Publications related to Ultrafast All-Polymer Electrically Tunable Silicone Lenses

Laser-based manufacturing of freeform glass micro-optics through topological transformation

Glass has been the material of choice for making optical elements, in large part due to its intrinsic properties: a temperature-dependent viscosity, which enables shaping the material into a broad variety of functional and artistic glassware. Silica glass ...

EPFL2024

Searching for Strong Gravitational Lenses

Frédéric Courbin, Cameron Alexander Campbell Lemon

Strong gravitational lenses provide unique laboratories for cosmological and astrophysical investigations, but they must first be discovered - a task that can be met with significant contamination by other astrophysical objects and asterisms. Here we revie ...

Springer2024

A Note on Lenses in Arrangements of Pairwise Intersecting Circles in the Plane

Rom Pinchasi

Let F be a family of n pairwise intersecting circles in the plane. We show that the number of lenses, that is convex digons, in the arrangement induced by F is at most 2n - 2. This bound is tight. Furthermore, if no two circles in F touch, then the geometr ...

Electronic Journal Of Combinatorics2024

Near-Room-Temperature Detection of Aromatic Compounds with Inkjet-Printed Plasticized Polymer Composites

Thomas Maeder, Jürgen Brugger, Mohammadmahdi Kiaee

Chemiresistive gas sensors composed of a thermoplastic polymer matrix and conductive fillers offer various advantages for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including low power consumption due to near-room-temperature operation, high sensitivity, ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Edible Soft Actuators based on Konjac Glucomannan for Underwater Operation

Dario Floreano, Jun Shintake, Ryo Kanno, Bokeon Kwak, Markéta Pankhurst

Soft robots are being increasingly developed and deployed for underwater applications such as exploration, monitoring, and rescue owing to their innate compliance, mechanical and chemical stability, and waterproof properties. However, they are still predom ...

2024

Biobased Composites from Eugenol- and Coumarin-Derived Methacrylic Latex and Hemp Nanocellulose: Cross-Linking via [2+2] Photocycloaddition and Barrier Properties

Yves Leterrier, Sara Dalle Vacche

A novel-biobased latex was synthesized by redox-initiated emulsion copolymerization of ethoxy dihydroeugenyl methacrylate with 5 wt % of a photosensitive methacrylate containing a coumarin group. A stable copolymer latex having 16 wt % solids content and a ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Carbon based printed electrodes for DEAs: study of pad, inkjet, and stencil printing

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Armando Matthieu Walter, Simon Holzer

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have raised interest due to their remarkable capabilities in various applications, such as soft robotics, haptic feedback systems, and biomedical devices. To harness the full potential of DEAs, the choice of the electr ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Permanently magnetized elastomer rotating actuator using traveling waves

Herbert Shea

We report a soft actuator that generates continuous rotation of an object placed on it by electromagnetically exciting circular travelling waves in a soft disk. The disk, that serves as the stator, is made of a stretchable composite consisting of segments ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Sustainable, recyclable and biodegradable castor oil-derived elastomers enabled by dynamic acetoacetyl formed amides

Zhiyong Liu, Youwei Ma

Developing sustainable, recyclable, and biodegradable elastomers with the mechanical properties comparable to commercial polymers presents a formidable challenge. To this end, we synthesize a kind of mechanically robust elastomers cross -linked by acetoace ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Enabling simultaneous reprocessability and fire protection via incorporation of phosphine oxide monomer in epoxy vitrimer

Véronique Michaud, Valentin Rougier

The conception of epoxy thermosets with both reprocessability and flame retardancy delineates a new horizon in polymer science, offering a material solution that is not only superior in fire safety but is also environment friendly. Herein, a flame-retardan ...

Journal Mater Sci Technol2024

The impact of human expert visual inspection on the discovery of strong gravitational lenses

Frédéric Courbin, Elodie Marie Charlène Savary, Martin Raoul Robert Millon, Eric Gérard Guy Paic, Rémy Elie Joseph, Hung-Hsu Chan, Karina Alexandra Rojas Olate, Benjamin Yvan Alexandre Clement, Yue Pan

We investigate the ability of human 'expert' classifiers to identify strong gravitational lens candidates in Dark Energy Survey like imaging. We recruited a total of 55 people that completed more than 25 per cent of the project. During the classification t ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2023

In situ detection of multitarget impurities on contact lens by electrochemical scanning probe

Fang Liu, Tzu-En Lin, Yingdi Zhu

Identifying multitarget impurities on contact lenses is challenging because traditional methods such as polymerase chain reaction cannot be used on the unknown target. Other sampling methods often require expensive antibodies or dyes. Therefore, this resea ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2023

Electrode Impact on the Electrical Breakdown of Dielectric Elastomer Thin Films

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) enable the realization of energy-efficient and compact actuator systems. DEAs operate at the kilovolt range with typically microampere-level currents and hence minimize thermal losses in comparison to low voltage/high ...

MDPI2023

Gravitationally lensed quasars in Gaia - IV. 150 new lenses, quasar pairs, and projected quasars

Frédéric Courbin, Aymeric Alexandre Galan, Cameron Alexander Campbell Lemon, Adriano Agnello

We report the spectroscopic follow-up of 175 lensed quasar candidates selected using Gaia Data Release 2 observations following Paper III of this series. Systems include 86 confirmed lensed quasars and a further 17 likely lensed quasars based on imaging an ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2023

LensWatch. I. Resolved HST Observations and Constraints on the Strongly Lensed Type Ia Supernova 2022qmx ("SN Zwicky")

Frédéric Courbin, Adriano Agnello

Supernovae (SNe) that have been multiply imaged by gravitational lensing are rare and powerful probes for cosmology. Each detection is an opportunity to develop the critical tools and methodologies needed as the sample of lensed SNe increases by orders of ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2023

Bottlebrush Dielectric Elastomers with Improved Properties for Actuation

Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are elastic capacitors composed of a pair of compliant electrodes and a soft dielectric elastomer film sandwiched in between. This kind of stretchable capacitors can be actuated when charged, can generate electricity fr ...

EPFL2023

On-Demand Cross-Linkable Bottlebrush Polymers for Voltage- Driven Artificial Muscles

Frank Nüesch, Francis Owusu, Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) generate motion resembling natural muscles in reliability, adaptability, elongation, and frequency of operation. They are highly attractive in implantable soft robots or artificial organs. However, many applications of ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Digital manufacturing of personalised footwear with embedded sensors

Danick Briand, Rubaiyet Iftekharul Haque, Ryan Mitchell van Dommelen, Jaemin Kim

The strong clinical demand for more accurate and personalized health monitoring technologies has called for the development of additively manufactured wearable devices. While the materials palette for additive manufacturing continues to expand, the integra ...

Nature Research2023

Semiconductor-based device architectures in multimaterial fibers

William Nicolas Duncan Esposito

Semiconductor materials have given rise to today's digital technology and consumer electronics. Widespread adoption is closely linked to the ability to process and integrate them in devices at scale. Where flexibility and large surfaces are required, such ...

EPFL2023

A hybrid Selective Laser Sintering based process for the additive manufacturing of architectured composites

Erwan Philippe Guenier

Additive Manufacturing also commonly referred as 3D printing has been given a lot of interest lately. Market is growing exponentially and the aim for obtaining more complex and ready-to use parts is emerging. All the 3D printing processes consist in buildi ...

EPFL2023