Meta-tribomaterials add sensing capabilities to spinal implants

Surgeons often use a cage to provide support where the disk once was between the vertebrae. Now, a team at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering is adding self-powering sensing capabilities into spinal implants. A paper detailing their work was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials.

“Smart implants can provide real-time biofeedback and offer many therapeutic and diagnostic benefits,” said Amir Alavi, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, whose iSMaRT Lab led the research. “But it is very challenging to integrate bulky circuits or power sources into the small area of implants. The solution is to use the implant matrix as an active sensing and energy harvesting medium. That’s what we’ve been focused on.”

The Intelligent Structural Monitoring and Response Testing (iSMaRT) Lab has developed a new class of multifunctional mechanical metamaterials, which act as their own sensors, recording and relaying important information about the pressure and stresses on its structure. The so-called meta-tribomaterials , or self-aware metamaterials, generate their own power and can be used for a wide array of sensing and monitoring applications.