Project Overview
The goal of this project is to develop techniques to encode and transmit information using chemical reactions. This project is part of the larger field of Infochemistry, where information technology and chemistry combine. We are working in collaboration with George Whitesides’ group [LINK] at Harvard University on this project, which is funded by DARPA. We have developed a detection system capable of receiving the signal from a chemical source hundreds of meters away. The source is known as the infofuse.1 The infofuse uses heat from combustion to thermally excite atomic emission from metal salts. Messages are encoded by spotting different combinations of metal salts. We are continuing to develop new methods for encoding complex signals and for enhancing the ability to detect the signals over longer distances.
Figure 1. The infofuse works by thermally exciting atomic emission from patterned metal salts. (Image: John Rogers PNAS 106, 23, 9127 (2009))
Figure 2. Detection system constructed to measure the signal from the infofuse.
Reference
(1) Samuel W. Thomas III, Ryan C. Chiechi, Christopher N. LaFratta, Michael R. Webb, Andrew Lee, Benjamin J. Wiley, Mitchell R. Zakin, David R. Walt, and George M. Whitesides. Infochemistry and infofuses for the chemical storage and transmission of coded information. PNAS 106, 23, 9147 (2009)
