In-line multi-wavelength non-destructive pharma quality monitoring with ultrabroadband carbon nanotubes photo-thermoelectric imaging scanners

Miki Kubota; Yuya Kinoshita; Sayaka Hirokawa; Daiki Shikichi; Noa Izumi; Naoko Hagiwara; Daiki Sakai; Yuto Matsuzaki; Minami Yamamoto; Leo Takai; Yukito Kon; Yuto Aoshima; Raito Ota; Mitsuki Kosaka; Meiling Sun; Yukio Kawano; Kou Li

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01957-0

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In-line multi-wavelength non-destructive pharma quality monitoring with ultrabroadband carbon nanotubes photo-thermoelectric imaging scanners

Original Articles

- In-line multi-wavelength non-destructive pharma quality monitoring with ultrabroadband carbon nanotubes photo-thermoelectric imaging scanners
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 10, Pages: 3311-3326(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Communication Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University, 1-13-27 Kasuga, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8551, Japan
  2.Laboratory for Future Interdisciplinary Research of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
  3.Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
  4.National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8430, Japan
  5.Kanagawa Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, 705-1 Imaizumi, Ebina-shi, Kanagawa 243-0435, Japan
- Author bio：
  
  Yukio Kawano (kawano@elect.chuo-u.ac.jp)
  Kou Li (li@elect.chuo-u.ac.jp)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01957-0
  CLC：
- Received：25 October 2024，
  
  Revised：2025-06-22，
  
  Accepted：08 July 2025，
  
  Published Online：11 September 2025，
  
  Published：31 October 2025
- Accepted：
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Kubota, M. et al. In-line multi-wavelength non-destructive pharma quality monitoring with ultrabroadband carbon nanotubes photo-thermoelectric imaging scanners. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3311-3326 (2025).
DOI：

Kubota, M. et al. In-line multi-wavelength non-destructive pharma quality monitoring with ultrabroadband carbon nanotubes photo-thermoelectric imaging scanners. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3311-3326 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01957-0.

摘要

Abstract

While non-destructive in-line monitoring at manufacturing sites is essential for safe distribution cycles of pharmaceuticals

efforts are still insufficient to develop analytical systems for detailed dynamic visualisation of foreign substances and material composition in target pills. Although spectroscopies

expected towards pharma testing

have faced technical challenges in in-line setups for bulky equipment housing

this work demonstrates compact dynamic photo-monitoring systems by selectively extracting informative irradiation-wavelengths from comprehensive optical references of target pills. This work develops a non-destructive in-line dynamic inspection system for pharma agent pills with carbon nanotube (CNT) photo-thermoelectric imagers and the associated ultrabroadband sub-terahertz (THz)–infrared (IR) multi-wavelength monitoring. The CNT imager in the proposed system functions in ultrabroadband regions over existing sensors

facilitating multi-wavelength photo-monitoring against external sub-THz–IR-irradiation. Under recent advances in the investigation of functional optical materials (e.g.

gallium arsenide

vanadium oxide

graphene

polymers

transition metal dichalcogenides)

CNTs play advantageous leading roles in collectively satisfying informative efficient photo-absorption and solution-processable configurations for printable device fabrication into freely attachable thin-film imagers in pharma monitoring sites. The above non-destructive dynamic monitoring system maintains in-line experimental setups by integrating the functional thin-film imager sheets and compact multiple photo-sources. Furthermore

permeable sub-THz–IR-irradiation

which provides different transmittance values specific to non-metallic materials per wavelength or composition

identifies constituent materials for pharma agents themselves and concealed foreign substances in a non-contact manner. This work finally inspects invisible detailed features of pharma pills with the non-destructive in-line dynamic photo-monitoring system by incorporating performances of CNT imagers and compact optical setups.

关键词

Keywords

references

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