# 57 / July 2017 / Focus: Sensors make us smarter

Sensors are usually electronic components that supply information on physical and chemical parameters in their surroundings. They act as a scientist’s sensory organ, helping to describe the changes in the world around us – or even in our bodies – as precisely as possible. Only if we comprehend and perceive our environment as fully as possible we can interact with it in a purposeful, meaningful way. Only with sensors can technology really become “smart”.

Sensors can be used to measure virtually anything, from relatively straightforward factors like tem-perature, pressure, brightness or acceleration to complex, abstract features such as the force be-tween two atoms or the concentration of a particular metabolic product in biological samples. This makes sensors hugely important in numerous research fields, as the current issue of EmpaQuarterly illustrates.