Publications related to Weaving our way towards a new generation of ﬁbre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk

Flexible Silk-Based Graphene Bioelectronics For Wearable Multimodal Physiological Monitoring

We introduce a skin-inspired epidermal bioelectronic patch (EBP) with unprecedented integration of graphene on silk with a facile and cost-effective fabrication process, excluding complex ink formulation. We advance the state-of-the-art by directly screen- ...

IEEE2023

Nanopore Generation in Biodegradable Silk/Magnetic Nanoparticle Membranes by an External Magnetic Field for Implantable Drug Delivery

Giovanni Boero, Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang

Implantable devices for localized and controlled drug release are important, e.g., for therapies of cancer and chronic pain. However, most of the existing active implants are limited by the usage of nonbiodegradable materials; thus, surgery is needed to ex ...

2022

Silk granular hydrogels self-reinforced with regenerated silk fibroin fibers

Dominique Pioletti, Pierre-Etienne Bourban, Céline Samira Wyss, Peyman Karami, Adrien Julien Demongeot

Granular hydrogels with high stability, strength, and toughness are laborious to develop. Post-curing is often employed to bind microgels chemically and enhance mechanical properties. Here a unique strategy was investigated to maintain microgels together w ...

2021

Recent progress in silk fibroin-based flexible electronics

Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang, Peng Huang

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the emergence of 5G, traditional silicon-based electronics no longer fully meet market demands such as nonplanar application scenarios due to mechanical mismatch. This provides unprecedented op ...

2021

Reversible Drug Delivery: Thermal and pH Sensitive Composite Membrane for On‐Demand Drug Delivery by Applying an Alternating Magnetic Field (Adv. Mater. Interfaces 17/2020)

Giovanni Boero, Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang

In article number 2000733 by Juergen Brugger and co‐workers, a novel composite membrane of silk fibroin, microgels and magnetic nanoparticles whose permeability can be adjusted by temperature for controlled drug release is studied. The temperature induced ...

2020

Thermal and pH Sensitive Composite Membrane for On-Demand Drug Delivery by Applying an Alternating Magnetic Field

Giovanni Boero, Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang

Implantable drug delivery systems that can realize a scheduled drug release according to the needs of patients would be highly beneficial for the treatment of chronic diseases and cancer. Here, micrometer‐sized hydrogel particles with both thermal and pH s ...

2020

Printed silk-fibroin-based triboelectric nanogenerators for multi-functional wearable sensing

Jürgen Brugger, Xin Liu, Xiao Sheng Zhang

The rapid development of wearable sensing technology exhibits unprecedented opportunities for artificial intelligence by establishing an interactive interface between the physical and the virtual worlds. Energy preservation and multi-functional integration ...

Elsevier2019

Wearable Triboelectric Generator based on a Hybrid Mix of Carbon Nanotube and Polymer Layers

Jürgen Brugger

A novel single-layer structured triboelectric generator (TEG) is proposed with a hybrid mix of carbon nanotube (CNT) and silk. Here, the mixing of two materials in liquid phase for proven effective power generation is shown. In this research, CNT provides ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2019

Exploring the use of native spider silk as an optical fibre for chemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, as building material, weapon and sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Recently, scientists have put under the limelight the extraordinary properties of t ...

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2018

From Spider Webs to a Biomimetic Optical Fibre Sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Can we use spider silk threads as natural, biological optical fibre sensors? In this communication, we will see how we can harness the optical properties of spider dragline silk and use it for sensing. ...

2018

Nanoscale Lithography and Thermometry with Thermal Scanning Probes

Samuel Tobias Howell, Samuel Zimmermann

Thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) is an advanced lithography technique in which a heated atomic force microscope tip locally modifies a sample material. Due to the nanometer-sized tip apex diameter, t-SPL enables patterning of sub-10 nm structures ...

EPFL2018

All-fiber hybrid piezoelectric-enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator for wearable gesture monitoring

Jürgen Brugger, Xiaohang Zhang, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang, Yinben Guo

With the increasing potential of smart clothing, the demand for generating energy directly in the tissue fibers has prompted for increased research in the field of energy harvesters based on wearable nanogenerators. Current challenges remain in the combina ...

Elsevier2018

Fabrication and Characterization of Biodegradable, Thermal-Responsive Silk Composite Membrane

Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang

In this work, we present a study on a thermalresponsive biodegradable membrane composed of silk fibroin and iron oxide nanoparticles as potential candidate material for implantable smart drug delivery microsystems. Ethanol annealing increased the content o ...

2018

Semiaromatic Polyamides and Copolyamides Comprising Kinked Repeating Units

Julien Philippe Cretenoud

The replacement of metals with polymer-based materials is considered to be key to reducing weight, cost, and cycle times in different technological applications, including the automotive and aerospace industries. Semiaromatic polyamides are particularly at ...

EPFL2018

A transparent silk-fibroin-based triboelectric microgenerator for airflow energy harvesting

Jürgen Brugger, Xiao Sheng Zhang, Ya Wang, Yinben Guo

We present a new transparent high-performance triboelectric microgenerator (TEMG) based on an emerging material, silk fibroin. Silk fibroin has a strong ability to lose electrons and occupies a top-level positive position in the triboelectric series. It th ...

IEEE Xplore2017

Input-dependent regulation of excitability controls dendritic maturation in somatosensory thalamocortical neurons

Johannes Gräff, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut

Input from the sensory organs is required to pattern neurons into topographical maps during development. Dendritic complexity critically determines this patterning process; yet, how signals from the periphery act to control dendritic maturation is unclear. ...

Nature Research2017

From spider webs to a fibre-optic chemical sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of prey on its web. For scientists, dragline silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable a ...

2016

Towards a novel "silky" way to detect chemical species using spider threads

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Silk possesses extraordinary properties that scientists are currently working hard on harnessing. Amongst them, this primeval material has shown early potential of having excellent optical properties. Through a regeneration process, it is possible to obtai ...

2016

Towards a new generation of fibre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk threads

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, to build its web. For scientists, native silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable and biocompatible thread used mainly for tissue engineering and te ...

Ieee2016

Spider silk: a novel optical fibre for biochemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia, Kenny Hey Tow

Whilst being thoroughly used in the textile industry and biomedical sector, silk has not yet been exploited for fibre optics-based sensing although silk fibres directly obtained from spiders can guide light and have shown early promises to being sensitive ...

SPIE2015