Butterflies provide breakthroughs in sensors

General Electric

On September 16, GE’s Global Research Centers in Niskayuna, N.Y.; Munich, Germany; Bangalore, India; and Shanghai, China, are kicking off their annual “TECHfest” celebrations in which hundreds of the company’s top scientists give their R&D colleagues a sneak peak into their latest discoveries. To mark the big day, GE Reports is launching the first installment of our new GE Genius Series, which spotlights GE employees who are driving innovation that will change our world and our lives. Our first GE genius, Radislav Potyrailo, is a chemist and lead scientist at GE’s Chemical and Biological Sensing Laboratory in upstate New York. It was his team that discovered the chemical sensing properties in the nanostructures of butterfly wings — properties he hopes will lead to sensors that change color when they come in contact with airborne pathogens. Radislav, who has received over 50 US patents, also leads a team that is developing battery-free RFID sensors, which identify and track objects using radio waves.

View a video on this program and Radislav Potryrailo by clicking on the link below:

http://www.gereports.com/the-ge-genius-series-breakthroughs-from-butterflies/