A team of researchers in South Korea has created an ultrasensitive vibration monitor that is based on the lyriform organ in wandering spider legs. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes the lyriform organ, how it works and how they applied what they learned to a new monitor that could have applications in music, speech recognition and health monitoring. Peter Frazel of the Max Planck Institute explains the work in more detail in a News & Views piece in the same journal issue. The male wandering spider attempts to seduce the female by scratching leaves with its belly—the female is able to pick up these minute vibrations due to the lyriform organ in it legs—essentially parallel slits that when disturbed can set off nerves that are converted to something that makes sense in the spider brain. In this new effort, the researchers reproduced the organ in their lab. The team built their sensor by applying a 20 nanometer layer of platinum on top of a soft polymer and then introduced a series of parallel cracks. Because the layer is on top of a somewhat elastic base, the device can be stretched slightly, which happens when vibration is introduced. Sending electricity across the top layer allows for the device to be used as a vibration sensor because the distance across the individual cracks varies when the device is placed on a surface where vibration is present, which causes changes to how much electricity can pass. To sense vibration, all the team had to do was measure the sensors resistance.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 16:56:28 +0000
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