Related papers: Sensing solvents with ultra-sensitive porous poly(…
We present a fully edible pneumatic actuator based on gelatin-glycerol composite. The actuator is monolithic, fabricated via a molding process, and measures 90 mm in length, 20 mm in width, and 17 mm in thickness. Thanks to the composite…
Continuum models to handle solvent and electrolyte effects in an effective way have a long tradition in quantum-chemistry simulations and are nowadays also being introduced in computational condensed-matter and materials simulations. A key…
A possible means of optical sensing, based on a porous hyperbolic material which is infiltrated by a fluid containing an analyte to be sensed, was investigated theoretically. The sensing mechanism relies on the observation that…
We study the interaction between an incompressible, viscous, Newtonian fluid and a multilayered structure, which consists of a thin elastic layer and a thick poroelastic material. The thin layer is modeled using the linearly elastic Koiter…
Polyelectrolyte gels are a very attractive class of actuation materials with remarkable electronic and mechanical properties with a great similarity to biological contractile tissues. They consist of a polymer network with ionizable groups…
Bio-inspired soft robots have already shown the ability to handle uncertainty and adapt to unstructured environments. However, their availability is partially restricted by time-consuming, costly and highly supervised design-fabrication…
In this work, we introduce a polymer discovery platform to efficiently design polymers with tailored properties, exemplified by the discovery of high-performance polymer electrolytes. The platform integrates three core components: a…
A preconcentrating surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensor for the analysis of liquid-soaked tissue, tiny liquid droplets and thin liquid films without the necessity to collect the analyte is reported. The SERS sensor is based on a…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
Robots have been brought to work close to humans in many scenarios. For coexistence and collaboration, robots should be safe and pleasant for humans to interact with. To this end, the robots could be both physically soft with multimodal…
Herein we firstly introduce a straightforward, scalable and technologically relevant strategy to manufacture charged porous polymer membranes (CPMs) in a controllable manner. The pore sizes and porous architectures of CPMs are…
Ionic microgel particles are intriguing systems in which the properties of thermo-responsive polymeric colloids are enriched by the presence of charged groups. In order to rationalize their properties and predict the behaviour of microgel…
Programmable materials are desirable for a variety of functional applications that range from biomedical devices, actuators and soft robots to adaptive surfaces and deployable structures. However, current smart materials are often designed…
By leveraging their high mobility and small size, insects have been combined with microcontrollers to build up cyborg insects for various practical applications. Unfortunately, all current cyborg insects rely on implanted electrodes to…
Incorporating functional molecules into sensor devices is an emerging field in molecular electronics that aims at exploiting the sensitivity of different molecules to their environment and turning it into an electrical signal. Among the…
Interfacing artificial functional materials and living neuronal tissues is at the forefront of bio-nano-technology. Attempts have been so far based onto microscale processing of metals and inorganic semiconductors as electrodes or…
In this work, we introduce an advanced thermo-active variable impedance module which builds upon our previous innovation in thermal-based impedance adjustment for actuation systems. Our initial design harnessed the temperature-responsive,…
We present a novel implicit porous flow solver using SPH, which maintains fluid incompressibility and is able to model a wide range of scenarios, driven by strongly coupled solid-fluid interaction forces. Many previous SPH porous flow…
Accessing fluid infiltration in nanogranular coatings is an outstanding challenge, of relevance for applications ranging from nanomedicine to catalysis. A sensing platform, allowing to quantify the amount of fluid infiltrated in a…
The associative interaction, such as hydrogen bonding, can bring about versatile functionalities to polymer systems, which has been investigated by tremendous researches, but the fundamental understanding on association process is still…