Related papers: 3D printed acoustically programmable soft microact…
Micro/nano-scale propulsion has attracted considerable recent attention due to its promise for biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery. In this paper, we report on a new experimental design and theoretical modelling of…
Coupled nanomechanical resonators made of two-dimensional materials are promising for processing information with mechanical modes. However, the challenge for these types of systems is to control the coupling. Here, we demonstrate strong…
This paper presents the first design of a soft, 3D-printed in flexible filament, lightweight UAV, capable of performing full-body perching using soft tendons, specifically landing and stabilizing on pipelines and irregular surfaces without…
The physical properties of a periodic distribution of absorbent resonators is used in this work to design a tunable wideband bandstop acoustic filter. Analytical and numerical simulations as well as experimental validations show that the…
3D printing technologies are currently enabling the fabrication of objects with complex architectures and tailored properties. In such framework, the production of 3D optical structures, which are typically based on optical transparent…
Understanding how to produce forces using biomolecular building blocks is essential for the development of adaptive synthetic cells and living materials. Here we ask whether a dynamic polymer system can generate deformation forces in soft…
The ability to rapidly manufacture building blocks with specific binding interactions is a key aspect of programmable assembly. Recent developments in DNA nanotechnology and colloidal particle synthesis have significantly advanced our…
Magnetic soft robots embedded with hard magnetic particles enable untethered actuation via external magnetic fields, offering remote, rapid, and precise control, which is highly promising for biomedical applications. However, designing such…
Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam,…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
Nanopores are both a tool to study single-molecule biophysics and nanoscale ion transport, but also a promising material for desalination or osmotic power generation. Understanding the physics underlying ion transport through nano-sized…
Harnessing complex body dynamics has been a long-standing challenge in robotics. Soft body dynamics is a typical example of high complexity in interacting with the environment. An increasing number of studies have reported that these…
Nanomechanics, nanoacoustics, and nanophononics refer to the engineering of acoustic phonons and elastic waves at the nanoscale and their interactions with other excitations such as magnons, electrons, and photons. This engineering enables…
To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity…
Microbubbles - used as contrast agents in ultrasound imaging - are important tools in biomedical research, having been used together with ultrasound to develop significant diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. It has been suggested that…
Mechanical metamaterials actuators achieve pre-determined input--output operations exploiting architectural features encoded within a single 3D printed element, thus removing the need of assembling different structural components. Despite…
Ultrasound-driven oscillating micro-bubbles have been used as active actuators in microfluidic devices to perform manifold tasks such as mixing, sorting and manipulation of microparticles. A common configuration consists on side-bubbles,…
The field of metamaterial research revolves around the idea of creating artificial media that interact with light in a way unknown from naturally occurring materials. This is commonly achieved by creating sub-wavelength lattices of…
The possibility of producing polymer-bonded magnets with the aid of additive processes, such as 3D printing, opens up a multitude of new areas of application. Almost any structures and prototypes can be produced cost-effectively in small…
Actuating the acoustic resonance modes of a microfluidic device containing suspended particles (e.g., cells) allows for the manipulation of their individual positions. In this work, we investigate how the number of resonance modes $M$…