Curiosity Drives Research Activity – A Strong Desire to Know and Learn

This post is also available in: Japanese

Research on organic electronics leads to a better understanding of humans

――What is the roadmap to commercialization, and what is your dream?

Someya:Among the ideas we have been researching, some are finally entering the commercialization stage and are approaching the verification phase. Therefore, I want to expand collaboration with outside organizations to move towards verification. For example, we have received an offer from a hospital to immediately start a trial of a device that involves applying a stretchable sensor directly to the skin. However, we can make only a small number of prototypes at the university. To validate the usefulness of a product, we need a technology that will allow us to produce 100, or in some cases 1,000, product prototypes with a reasonable level of quality.
Universities are limited in this sense. I think that bridging the gap between universities and corporations, and
fostering more academic-industrial collaboration, will help technology advance.

 

――What is your dream?

Someya:My research is extremely focused on producer-driven solutions. The starting point of my research is how to produce soft devices with the idea that they could become one of the major means of narrowing the gap between artificial things and living organisms. The research on narrowing that gap must first identify exactly where the gap exists.

Obtaining information from a human body involves measuring what kinds of signals the body is emitting,
and what kind of activity the person is engaged in while living in a natural state. This information can yield a better understanding of human beings. So improving the performance of semiconductor devices can deepen our understanding of human beings. This relationship is quite intriguing, isn’t it?
Since measuring and understanding the activities of human bodies in their natural state requires carrying out a long-term plan, what I can hope to accomplish in the remaining years of my career is limited. I hope the members of our lab will continue this research based on their own interests, so that the project keeps evolving even after I stop being an active researcher. I think the term “flexible electronics,” which is being used right now, will disappear in the future.
That is, nearly all electronic devices will begin to use flexible technology, making the term redundant. Even though flexible circuit boards are currently used in devices such as smartphones, most consumers do not realize that their devices use flexible electronics. As these technologies advance, flexible sensors and semiconductors will continue to
be incorporated into people’s daily lives without their realizing it. When that happens, as a future development of wearable devices, devices will be capable of collecting data from various symptoms users are experiencing – such as how well the wearer is coping with stress, and any resulting rise or fall in blood pressure.
Data collected via such a device will be able to add a scientific basis to measurements of human behavior and essential characteristics. I hope for further advances in research on wearable devices, such as a new scientific measurement method that will lead to a more essential understanding of what it means to be human. That is my dream.

More than two-thirds of the members of the Someya Lab are students from other
countries. Citizenship is varied, and therefore research discussions are carried out in English, as a rule. The power of the world’s young people is working to open the door to a bright future through research on “intriguing” devices.

 

We need technologies and devices that support individual customization

――What would you like ULVAC to do?

Someya:Wearable devices for humans need to be custom-made for each individual. One thing I would like UL VAC to do is develop manufacturing technologies capable of inexpensively customizing electronic parts to fit the wearer’s body. This is not limited to ULVAC equipment. I think we will see increasing demand for such equipment  throughout the industry.
During the course of my research on skin-like flexible sensors, they have been made manually one by one, like artisanal pieces. We cannot produce a large volume of industrial products this way. I would like to ask ULVAC to develop equipment that could inexpensively maintain high throughput while keeping a high yield, and that would keep costs low even when making different devices to suit different individuals.