Scaling down sensors

Engineers at MIT are developing a tiny sensor that could be used to detect minute quantities of hazardous gases, including toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents, much more quickly than current devices.

To develop the sensor, the researchers have taken a gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer and shrunk them to fit into a device the size of a computer mouse. Eventually, the team, led by MIT Prof Akintunde Ibitayo Akinwande, plans to build a detector about the size of a matchbox.

'Everything we're doing has been done on a macro scale. We are just scaling it down,' said Akinwande, a Prof of electrical engineering and computer science.

The gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer identify gas molecules by their electronic signatures. Current versions of such machines are around 40,000 cubic centimetres and are about the size of a full paper grocery bag. They take about 15 minutes to produce results but the new, smaller version produces results in about four seconds.