Medical Design Briefs - March 2022 - 35

mometer that can be integrated into
stretchable electronics and soft robots.
" We have developed soft temperature
sensors with high sensitivity and quick
response time, opening new possibilities to
create new human-machine interfaces
and soft robots in healthcare, engineering
and entertainment, " says Zhigang Suo, the
Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett Professor
of Mechanics and Materials at SEAS and
senior author of the paper.
The research is published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
The thermometer consists of three simple
parts: an electrolyte, an electrode, and
a dielectric material to separate the two.
The electrolyte/dielectric interface accumulates
ions while the dielectric/electrode
interface accumulates electrons.
The charge imbalance between the two
sets up an ionic cloud in the electrolyte.
When the temperature changes, the ionic
cloud changes thickness, and a voltage is
generated. The voltage is sensitive to temperature,
but insensitive to stretch.
" Because the design is so simple, there
are so many different ways to customize
the sensor, depending on the application, "
says Yecheng Wang, a postdoctoral
fellow at SEAS and first author of the
paper. " You can choose different materials,
arranged in different ways and optimized
for different tasks. "
By arranging the electrolyte, dielectric,
and electrode in different configurations,
the researchers developed four designs for
the temperature sensor. In one test, they
integrated the sensor into a soft gripper
and measured the temperature of a hot
hard-boiled egg. The sensors are more sensitive
than traditional thermoelectric thermometers
and can respond to changes in
temperature within about 10 milliseconds.
" We demonstrated that these sensors
can be made small, stable, and even transparent, "
says Wang.
Depending on the materials used, the
thermometer can measure temperatures
upwards of 200 °C or as cold as
-100 °C.
" This highly customizable platform
could usher in new developments to
enable and improve the Internet of everything
and everyone, " says Suo.
The research was co-authored by Kun
Jia, Shuwen Zhang, Hyeong Jun Kim,
Yang Bai, and Ryan C. Hayward. The
research was supported in part by the
National Science Foundation through the
Harvard University Materials Research
Science and Engineering Center under
grant DMR2011754.
This article was written by Leah Burrows,
Harvard SEAS. For more information, visit
https://www.seas.harvard.edu.
3D Robotic Spine 'Twin' Offers New Way to Preview
Surgical Procedures
The twins enable
comparison of the effects
of different surgical
interventions in a patientspecific
manner.
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL
Degenerative disc disease affects about
40 percent of people aged 40, increasing
to about 80 percent among those aged 80
or older. The disease, which is the deterioration
of one or more intervertebral
discs of the spine, often is surgically treated
with cervical disc implants.
In order to determine whether a
patient is a candidate for a cervical disc
implant, surgeons must rely primarily on
the findings of diagnostic imaging studies,
without any input from biomechanical
data to optimize the type of prosthesis.
This may occasionally lead to complications
and implant failure.
To address these problems, Florida
Atlantic University's Erik Engeberg, PhD,
senior author of the study, and researchers
from the College of Engineering and
Computer Science, in collaboration with
Frank Vrionis, MD, senior author of the
study and director of the Marcus
Neuroscience Institute, part of Baptist
Medical Design Briefs, March 2022
Cov
This new approach could provide surgeons with first-hand data to compare the effects of different
surgical interventions to treat diseases of the spine before surgery and potentially reduce the rates
of complication and failure of artificial disc implantation. (Credit: Florida Atlantic University)
Health, have created a novel robotic replica
of a human spine to enable surgeons to
preview the effects of surgical interventions
prior to the operation.
The researchers have developed a 3D
printed spine replica
its hub on Boca Raton Regional Hos -
pital's campus and satellite locations at
Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach and
Deerfield Beach.
modified to
include an artificial disc implant and outfitted
with a soft magnetic sensor array.
The Marcus Neuroscience Institute has
www.medicaldesignbriefs.com
ToC
The patient-specific robotic spine
model was based on a CT scan of the
human spine. A modified artificial disc was
implanted into the cervical spine replica,
and the soft magnet was embedded in the
35

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Medical Design Briefs - March 2022

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