Wearable Sensors that Detect Gas Leaks

Gas accidents such as toxic gas leakage in factories, carbon monoxide leakage of boilers, or toxic gas suffocation during manhole cleaning continue to claim lives and cause injuries. Developing a sensor that can quickly detect toxic gases or biochemicals is still an important issue in public health, environmental monitoring, and military sectors. Recently, a research team at POSTECH has developed an inexpensive, ultra-compact wearable hologram sensor that immediately notifies the user of volatile gas detection. A joint research team led by Professor Junsuk Rho of departments of mechanical and chemical engineering and Dr. Inki Kim of Department of Mechanical Engineering with Professor Young-Ki Kim and Ph.D. candidate Won-Sik Kim of Department of Chemical Engineering at POSTECH has integrated metasurface with gas-reactive liquid crystal optical modulator to develop a sensor that provides an immediate visual holographic alarm when harmful gases are detected. The findings from this study were published in Science Advances on April 7, 2021.