the amount of light collected from the detection surface. Although it can be optimized in multiple ways for an ideal flat polished surface, industrial non-destructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) usually requires optical detectors to be robust for unpolished material surfaces that are usually rough and curved. Confocal detectors provide the best light collection but must trade off sensitivity with depth of field. Specifically, detection efficiency increases with the numerical aperture (NA) of the detector, but the depth of field drops. Therefore, fast realignment of the detector focal point is critical for in-field applications. Here, we propose an optical distance and angle correction system (DACS) and demonstrate it in a kHz-rate laser-ultrasound inspection system. It incorporates a Sagnac interferometer on receive for the fast scanning of aircraft composites, which minimizes the required initial alignment. We show that DACS performs stably for different composite surfaces while providing ±2° angular and ±2 mm axial automatic correction with a maximum 100 ms realignment time.

Highly Sensitive Built-In Strain Sensors for Polymer Composites: Fluorescence Turn-On Response through Mechanochemical Activation.

A new class of rationally designed mechanophores is developed for highly sensitive built-in strain sensors in polymer composites. These mechanophores are designed to regenerate the π-conjugation pathway between the electron donor and electron acceptor by force-induced cleavage of the covalent bond to form a fluorescent dipolar dye.