Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1116895
94 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 watching. A lot of successful distributors don't exist anymore because the partnerships were not valued. And as money became precious and as prices went down during bad times, it was very difficult for some of the smaller lami- nators in the world to support those people. So, I think the attitude that has to shift is that when you have somebody that's your partner, they can't worry too much about their normal business cycle. They have to be stable, as all of our employees are in our business, and believe they're going to be there for a long time. Johnson: Readers are looking for new materi- als, starting with basic research. Is calling the most effective way to contact Panasonic to find out about your products? Senese: There are several ways you can look up Panasonic EMBD. On our company web- site at https://industrial.panasonic.com/ww/ electronic-materials, all of the inquiries that we receive go to local representation, which is easiest. However, our customers have all kinds of information about our materials. Some of those customers just publish what's on the data sheet while others do the research them- selves. There is data out there to help you un- derstand what's important and what's not. Whenever one of our salespeople receives a call, we take it to the appropriate level and the person in charge of that segment to put on their list of customers to call and talk to. I did a couple of them last week myself, and it's not even my primary function. We are in the midst of disruptive changes that all material suppliers are having to deal with, and we're all evolving. This model of supply chain partner- ships may be almost as disruptive as lead-free soldering. Johnson: Thank you for the information and taking the time to go through this. Senese: Nolan, it has been good talking to you. PCB007 Researchers from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering have developed a unique new device using graphene that provides the first step toward ultrasensitive biosensors to detect diseases at the mo- lecular level with near perfect efficiency. "To detect and treat many diseases, we need to detect protein molecules at very small amounts and understand their structure," said Sang-Hyun Oh, University of Minne- sota electrical and computer engineering professor and lead researcher on the study. "Currently, there are many technical challenges with that process. We hope that our device using graphene and a unique manufacturing pro- cess will provide the fundamental research that can help overcome those challenges." Attempts have been made to im- prove biosensors using graphene, but the challenge exists with its single- atom thickness, especially with light absorption. Previous research has on- ly demonstrated a light absorption rate of less than 10%. University of Minnesota researchers combined gra- phene with nanosized metal ribbons of gold and uti- lized a homegrown high-tech nanofabrication technique called "template stripping" to create an ultra-flat base layer surface for the graphene. By shining light on the single-atom graphene layer device, they were able to create a plasmon wave with unprecedented efficiency at a near-perfect 94% light absorption into "tidal waves" of electric field. When they inserted protein molecules between the graphene and metal ribbons, they were able to harness enough energy to view single layers of protein molecules. The research team included University of Minnesota electrical and computer engineering postdoctoral researchers In-Ho Lee (lead author) and Daehan Yoo, Profes - sor Tony Low, and IBM Fellow Emeritus Dr. Phaedon Avouris. The research was published in Nature Nanotech- nology. (Source: University of Minnesota) New Graphene-based Device Paves the Way for Ultrasensitive Biosensors