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The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
Recent advances in microscopy techniques has uncovered unique aspects of flagella-driven motility in bacteria. A remarkable example is the discovery of flagellar wrapping, a phenomenon whereby a bacterium wraps its flagellum (or flagellar…
This work presents a model for characterizing porous, deformable media embedded with magnetorheological fluids (MRFs). These active fluids exhibit tunable mechanical and rheological properties that can be controlled through the application…
Mechanical metamaterials are artificial composites with tunable advanced mechanical properties. Particularly interesting types of mechanical metamaterials are flexible metamaterials, which harness internal rotations and instabilities to…
A natural embodiment for multifunctional materials combining energy-storing capabilities and structural mechanical properties are layered structures, similar to both laminate structural composites and electrochemical energy storage devices.…
Elastic active matter or active solid consists of self-propelled units embedded in an elastic matrix. Active solid resists deformation; the shape-preserving property and the intrinsic non-equilibrium nature make active solids a superior…
We introduce a fiber-optic architecture for neural recording without contrast agents, and study its properties theoretically. Our sensor design is inspired by electrooptic modulators, which modulate the refractive index of a waveguide by…
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…
The development of wearable sensing systems for sports performance tracking, rehabilitation, and injury prevention has driven growing demand for smart garments that combine comfort, durability, and accurate motion detection. This paper…
While tactile skins have been shown to be useful for detecting collisions between a robotic arm and its environment, they have not been extensively used for improving robotic grasping and in-hand manipulation. We propose a novel sensor…
Tissue-like materials are required in many robotic systems to improve human-machine interactions. However, the mechanical properties of living tissues are difficult to replicate. Synthetic materials are not usually capable of simultaneously…
We present a general theoretical analysis of semiflexible filaments subject to viscous drag or point forcing. These are the relevant forces in dynamic experiments designed to measure biopolymer bending moduli. By analogy with the ``Stokes…
Natural systems integrate the work of many sub-units (cells) toward a large-scale unified goal (morphological and behavioral), which can counteract the effects of unexpected experiences, damage, or simply changes in tasks demands. In this…
Nature provides a set of solutions for photonic structures that are finely tuned, organically diverse and optically efficient. Exquisite knowledge of structure-property relationships in proteins aids in the design of materials with desired…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…
Wearable electronics and smart textiles are growing fields in the cause to integrate modern communication and computing tools into clothing instead of carrying around smart phones and tablets. Naturally, this also requires power sources to…
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…
From flocks of birds to biomolecular assemblies, systems in which many individual components independently consume energy to perform mechanical work exhibit a wide array of striking behaviors. Methods to quantify the dynamics of these so…
A variety of complex fluids consist in soft, round objects (foams, emulsions, assemblies of copolymer micelles or of multilamellar vesicles -- also known as onions). Their dense packing induces a slight deviation from their prefered…
People are constantly in touch with surfaces in their lives, such as a sofa, armrest, and table, making them natural tactile interfaces. Despite the recent advancements in shape-changing surfaces, current available solutions are often…