Geförderte OA-Publikationen

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one of the most powerful analytical techniques for the identification of molecules. The substrate, on which SERS is dependent, contains regions of nanoscale gaps (hotspots) that hold the ability to concentrate incident electromagnetic fields and effectively amplify vibrational scattering signals of adsorbed analytes. While surface plasmon resonance from metal nanostructures is a central focus for the SERS effect, the support of polymers can be significantly advantageous to provide larger exposure of structured metal surfaces for efficient interactions with analytes. Characteristics of the polymer particles such as softness, flexibility, swellability, porosity, optical transparency, metal-loading ability, and high surface area can allow diffusion of analytes and penetrating light deeply that can enormously amplify sensing outcomes. As polymer-supported plasmon-active sensor particles can emerge as versatile SERS substrates, the microfluidic platform is promising for the generation of sensor particles as well as for performing sequential SERS analysis of multiple analytes. Therefore, in this perspective article, the development of multifunctional polymer-metal composite particles, and their applications as potential sensors for SERS sensing through microfluidics are presented. A detailed background from the beginning of the SERS field and perspectives for the multifunctional sensor particles for efficient SERS sensing are provided.

Scientific computing requires handling large linear models, which are often composed of structured matrices. With increasing model size, dense representations quickly become infeasible to compute or store. Matrix-free implementations are suited to mitigate this problem at the expense of additional implementation overhead, which complicates research and development effort by months, when applied to practical research problems. Fastmat is a framework for handling large structured matrices by offering an easy-to-use abstraction model. It allows for the expression of matrix-free linear operators in a mathematically intuitive way, while retaining their benefits in computation performance and memory efficiency. A built-in hierarchical unit-test system boosts debugging productivity and run-time execution path optimization improves the performance of highly-structured operators. The architecture is completed with an interface for abstractly describing algorithms that apply such matrix-free linear operators, while maintaining clear separation of their respective implementation levels. Fastmat achieves establishing a close relationship between implementation code and the actual mathematical notation of a given problem, promoting readable, portable and re-usable scientific code.

High-density electroencephalography (HD-EEG) is currently limited to laboratory environments since state-of-the-art electrode caps require skilled staff and extensive preparation. We propose and evaluate a 256-channel cap with dry multipin electrodes for HD-EEG. We describe the designs of the dry electrodes made from polyurethane and coated with Ag/AgCl. We compare in a study with 30 volunteers the novel dry HD-EEG cap to a conventional gel-based cap for electrode-skin impedances, resting state EEG, and visual evoked potentials (VEP). We perform wearing tests with eight electrodes mimicking cap applications on real human and artificial skin. Average impedances below 900 k[Ohm] for 252 out of 256 dry electrodes enables recording with state-of-the-art EEG amplifiers. For the dry EEG cap, we obtained a channel reliability of 84% and a reduction of the preparation time of 69%. After exclusion of an average of 16% (dry) and 3% (gel-based) bad channels, resting state EEG, alpha activity, and pattern reversal VEP can be recorded with less than 5% significant differences in all compared signal characteristics metrics. Volunteers reported wearing comfort of 3.6 ± 1.5 and 4.0 ± 1.8 for the dry and 2.5 ± 1.0 and 3.0 ± 1.1 for the gel-based cap prior and after the EEG recordings, respectively (scale 1-10). Wearing tests indicated that up to 3,200 applications are possible for the dry electrodes. The 256-channel HD-EEG dry electrode cap overcomes the principal limitations of HD-EEG regarding preparation complexity and allows rapid application by not medically trained persons, enabling new use cases for HD-EEG.