Increasing intimacy and interactions between human and the electronics have created new lifestyles as marks of our era. We want future wearables to be comfortable and multi-functional.
My research explores additive manufacturing to produce personalised wearable devices, in the format of microtextiles. These smart microtextiles are breathable, lightweight, sensitive and biocompatible, providing multi-latitude detections when worn, attached to skin or directly interfaced with biological cells.
Printing biocompatible and conducting microfibre sensors
3D printed composite electronic fibres, each 100 times thinner than a human hair, creating sensors beyond the capabilities of film-based devices. These conducting fibres are biocompatible, each of a similar dimension to biological cells. Thus, the fibres could guide cell movements and ‘feel’ this dynamic process as electrical signals.
In additon, these fibres could be printed into wearable breath sensor and ‘floating’ circuits … read more
Spider silk-inspired broadband acoustic sensor
Spiders do not have ears, they ‘hear’ the environment through the vibrations of the hairs and the spider webs. Those freestanding micro/nano fibres are ideal broadband acoustic sensors. A new fibre printing technique – dynamic near-field electrospinning – was developed to print spider web-like piezoelectric nanofibre mesh, as broadband acoustic sensors.
These nanofibre meshes could detect sound effectively … read more
Collaborations
Inspirations form when we collabrate. The joint expertise and efforts push the boundary of creation. And, I really enjoyed the interations with people of different background, fields, countries, and personalities.
The interdisciplinary nature of my research highlights the importance of collaboration. I have maintained long-term collabrations with these labs:
Bioelectronics Lab, Engineering, Cambridge
Developmental Mechanics Group, Gurdon Institute, Cambridge
Laser Analytics Group, Chemical Engineering, Cambridge
Nano-Engineering and Electromagnetics, Queen Mary Univerisity of London
NanoEngineering Group, Engineering, Cambridge
Robotics and textile composite, University of Manchester
Soft Materials Lab, University of Macau
Andy wang 