Liwei Lin (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Liwei Lin

Lin Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

Fan Xia

Graduate Student Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2026 (Anticipated)

Ultrafast Biomimetic Untethered Soft Actuators with Bone-In-Flesh Constructs Actuated by Magnetic Field

Wei Yue
Renxiao Xu
Fanping Sui
Yuan Gao
Liwei Lin
2024

Soft actuators with unique mechanics have gained significant interests for unique capabilities and versatile applications. However, their actuation mechanisms (usually driven by light, heat, or chemical reactions) result in long actuation times. Reported magnetically actuated soft actuators can produce rapid and precise motions, yet their complex manufacturing processes may constrain their range of applications. Here, the “bone-in-flesh” is proposed that constructs combining rigid magnetic structures encapsulated within soft polymers to create untethered magnetic soft actuators. This...

Lin Lab: Researchers Design Soft Actuators that Mimic ‘bone-in-flesh’ Structure of Human Limbs

May 28, 2024

Past generations of soft actuators — designed to respond to light, heat and chemical reactions — typically exhibited slow actuation times and limited precision. Newer magnetically controlled soft actuators perform better in these areas, but they are challenging to manufacture. Ferromagnetic particles with controlled directional magnetization must be embedded into the actuator’s polymer skin, a process that requires specialized 3D printers and lithography techniques.

Now, Lin’s team may have solved this issue. Using their bone-in-flesh design, the...

Nikita Lukhanin

Graduate Student Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2028 (Anticipated)

Nikita Lukhanin is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in MEMS at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to this, he obtained a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois as well as an A.S. in Engineering Science from College of DuPage.

BSAC's Best: Spring 2024 Awards Announced

March 29, 2024

BSAC would like to thank all of the researchers who presented their research during BSAC's Spring 2024 Research Review on March 20th.

BSAC Industrial Members voted for the outstanding paper and presentations and the results are in. Please join BSAC in congratulating the recipients of the Spring 2024 Best of BSAC honors, Fan Xia and Noelle Davis!

Outstanding Presenter...

Ryan Sochol

Alumni
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)
PostDoc 2014

Prof. Ryan D. Sochol received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2006, and both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009 and 2011, respectively, with Doctoral Minors in Bioengineering and Public Health. Prof. Sochol’s postdoctoral training spanned the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard Medical School, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, the University of California, Berkeley, and...

Likun Zhang

Visiting Scholar Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)
Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute
Ph.D 2025 (Tsinghua University)

Yaqi Han

Visiting Scholar Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)

BPNX1007: Surface Tension-Driven Liquid Metal Actuator

Peisheng He
Zihan Wang
2024

Surface tension plays an important role in miniaturized systems as the scaling law favors its relative significance over other forces such as gravity, magnetic, and structural stiffness. As such, surface tension effects have induced process issues in microfabrication such as stiction but also provided opportunities in using the surface tension to drive microdevices, such as those based on electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD), electrocapillary, and continuous electrowetting (CEW) mechanism, … etc. In this project, we exploit the giant outputs by the switching of surface tension...