Microand nano-scale hydrogel lines can be fabricated on substrates by top-down approaches such as lithography and micro/nano-imprint. When in contact with a solvent, the hydrogel lines swell under the constraint of the substrate, often resulting in distorted shapes or instability patterns. In this paper, using a nonlinear finite element method, the effects of material and geometry on swell-indu...

A fully physically-based thermodynamic and kinetic model of the β ↔ δ phase transformation in energetic crystal HMX crystal embedded in polymeric binder is developed. It is based on a new nucleation mechanism via melt mediated nano-cluster transformation and the recently formulated growth mechanism via internal stress-induced virtual melting. During the nucleation, nano-sized clusters of β phas...

Progresses in the design of well-defined electronic band structure and dedicated functionalities rely on the high control of complex architectural device nano-scaled structures. This includes the challenging accurate description of strain fields in crystalline structures, which requires non invasive and three-dimensional (3D) imaging methods. Here, we demonstrate in details how x-ray Bragg ptyc...

We report a non-lithographical method for the fabrication of ultra-thin silicon (Si) nanowire (NW) and nano-sheet arrays through metal-assisted-chemical-etching (MacEtch) with gold (Au). The mask used for metal patterning is a vertical InAs NW array grown on a Si substrate via catalyst-free, strain-induced, one-dimensional heteroepitaxy. Depending on the Au evaporation angle, the shape and size...

Quantum spin Hall system can exhibit exotic spin transport phenomena, mediated by its topological edge states. Here the concept of bending strain engineering to tune the spin transport properties of a quantum spin Hall system is demonstrated. We show that bending strain can be used to control the spin orientation of counter-propagating edge states of a quantum spin system to generate a non-zero...

Gradient nano-grained (GNG) metals are a unique class of materials with spatial gradients in grain size, typically from the surface to the bulk. Here the gradient mechanical behavior inGNG copper is studied by a crystal plasticity finite elementmodel that accounts for grainsize-dependent yield strengths. The associated finite element simulations reveal both the gradient stress and gradient plas...

The electro-mechanical sensing properties of freestanding monolayered membranes of dodecanethiol coated 7 nm gold nanoparticles (NPs) are investigated using AFM force spectroscopy and conductive AFM simultaneously. The electrical resistance of the NP membranes increases sensitively with the point-load force applied in the center of the membranes using an AFM tip. Numerical simulations of electr...

nowadays, the use of innovative nano-technology in the food industry quality control has significantly increased and it is widely employed in numerous fields such as diagnosis of microbial toxin of foods using nano-biosensors, increasing food shelf-life with the help of nano-clay and nano-silver packaging, as well as changing some of the unpleasant organoleptic properties such as taste, color, ...