| Aug 06, 2024 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Gold doesn’t readily lend itself to being changed into lengthy, skinny threads. However researchers at Linköping College in Sweden have now managed to create gold nanowires and develop comfortable electrodes that may be related to the nervous system. The electrodes are comfortable as nerves, stretchable and electrically conductive, and are projected to final for a very long time within the physique.
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Some individuals have a “heart of gold”, so why not “nerves of gold”? Sooner or later, it could be attainable to make use of this treasured steel in comfortable interfaces to attach electronics to the nervous system for medical functions. Such know-how may very well be used to alleviate situations equivalent to epilepsy, Parkinson’s illness, paralysis or persistent ache. Nevertheless, creating an interface the place electronics can meet the mind or different components of the nervous system poses particular challenges.
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| The comfortable electrodes developed by Klas Tybrandt’s analysis group at Linköping College are stretchable to observe the physique’s actions with out damaging tissue. They include extraordinarily skinny threads of gold and comfortable silicone rubber. (Picture: Thor Balkhed)
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“The classical conductors used in electronics are metals, which are very hard and rigid. The mechanical properties of the nervous system are more reminiscent of soft jelly. In order to get an accurate signal transmission, we need to get very close to the nerve fibres in question, but as the body is constantly in motion, achieving close contact between something that is hard and something that is soft and fragile becomes a problem”, says Klas Tybrandt, professor of supplies science on the Laboratory of Natural Electronics at Linköping College, who led the analysis.
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Researchers subsequently wish to create electrodes which have good conductivity in addition to mechanical properties just like the softness of the physique. Lately, a number of research have proven that comfortable electrodes don’t injury the tissue as a lot as laborious electrodes might do. Within the present examine, revealed within the journal Small (“Stretchable tissue-like gold nanowire composites with long-term stability for neural interfaces”), a bunch of researchers at Linköping College have developed gold nanowires – a thousand occasions thinner than a hair – and embedded them in an elastic materials to create comfortable microelectrodes.
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“We’ve succeeded in making a new, better nanomaterial from gold nanowires in combination with a very soft silicone rubber. Getting these to work together has resulted in a conductor that has high electrical conductivity, is very soft and made of biocompatible materials that function with the body,” says Klas Tybrandt.
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Silicone rubber is utilized in medical implants, equivalent to breast implants. The comfortable electrodes additionally embrace gold and platinum, metals which can be frequent in medical gadgets for scientific use.
Nevertheless, making lengthy, slim gold nanostructures may be very troublesome. This has up to now been a significant impediment, however the researchers have now give you a brand new technique to manufacture gold nanowires. And so they do it by utilizing silver nanowires.
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As silver has distinctive properties that make it an excellent materials to create the sort of nanowires that the researchers are after, it’s utilized in some stretchable nanomaterials. The issue with silver is that it’s chemically reactive. In the identical method that silver cutlery will discolour over time when chemical reactions happen on the floor, silver in nanowires breaks down in order that silver ions leak out. In a excessive sufficient focus, silver ions will be poisonous to us.
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It was when Laura Seufert, a doctoral scholar in Klas Tybrandt’s analysis group, was engaged on discovering a technique to synthesize, or “grow”, gold nanowires that she got here up with a brand new strategy that opened up new potentialities. At first, it was troublesome to regulate the form of the nanowires. However then she found a method that resulted in very clean wires. As an alternative of making an attempt to develop gold nanowires from the start, she began with a skinny nanowire fabricated from pure silver.
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“As it’s possible to make silver nanowires, we take advantage of this and use the silver nanowire as a kind of template on which we grow gold. The next step in the process is to remove the silver. Once that’s done, we have a material that has over 99 per cent gold in it. So it’s a bit of a trick to get around the problem of making long narrow gold nanostructures,” says Klas Tybrandt.
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In collaboration with Professor Simon Farnebo on the Division of Biomedical and Medical Sciences at Linköping College, the researchers behind the examine have proven that the comfortable and elastic microelectrodes can stimulate a rat nerve as effectively seize indicators from the nerve.
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In purposes the place the comfortable electronics are to be embedded within the physique, the fabric should final for a very long time, ideally for all times. The researchers have examined the steadiness of the brand new materials and concluded that it’ll final for no less than three years, which is healthier than most of the nanomaterials developed up to now.
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The analysis crew is now engaged on refining the fabric and creating several types of electrodes which can be even smaller and might come into nearer contact with nerve cells.
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