Sensors are nowadays in everything, always smaller, efficient and interconnected. In our smartphones are irreplaceable tools for the interaction with the touchscreen and for the gesture (i.e. gyroscope, accelerometer etc) as well as for the health monitoring and the interaction with the environment (i.e. hearth rate monitoring, compass, barometer, GPS etc). In the next future, their number will increase exponentially to guarantee new service and security application. Indeed, sensors permit us to understand, monitoring and interact with the environment around us. In these last years, there was an exponential growth of the research about the bio sensoristic with innovative sensing platform based on nanostructures thanks to their innovative properties and the very high surface to volume ratio with respect to bulk materials. In this seminar, the importance of very cheap and interconnected sensors was enfatized also for the smart agricolture in poor country to fight against the scarsely food production. Prof. Shacham is one of the most global experts in this field and proposed an innovative technique to realize very cheap printed sensors based on metal nanoparticles by using special ink in common optimized printers. In this way, the estimate cost amount in large industrial production of these sensors is so cheap to be competitive in third world country agricultures showing new opportunity against the world hunger. The sensors showed are mostly Enzymatic and was exploited in the medical field (i.e. glucose sensing) as well as in environmental monitoring for smart agriculture (i.e. monitoring of plant conditions by the protein expression).
Prof. Shacham has treated with meticulous clarity different topic from screen printing of nanoparticles to biophysics and the functionalization of different material for sensors with a very intressing vision of the next future of the sensors. Finally, Prof. Shacham did not lose the opportunity to acknowledge our YM Section and the general YM philosophy, inviting interessed students and researchers to think to the opportunity to apply for an experience in his laboratories. The primary target of this seminars was mostly graduated and Ph.D. students with the appreciated participation of the undergraduate student, researchers and department professors and we obtain an odience of about 40 people.
In order to have the possibility to host a high-profile scientist, we organize this seminar join in the collaboration of the University of Catania and the University of Palermo about their project of the
inter university Ph.D. in Nanomaterial Science.
After the end of the scientific discussions, further informal scientific interactions were catalyzed by a convivial environment and the students had also the opportunity to interact directly with Prof. Shacham and discover different interessing suggestion about the next future of the sensoristic field by one of the
most recognized scientific expert.
