Related papers: Strong and Highly Switchable Soft Sticky Adhesives
Curved elastic shells can be fabricated through molding or by harnessing residual stresses. These shells often exhibit snap-through behavior and multistability when loaded. We present a unique way of fabricating curved elastic shells that…
Flexible electronic systems such as roll up displays, wearable devices etc. promise exciting possibilities that could change the way humans interact with the environment. However, they suffer from poor reliability of interconnects and…
It is critical to capture the effect due to strain and material interface for device level transistor modeling. We introduced a transferable sp3d5s* tight binding model with nearest neighbor interactions for arbitrarily strained group IV…
A switchable hyperbolic material (SHM) is investigated, with which one can turn on or off the hyperbolic dispersion of the material via magnetic control. The SHM has simple structure, with a one-dimensional periodic stacking of dielectric…
We investigate hysteresis effects in a model for non-volatile memory devices. Two mechanisms are found to produce hysteresis effects qualitatively similar to those often experimentally observed in heterostructures of transition metal…
Humanoid robots are envisioned as general-purpose platforms in human-centered environments, yet their deployment is limited by vulnerability to falls and the risks posed by rigid metal-plastic structures to people and surroundings. We…
Living organisms can demonstrate highly adaptable and sophisticated responses using memory resulting from repeated exposure to external conditions or training. However, realizing similar adaptability in mechanical responses in inanimate,…
Shock wave reaction results in various characteristic regimes in porous material. The geometrical and topological properties of these regimes are highly concerned in practical applications. Via the morphological analysis to characteristic…
Chiral polymers are ubiquitous in nature and in the cellular context they are often found in association with membranes. Here we show that surface bound polymers with an intrinsic twist and anisotropic bending stiffness can exhibit a sharp…
A key challenge in performing experiments with microparticles is controlling their adhesion to substrates. For example, levitation of a microparticle initially resting on a surface requires overcoming the surface adhesion forces to deliver…
Robot arms that assist humans should be able to pick up, move, and release everyday objects. Today's assistive robot arms use rigid grippers to pinch items between fingers; while these rigid grippers are well suited for large and heavy…
Portable active back support devices (BSDs) offer tunable assistance but are often bulky and heavy, limiting their usability. In contrast, passive BSDs are lightweight and compact but lack the ability to adapt their assistance to different…
Springs are commonly used in wearable robotic devices to provide assistive joint torque without the need for motors and batteries. However, different tasks (such as walking or running) and different users (such as athletes with strong legs…
Biological adhesion is a critical mechanical function of complex organisms operating at multiple scales. At the cellular scale, cell-cell adhesion is remarkably tunable to enable both cohesion and malleability during development,…
Ferroelectric materials with switchable electric polarization hold great promise for a plethora of emergent applications, such as post-Moore's law nanoelectronics, beyond-Boltzmann transistors, non-volatile memories, and above-bandgap…
4D printing empowers 3D printed structures made of hydrogels, liquid crystals or shape memory polymers, with reversible morphing capabilities in response to an external stimulus. To apply reversible shape-change to stiff lightweight…
Thermal welding of polymer-polymer interfaces is important for integrating polymeric elements into devices. When two different polymers are joined, the strength of the weld depends critically on the degree of immiscibility. We perform…
Passing current at given threshold voltages through a metal/insulator/metal sandwich structure device may change its resistive state. Such resistive switching is unique to nanoscale devices, but its underlying physical mechanism remains…
Block copolymers often create droplets when placed on a substrate. Such nanostructured droplets can be arranged into regular microstructured arrays, thereby forming hierarchically organized materials that can be used in microelectronics,…
The optimal stiffness for soft swimming robots depends on swimming speed, which means no single stiffness can maximise efficiency in all swimming conditions. Tunable stiffness would produce an increased range of high-efficiency swimming…