Publications related to Mechanically tuneable microoptical structure based on PDMS

Additively manufactured stretchable zipping electrostatic actuators

The use of soft and stretchable materials allows the development of adaptive robotic systems and human-machine interfaces that are more natural and comfortable to interact with. One of the application fields that benefits the most from these compliant mate ...

EPFL2024

Advanced Silicon and SWIR Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes: Design, Simulation, and Characterization

Ekin Kizilkan

Low-level light detection with high spatial and timing accuracy is a growing area of interest by virtue of applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), biomedical imaging, time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, and quantum applications. Single-phot ...

EPFL2024

3D Printing of Customizable Transient Bioelectronics and Sensors

Danick Briand, Nicolas Francis Fumeaux

Transient electronics have emerged as a new category of devices that can degrade after their functional lifetime, offering tremendous potential as disposable sensors, actuators, wearables, and implants. Additive manufacturing methods represent a promising ...

2024

Opportunities and challenges in design and optimization of protein function

Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Casper Alexander Goverde

The field of protein design has made remarkable progress over the past decade. Historically, the low reliability of purely structure-based design methods limited their application, but recent strategies that combine structure-based and sequence-based calcu ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Stencil-Based Selective Surface Functionalization of Silicon Nanowires in 3D Device Architectures for Next-Generation Biochemical Sensors

Yusuf Leblebici, Ece Öztürk, Mohammad Nasr Esfahani

Surface functionalization of 1D materials such as silicon nanowires is a critical preparation technology for biochemical sensing. However, existing nonselective functionalization techniques result in nonlocal binding and contamination, with potential devic ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Dynamic control of high-voltage actuator arrays by light-pattern projection on photoconductive switches

Herbert Shea, Amir Firouzeh, Vesna Bacheva, Edouard Franck Vincent Gustave Leroy, Aiste Balciunaite

The ability to control high-voltage actuator arrays relies, to date, on expensive microelectronic processes or on individual wiring of each actuator to a single off-chip high-voltage switch. Here we present an alternative approach that uses on-chip photoco ...

SPRINGERNATURE2023

Fabrication and Characterization of the Kirigami-Inspired SMA-Powered Actuator

Yves Perriard, Sean Thomas, Guilain Lionel Germain Lang, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Marjan Ghorbani

This paper presents an innovative approach to creating Shape Memory Alloys (SMA)-based actuators that are lightweight, compact, and capable of providing large strokes. Inspired by the Kirigami structure, an SMA actuator is designed using the Ω -pattern, wh ...

2023

Printed degradable piezoelectric microsystems: From ink formulation to device fabrication and characterization

Morgan Mc Kay Monroe

As the world moves further and further into the semiconductor era, the amount of waste generated from electronics ("e-waste") is increasing rapidly and unsustainably. Of particular note, alternatives to lead-based piezoelectric materials must be establishe ...

EPFL2023

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

Energy-Efficient Electronic Functions Based on the Co-integration of 2D and Ferroelectric Materials

Sadegh Kamaei Bahmaei

The digital revolution has significantly transformed our world over the past decades, driven by the scaling of transistor dimensions and the exponential increase in computation power. However, as the CMOS scaling era approaches its end, the semiconductor i ...

EPFL2023

A multi-material robotic finger with integrated proprioceptive and tactile capabilities produced with a circular process

Antonia Georgopoulou Papadonikolaki, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

When developing or designing biomimetic robotic fingers with rigid and soft components and integrated sensors, fabrication is often a bottle-neck when assembling and casting processing techniques are used. This study introduces a thermoplastic multi-materi ...

IEEE2023

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

Understanding and mitigating resistive losses in fired passivating contacts: role of the interfaces and optimization of the thermal budget

Christophe Ballif, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Franz-Josef Haug, Luca Massimiliano Antognini, Julien Hurni, Ezgi Genç, Sofia Libraro, Audrey Marie Isabelle Morisset

This work presents a study of p-type passivating contacts based on SiCx formed via a rapid thermal processing (RTP) step, using conditions compatible with the firing used to sinter screen-printed metallization pastes in industry. The contributions of the t ...

Elsevier2023

First developments towards producing inductive magnetic sensors using state-of-the-art photolithography techniques

Duccio Testa, Ambrine Douhane, Marcus Cemes

Inductive magnetic sensors are needed for tokamak operation to provide the low-frequency (LF) measurements leading to the equilibrium reconstruction and to monitor the higher frequency (HF) instabilities; the HF magnetic sensors are often also used as a ba ...

2023

Optical manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles: Applications in surface chemistry and nano-optics

Jeonghyeon Kim

Optical tweezers are devices that can manipulate nano- and microparticles using a laser. The principle of optical tweezers is to apply a force to an object using the momentum of light. This force is very small, but it is sufficient to move things in the mi ...

EPFL2023

High Permittivity Siloxanes as Promising Materials for Dielectric Elastomer Transducers: From Synthesis to Application

Yauhen Sheima

The speed of change in the modern world is impressive. Within the last 50 years, many devices and technologies have significantly transformed their appearance, intrinsic characteristics and improved their performance. Computers have changed from the size o ...

EPFL2022

Scalable Fabrication and Actuation of a Human Inspired Hand Through 3D Printed Flexures and Combinatorial Actuation

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Carlo Bosio

The fabrication and control of robot hands with biologically inspired structure remains challenging due to its cost and complexity. In this paper we explore how widely available FDM printers can be used to fabricate complex hand structures by leveraging co ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

Fast 3D Modeling of Prosthetic Robotic Hands Based on a Multi-Layer Deformable Design

Daniel Thalmann

Current research of designing prosthetic robotic hands mainly focuses on improving their functionality by devising new mechanical structures and actuation systems. Most of existing work relies on a single structure/system (e.g., bone-only or tissue-only) a ...

WHIOCE PUBLISHING PTE LTD, SINGAPORE2022

Edge-Contact MoS2 Transistors Fabricated Using Thermal Scanning Probe Lithography

Giovanni Boero, Jürgen Brugger, Xia Liu, Ana Conde Rubio

The science and engineering of two-dimensional materials (2DMs), in particular, of 2D semiconductors, is advancing at a thriving pace. It is well known that these delicate few-atoms thick materials can be damaged during the processing toward their integrat ...

2022

A new versatile hybrid MEMS technology for high sensitivity, fluid proof sensing applications

Matthias Neuenschwander

The field of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) evolved from the microelectronic industry and the technologies developed to fabricate integrated circuits. As a result, MEMS are commonly fabricated on silicon wafers. The development of MEMS has been dri ...

EPFL2022