Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)

The number of newly registered electric vehicles in Korea surpassed 100,000 units last year alone. Norway is the only other country to match such numbers. The core materials that determine the battery life and charging speed of now commonly seen EVs are anode materials. Korea's domestic battery industry has been committed to finding revolutionary ways to increase the battery capacity by introducing new technologies or other anode materials. But what if we get rid of anode materials altogether?

A research team has improved the performance of a p-type semiconductor transistor using inorganic metal halide perovskite. One of the biggest advantages of the new technology is that it enables solution-processed perovskite transistors to be simply printed as semiconductor-like circuits.

Diabetes is a long-term chronic disease with many complications and requires care over a lifetime. The longer a patient suffers from diabetes, the higher the risk of developing retinopathy which can progressively lead to a decline in vision and even to blindness.

A pulse wave is a wave in which the blood flow - that originates from the heartbeat - is transmitted to the body. It is an important biosignal that indicates cardiovascular health. Analyzing the pulse wave signal can diagnose cardiac conditions including high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and more. However, conventional pulse wave measuring devices are cumbersome as they require wearing the blood-pressure measuring cuff or stiff tong-shaped sensor and can mostly be performed at hospitals.

Sweat is an effective body fluid for analyzing bioanalytes in the body without collecting blood. The sweat sensor can reduce the hassle for diabetic patients who repeatedly have to draw blood, and can also be used in wearable devices for daily healthcare monitoring. However, the practical use of sweat sensors is impeded by irregular and low sweat secretion rates. There is a pressing need to effectively collect these sweat secretions.