Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Ultrafast Mode-Locked Lasers

Lasers are essential tools for observing, detecting, and measuring things in the natural world that we can’t see with the naked eye. But the ability to perform these tasks is often restricted by the need to use expensive and large instruments. A research team at CUNY has developed a novel approach for creating high-performance ultrafast lasers on nanophotonic chips that can fit on a fingertip. The work centers on miniaturizing mode-lock lasers — a unique laser that emits a train of ultrashort, coherent light pulses in femtosecond intervals, which is an astonishing quadrillionth of a second. The new advance will enable pocket-sized devices that can perform detailed GPS-free precision navigation, medical imaging, food safety inspection, and more.

Contact: Shawn Rhea
212-817-7180
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Accurate Speech Decoder

A speech prosthetic developed by a collaborative team of Duke University’s neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, and engineers can translate a person’s brain signals into what they’re trying to say. Compared to current speech prosthetics with 128 electrodes, the device accommodates twice as many sensors in a significantly smaller footprint. The team tested the brain implant on four patients undergoing brain surgery. The device recorded activity from each patient’s speech motor cortex as it coordinated nearly 100 muscles that move the lips, tongue, jaw, and larynx. Overall, the decoder was accurate 40 percent of the time. That may seem like a humble test score, but it’s impressive given that similar brain-to-speech technical feats require hours or days-worth of data to draw from. The device might one day help people unable to talk due to neurological disorders regain the ability to communicate through a brain-computer interface.

Contact: Leanora Minai
919-681-4533
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Ultrathin E-Tattoo

A new system developed at the Italian Institute of Technology is an ultra-thin wearable device — an electronic temporary tattoo — capable of reproducing the localized sensation of touch. The new device is few micrometers thick and designed to arouse a tactile sensation, thus to generate a force that pushes on the skin of the person who is wearing it, which can then perceive a touch. The e-tattoo is small and easy to wear, allowing to apply it in everyday life, and it is able to generate a very localized force, capable of restoring a tactile sensation on the skin to which the device adheres perfectly. Preliminary usage test results showed great promise in terms of functionality, suggesting the use of this technology as a possible new standard in the manufacturing lightweight, portable, and energy-efficient tactile displays.