When a finger moves to scan the surface of an object (haptic sensing), the sliding contact generates vibrations that propagate in the finger skin activating the receptors (mechanoreceptors) located in the skin, allowing the brain to identify objects and perceive information about their properties. The information about the surface of the object is transmitted through vibrations induced by frict...

We report real space imaging measurements of inelastic Friedel oscillations. The inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy, using scanning tunneling microscopy, around dimers of dichlorobenze adsorbates on Au(111) surface display clear spatial modulations that we attribute to inelastic scattering at the molecular sites caused by molecular vibrations. Due to local interactions between the adsorb...

Vibrations can significantly enhance touch perception for virtual environment applications with minimal design complexity and cost. In order to create realistic vibrotactile feedback, we collected vibrations, forces, and velocities during various tasks executed with a stylus: tapping on materials, stroking textures, and puncturing membranes. Empirical models were fit to these waveforms and a li...

We study the signatures of the OH stretch vibrations at the basal surface of ice using heterodyne-detected sum-frequency generation and molecular dynamics simulations. At 150 K, we observe seven distinct modes in the sum-frequency response, five of which have an analogue in the bulk, and two pure surface-specific modes at higher frequencies (∼3530 and ∼3700 cm-1). The band at ∼3530 cm-1 has not...

We have analyzed vibrations generated in an orthogonal cutting process. Using a simple one degree of freedom model of the regenerative cutting we have observed the complex behaviour of the system. In presence of a shaped cutting surface, the nonlinear interaction between the tool and a workpiece leads the to chatter vibrations of periodic, quasi-periodic or chaotic type depending on system para...

Rodents in their natural environment use their whiskers to distinguish between surfaces having subtly different textures and shapes. They do so by actively sweeping their whiskers across surfaces in a rhythmic motion. To determine how textures are transformed into vibration signals in whiskers and how these vibrations are expressed in neuronal discharges, we induced active whisking in anaesthet...

Two geometrically nonlinear plate theories, based either on firstor third-order transverse shear deformation theory are used for finite element modeling and simulation of the transient response of smart structures incorporating piezoelectric layers. In particular the time histories of nonlinear vibrations and sensor voltage output of a thin beam with a piezoelectric patch bonded to the surface ...

Onset of thermal convection in an incompressible fluid layer bounded between a perfectly heat conducting lower rigid plate and an upper free surface is analysed when the layer is subject to random vibrations. It is shown that when the vibrations are characterized by a white noise process, they hasten the onset of convection. Further it is shown that the stability zone is demarcated by an invert...

Our ability to perceive and discriminate textures relies on the transduction and processing of complex, high-frequency vibrations elicited in the fingertip as it is scanned across a surface. How naturalistic vibrations, and by extension texture, are encoded in the responses of neurons in primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is unknown. Combining single unit recordings in awake macaques and percept...