Enhancing industrial competitiveness through innovative technologies that lead varying manufacturing

We are contributing to enhancing industrial competitiveness by developing advanced electronic and optical device technologies that enable both performance enhancement and significant energy savings of IT equipment, and innovative manufacturing technologies that enable energy savings, resource savings, and low cost. Moreover, we are building a highly efficient production system by combining innovative manufacturing technologies and sensing technologies based on the advanced devices.

New Research Results

Detection of Trace Amounts of Hazardous Substances in Soil

Researchers at AIST, in collaboration with Sakamoto Lime Industry Co., Ltd. have developed a method to detect trace amounts of mercury in the soil.
Environmental pollution by Hg and other heavy metals is strictly controlled worldwide. In Japan, numerous standard values have been established for a range of Hg-related parameters, including soil Hg levels and waste management. These measures are aimed at mitigating the health risks associated with Hg exposure. This newly developed technology enables the detection of mercury in solution without complicated procedures using an easily portable device by means of an electrochemical mercury measurement technique. Although electrochemical measurement is easily affected by impurities in the solution (hereafter referred to as "foreign substances") that interfere with the measurement, the unique data processing and analysis enables the determination of whether mercury is contained at a concentration of 0.5 ppb (ppb is one billionth) or higher even in soil test solutions containing a large amount of foreign substances. In the future, we expect to develop a soil analysis system that can be used by anyone on the spot.
Details of this technology were published in Nanomaterials on June 5, 2024.

Image of high-sensitivity mercury detection system
*Figures from the original paper have been cited and modified. Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International)

Developed an Integrated Circuit That Automatically Compensates for the Sensitivity of High-performance Magnetic Sensors

A researcher at AIST, in collaboration with Aichi Steel Corporation, has developed a highly sensitive magnetic sensor that can automatically compensate for fluctuations in detection sensitivity due to manufacturing variations and environmental changes.
Compact, highly sensitive magnetic sensors are needed in a wide variety of applications, including industrial and biological measurement. To apply them to fields such as IoT, their sensitivity must be maintained at a constant level. The cost of manually adjusting sensitivity has hindered the expansion of applications for small, high-sensitivity magnetic sensors.
By combining an application-specific integrated circuit (hereinafter referred to as "ASIC") with an automatic correction function originally designed by AIST and a magnetic impedance element (hereinafter referred to as "MI element") developed by Aichi Steel Corporation, the fluctuation of the magnetic detection sensitivity was reduced to 1/3 of its original level. This automatic calibration technique does not require a special test mode for the process, and can be performed in the background during normal sensing operation. The digital-output architecture achieves both easy handling of output signals and low power consumption. This approach is expected to expand the range of applications for compact, high-sensitivity magnetic sensors.

Improved detection sensitivity variation of the developed magnetic sensor

Other research organizations

Research Laboratory

• Nanometronics lab for structural materials

Open Innovation Laboratory

Since FY 2016, as a part of the “Open Innovation Arena concept” promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), AIST has created the concept of “open innovation laboratories” (OILs), collaborative research bases located on university campuses, and has been engaged in their provision. We are planning to establish more than ten OILs by FY 2020.

AIST will merge the basic research carried out at universities, etc. with AISTʼs goal-oriented basic research and applied technology development, and will promote bridging research and evelopment and industry by the establishment of OILs.

Cooperative Research Laboratories

In order to conduct research and development more closely related to strategies of companies, we have established collaborative research laboratories, bearing partner company names.

Partner companies provide their researchers and funding, and AIST provides research resources, such as its researchers, research facilities, and intellectual property. The loaned researchers of companies and AIST researchers jointly conduct research and development.

By setting up cooperative research laboratories, we will accelerate the commercialization of our goal-oriented basic research and application research with partner companies.