ECE alumnus Zhida Xu and ECE Associate Professor Gang Logan Liu have introduced a revolutionary method of molecule detection that can easily answer what substances, and how much of each, are in a liquid. At first glance, FlexBrite is a thin, bendable, plastic-based wafer that shines purple in the light. At the nanoscale, however, it’s crisscrossed with tiny bumps. Xu calls these structures “nano-mushrooms,” which bend the light reflected off them and account for FlexBrite’s color-changing properties, allowing researchers to analyze liquids much more efficiently.