Job Offers
Research Areas
We are looking for motivated students, PhD students and scientists in the following research areas:
- Modeling polymer materials (Quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, FEM)
- Synthesis and design of electroactive polymer materials and actuators.
- Physical and chemical characterization of polymer materials.
- Cyclic flow-electrode capacitor development
- Electromechanical characterization and validation of electroactive polymer actuators and sensors.
- Electromecahnical modelling of EAP materials (FEM, Electromechanicalmodels)
- Radiation damage of materials
- Biologially inspired robotics
- Image processing
- Applications of robotics
Positions
Euraxess Offers
PhD Student position in Three-dimensional microtechnology with folding art for bio-inspired...
- Organization
- University of Tartu
- Research Field
- Computer science › Modelling tools, Engineering › Biomaterial engineering, Engineering › Design engineering, Engineering › Mechanical engineering, Engineering › Microengineering, Mathematics › Geometry
- Researcher Profile
- First Stage Researcher (R1)
- Deadline
- 20/02/2020 21:00 - Europe/Athens
- Location
- Estonia
- Type Of Contract
- Temporary
- Hours Per Week
- 40
- Job Status
- Full-time
- Requirements
- Languages
- ENGLISH: GoodSee the offer on Euraxess website.
Environment:
Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research group established in 2003 in University of Tartu, Institute of Technology. Our goal is, by bringing together knowledge from diverse fields of expertise, to develop new materials and their control and applications. Exploitation of innovative materials will in turn permit building devices, different and in many ways superior to conventional machines. The scientific background of our staff as well as the laboratory equipment permits research activities on the borderline of computational material science, material science, robotics, chemistry, computer science and electronics.
The candidate will work on mathematical modeling for folding art in silicon without affecting their performance, and in a state of the art cleanroom environment to have full access to the micro & nanofabrication platform of the IEMN laboratory (France) (https://www.iemn.fr/plates-formes/cmnf/equipements). She/He will work in close collaboration with experts from nanotechnology.
Project Background: Microtechnology has radically changed our lives, both in electronics and mechanics. For several centuries, remarkably designed vision systems have been inspired from sophisticated biological eyes. However, enormous strides can still be made in microtechnology. The current applications are two-dimensional. Everything is placed on a thin layer of glass or silicon, which is used in pure form for the production of semiconductor chips, for example, in smartphones [1]. A three-dimensional micro-eye can offer huge benefits.
Objective:
The main objectives are to realize a novel bio-inspired tunable electronic eye integrated with electronics for diagnosis of Otitis Media (OM).
The main tasks for the candidate can be divided into two axis detailed hereafter.
Task I Realizing concept of “folding art” geometry on silicon (Modeling and Simulation)
The occurrence of OM is caused due to the malfunction of Eustachian tube leading to accumulation of fluid behind the ear drum. This, in turn, causes growth of bacteria and virus. The two main complications that are misclassified by general practitioners (GPs) are Acute Otitis Media (AOM) due to bacteria and virus and Otitis Media with Effusion (OME) due to accumulation of fluid without presence of bacteria/virus. The standard diagnostic practice relies on a rigid device with large form factor namely otoscope. The existing gaps recognized are improper positioning and imaging by otoscope that leads to misclassification of OM. This leads to treatment of OM classifications (OME) that do not benefit from antibiotics, leading to development of antibiotic resistance. This stresses upon the necessity to establish a gold standard for diagnosis prior to initiating treatment.
In order to overcome the above limitations, the proposed diagnostic solution comprises a flexible microsystem with integrated contacts capable of manipulating a bio-inspired flexible silicon-based image sensor with improved auto-focus. The candidate’s task will be confined to development of the bio-inspired flexible silicon-based image sensor with improved auto-focus. By combining a simple origami approach and transfer of the design from conventional rigid technology to flexible substrate [2], the bio-inspired CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) should extend the capabilities of conventional planar systems into hemispherical systems by emulating two states namely, simple mammalian eye (concave state) in humans and compound eye (convex state) in insects, in order to have a wider view angle, lower aberrations, and infinite depth of field. This allows for unusual imaging that cannot be achieved by conventional camera systems [3].
The concept of folding rigid silicon (for instance, Origami, Kirigami etc.) is targetted to build a dense, compact, and scalable density of pixels. This concept further eliminates the use of metal wires in between pixels for interconnections. The mathematical modeling of an origami inspired approach (for instance, icosahedron, dodecahedron, rhombicosidodecahedron) could be proposed to be implemented for development of the hemispherical structure of the eye [3]. The modeling will be carried out to optimize the structure without affecting the semiconductor performance corresponding to the technology node.
Task II: Bi-stability of microcamera system with folding art (Experimental)
This activity involves thinning a standard CMOS/SOI Image sensor and transfer onto a flexible support i.e. origami deformation of the photodiode array in order to represent the bi-stable states. In order to realize the bi-stability of the camera system, the concave focal plane aray (FPA) mimiking the human eye will be reversed for mimicking the compound eye without need of external optics. In other words, artifical imaging elements are proposed to be created in order to represent the structure of compound eye, where a tiny corneal lens focuses incoming light rays onto a single photoreceptor inside (unlike mammalian eye) [5]. This maximizes the amount of light delivery incident on the photodiode, facilitating panoramic vision.
Key words: Microtechnology, Origami stucture, Rigid silicon, Geometric Modelling, Unfolding simulation, CMOS Image sensor, Diagnosis of otitis media.
References
[1] A. Legrain, J. W. Berenschot, N. R. Tas, and L. Abelmann, “Capillary origami of micro-machined micro-objects: Bi-layer conductive hinges,” Microelectron. Eng., 2015.
[2] A. Lecavelier Des Etangs-Levallois et al., “A converging route towards very high frequency, mechanically flexible, and performance stable integrated electronics,” J. Appl. Phys., 2013.
[3] K. Zhang et al., “Origami silicon optoelectronics for hemispherical electronic eye systems,” Nat. Commun., 2017.
PhD student position in Multi-scale modelling of conductive polymer based electromechanically...
- Organization
- IMS Lab, University of Tartu
- Research Field
- Chemistry › Computational chemistry, Chemistry › Physical chemistry, Computer science › Modelling tools, Engineering › Materials engineering, Engineering › Simulation engineering, Mathematics › Algorithms, Mathematics › Applied mathematics, Physics › Computational physics, Technology › Materials technology
- Researcher Profile
- First Stage Researcher (R1)
- Deadline
- 21/02/2020 21:00 - Europe/Athens
- Location
- Estonia
- Type Of Contract
- Temporary
- Hours Per Week
- 40
- Job Status
- Full-time
- Requirements
- Languages
- ENGLISH: GoodSee the offer on Euraxess website.
Environment:
Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research group established in 2003 in University of Tartu, Institute of Technology. Our goal is, by bringing together knowledge from diverse fields of expertise, to develop new materials and their control and applications. Exploitation of innovative materials will in turn permit building devices, different and in many ways superior to conventional machines. The scientific background of our staff as well as the laboratory equipment permits research activities on the borderline of computational material science, material science, robotics, chemistry, computer science and electronics.
Project Background: Electroactive polymers (EAP) consist of materials capable of changing dimensions and/or shape in response to electrical stimuli. Most EAPs are also capable of generating electrical energy in response to applied mechanical forces. Therefore, they have potential as sensors. These polymeric materials exhibit properties well beyond what conventional metal or plastic-based actuators can offer, including very high mechanical flexibility (can be stretched to twice their initial size), low density, a high grade of processability, scalability, microfabrication readiness and, in most cases, low cost. Micro-EAPs enable a new broad range of applications for which large strains and forces are desirable, and for which built-in intelligence is necessary. One type of EAPs are ionic EAP (IEAP). They rely on ion and solvent transport to cause volume changes of the polymeric phase. When an electric field is applied to the device, it drives the motion of these ions and the entrained solvent, leading to swelling or contraction when these ions enter or leave regions of the polymer. IEAPs including Conducting Polymers (CP), present several advantages, including the capability of large bending deformation even at low (~1%) intrinsic strains of the electroactive layer; low voltages operation (0.3-5V), that make them well suited for several applications especially interfacing with biology. These materials have intrinsic capability to be also electrochemical and mechanical sensors, which also allows to design self-sensing transducers in some cases.
Objective:
The main objectives are to realize a multiscale physics model to develop model for conductive polymer based actuators based on physical and electrochemical principles. It involves to develop polarizable force filed for atom-atom interaction based simulation models (Molecular dynamics and kinetics) with further integration if output parameters into Finite element analyses computations. The final result is reasonable physics and electrochemistry based model which is enable to give predictive results for electrochemomechanical transducer behavior.
Key words: Conductive polymers, Electroactive polymer composites, Electrochemistry, Computational materials science, Ab initio, Density Functional Theory, Polarizable force field, molecular dynamics, Finite element analyze, multiscale physics
Subject Areas: computational materials science, electrochemistry, electroactive polymer materials