Acoustic transducers are essential for object localization and environmental sensing. Conventional transducers rely on piezoelectric crystals, whose acoustic-electric response is fixed by the crystal lattice's inherent asymmetry and orientation. This results in static coupling behavior, necessitating bulky arrays of rigid elements with complex wiring and high computational demands for directional sensing. Here, we report a fundamentally new class of acoustic-electric coupling that emerges from topology-governed charge transport in 3D micro-architected piezoelectric metamaterials. Unlike...
The development of 3D MEMS devices has enabled innovative sensor designs with enhanced functionality, yet conventional fabrication methods often impose geometric and process limitations. This work presents a micro-3D-printed tactile sensor, integrating 3D piezoelectric, capacitive, conductive and dielectric elements with a compliant mechanism to achieve high sensitivity and force decoupling capability. The sensor is fabricated using a multi-material digital light processing (DLP) method, followed by selective metallization to define conductive regions, enabling seamless...
Force decoupling is essential for high-fidelity proprioception sensing in robotic systems. However, existing approaches rely on bulky multi-axis transducers or complex signal post-processing, hindering response speed and scalability. This work presents a force sensor employing a compliant mechanism-inspired meta-structure to mechanically decouple multidirectional forces. The metamaterial structure redistributes internal stiffness to channel force components into desired sensing elements while attenuating off-axis loads. This geometry-driven approach achieves high directional sensitivity (...
3D printing offers unprecedented control over the design and fabrication of functional materials with complex architectures. In this project, we focus on developing textured ceramic structures using advanced 3D printing techniques. By engineering the resin formulation and printing process, we aim to align ceramic grains along designed orientations, enabling anisotropic properties tailored for transducer applications. The study will reveal the processing–structure–property correlations of textured ceramics, demonstrating how controlled grain orientation alignment and microstructural...
Acoustic transducers are essential for object localization and environmental sensing. Conventional transducers rely on piezoelectric crystals, whose acoustic-electric response is fixed by the crystal lattice’s inherent asymmetry and orientation. This results in static coupling behavior, necessitating bulky arrays of rigid elements with complex wiring and high computational demands for directional sensing. Here, we report a fundamentally new class of acoustic-electric coupling that emerges from topology-governed charge transport in 3D micro-architected piezoelectric metamaterials. Unlike...
This work pertains to the multi-objective inverse design of impact-resistant metamaterials under varying strain rates. Impact-resistant materials are desirable in a wide range of applications, such as sports, automobiles, military, and aircraft, to name a few. Existing literature deals with refining these structures by performing quasi-static finite element (FE) simulations and then verifying them experimentally, which is a time-consuming and expensive process. Moreover, beyond the low-velocity regime, quasi-static simulations are not representative of real-world dynamic...
