The Smallest Accelerometer Is Made From Graphene

A super-miniature accelerometer uses the incredible properties of the 2D material graphene. It could find its place in smartphones, wearables and even in tiny medicinal devices.

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Nanotechnologies truly show us that we do live in the future. Every single day we get to hear about new potential of tiny devices and often they use a material that is known for its seemingly all-purpose usage – graphene. Recently, it was again graphene that play a key role in a breakthrough technology that was developed by an international team led by experts from Dutch and Swedish institutes, more precisely RWTH Aachen, AMO GmbH and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

Xuge Fan and his coworkers created the smallest accelerometer in the world that uses graphene strips. And not only about it being the smallest but mostly about the fact that it could find many different applications. The is the possibility for ultrasensitive sensors for smartphones and wearables and even medicinal gadgets to precisely monitor patients.

In recent decades we started to see micro-electromechanical systems started appearing in many devices. Currently, we can see these systems achieving a new level. In this case, its nano-electromechanical systems. This requires us to use materials with unique properties such as graphene. Graphene has an extremely low resistivity (in other words, low electric resistance) and that makes it an incredible conductor of electricity. At the same time, graphene is a very strong material. Having both of these properties at the same time predestines it to be used in nano-electromechanical systems.

Graphene allowed the experts to create a piezoresistive nano-electromechanical accelerometer that is a lot smaller than any currently available micro-electromechanical accelerometer. But at the same time, their accelerometer is as precise as any of the ones currently used.

The experts are convinced that accelerometers based on their technology shall appear in future smartphones – for example, to control various mobile games, advanced pedometers. Or in medicinal devices that will check if a patient is moving and in what way while being capable of monitoring even the smallest of the patients moves. Nano-electromechanical accelerometers could also become a part of miniature sensors, gyroscopes, and even microphones.

Sources:

• https://devicematerialscommunity.nature.com/users/303546-xuge-fan/posts/52987-graphene-enables-ultra-miniaturized-nems-accelerometers
• https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/world-s-smallest-accelerometer-points-to-new-era-in-wearables-gaming-1.921647

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