Kyle Jiang

Macroscopic invisibility cloaking of visible light

Invisibility cloaks, which used to be confined to the realm of fiction, have now been turned into a scientific reality thanks to the enabling theoretical tools of transformation optics and conformal mapping. Inspired by those theoretical works, the experimental realization of electromagnetic invisibility cloaks has been reported at various electromagnetic frequencies. All the invisibility cloaks demonstrated thus far, however, have relied on nano- or micro-fabricated artificial composite materials with spatially varying electromagnetic properties, which limit the size of the cloaked region to a few wavelengths. Here, we report the first realization of a macroscopic volumetric invisibility cloak constructed from natural birefringent crystals. The cloak operates at visible frequencies and is capable of hiding, for a specific light polarization, three-dimensional objects of the scale of centimetres and millimetres. Our work opens avenues for future applications with macroscopic cloaking devices.

SU-8 Ka-band filter and its microfabrication

This paper presents the design and microfabrication of a coaxial dual model filter for applications in LMDS systems. The coaxial structure is formed by five conductive layers, each of which is of 700 µm thickness. The filter uses an air filled coaxial transmission line. It is compact with low dispersion and low loss. The design has been extensively tested using a prototype filter micromachined using laser drilling on a copper sheet and the results show a good agreement with the theoretical calculations. The laser fabrication has exposed weakness in suitability to volume production, uneven edges and oxide residuals on the edges, which affects the filter performance. A process for fabrication of such a filter in SU-8 has been developed which is based on a UV lithographical process. In order to fabricate such thick SU-8 layers, the SU-8 process has been optimized in terms of UV radiation and post exposure baking. During the test fabrication, the optimized SU-8 process has produced microstructures with an aspect ratio of 40:1 and a sidewall of 90 ± 0.1 ◦ . The high quality SU-8 structures can be then either coated with a conductive metal or used as moulds for producing copper structures using an electroforming process. The microfabrication process presented in this paper suits the proposed filter well. It also reveals a good potential for volume production of high quality RF devices. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

Design and High Performance of a Micromachined

This paper presents the design and performance of a low-loss rectangular air-filled coaxial cable. A high-precision micromachining technique is used to fabricate the cable. It is assembled by bonding together five layers of gold-coated SU-8 photoresist fabricated using the ultraviolet photolithographic technique. As the cable is air filled, both the dielectric and radiation losses are negligible. The cross coupling is also very weak between the cable and other parts of the circuit in a system. These advantages make the proposed cable a very good candidate for low-cost high-performance miniaturized transmission lines. The cable is designed to work in the frequency range of 14-36 GHz, which covers the whole JC-band. The size of the cable is only 8.9 mm times 8.6 mm times 1.5 mm and the measured minimum insertion loss of the as-made cable is approximately 0.6 dB. The return loss is better than 15 dB in the passband.

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This work reports a feasibility study into the combined full morphological reconstruction of fuel cell structures using X-ray computed micro- and nanotomography and lattice Boltzmann modeling to simulate fluid flow at pore scale in porous materials. This work provides a description of how the two techniques have been adapted to simulate gas movement through a carbon paper gas diffusion layer (GDL). The validation work demonstrates that the difference between the simulated and measured absolute permeability of air is 3%. The current study elucidates the potential to enable improvements in GDL design, material composition, and cell design to be realized through a greater understanding of the nano- and microscale transport processes occurring within the polymer electrolyte fuel cell.

-Band Rectangular Coaxial Cable

The microfabrication of thick electroforming micro moulds using a KMPR negative tone photoresist has been investigated. SU-8 resist is currently the most widely used thick resist for electroforming masking, but difficulties in removing crosslinked SU-8 have considerably limited its applications in microelectroforming applications. KMPR resist is a complement to SU-8 in providing electroforming moulds. A considerable advantage of KMPR compared to SU-8 is that it can easily be removed after completion of electroforming using commercially available chemical removers. In the characterization of KMPR for making microelectroforming moulds, an optimized double spin lithography process using an UV mask aligner has been developed. The process enables the KMPR moulds to have dimensional accuracy and sidewall verticality comparable to those of SU-8. Structures of 180 µm in thickness and aspect ratio of 18:1 have been fabricated repeatedly in experiments. Microelectroforming was conducted in the KMPR moulds and the results show excellent geometry. The KMPR moulds were easily stripped without damaging the metal components or leaving residues around the metal structures. KMPR resist was also successfully stripped from confined areas, such as nickel channels of 180 µm thickness and 40 µm width.

An x-ray tomography based lattice Boltzmann simulation study on gas diffusion layers of polymer electrolyte fuel cells

Articular cartilage is the bearing surface of synovial joints and plays a crucial role in the tribology to enable low friction joint movement. A detailed understanding of the surface roughness of articular cartilage is important to understand how natural joints behave and the parameters required for future joint replacement materials. Bovine articular cartilage on bone samples was prepared and the surface roughness was measured using scanning electron microscopy stereoscopic imaging at magnifications in the range 500× to 2000×. The surface roughness (two-dimensional, R(a), and three-dimensional, S(a)) of each sample was then measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM). For stereoscopic imaging the surface roughness was found to linearly increase with increasing magnification. At a magnification of 500× the mean surface roughness, R(a), was in the range 165.4±5.2 nm to 174±39.3 nm; total surface roughness S(a) was in the range 183-261 nm. The surface roughness measurements made using AFM showed R(a) in the range 82.6±4.6 nm to 114.4±44.9 nm and S(a) in the range 86-136 nm. Values obtained using SEM stereo imaging were always larger than those obtained using AFM. Stereoscopic imaging can be used to investigate the surface roughness of articular cartilage. The variations seen between measurement techniques show that when making comparisons between the surface roughness of articular cartilage it is important that the same technique is used.

Fabrication of thick electroforming micro mould using a KMPR negative tone photoresist

Microceramic components have outstanding properties, such as high temperature resistant, biocompatible, chemically stable and high hardness properties, and could be used in a wide range of applications. However, the fabrication of precision micro-components has long been a barrier and limited their applications. This paper presents a soft lithography technique to fabricate near net-shape alumina micro-components. The process uses elastomer polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) to replace traditional solid moulds and leaves the green patterns intact after demoulding. The whole soft lithography technique involves the following steps: (i) fabricating high aspect ratio SU-8 moulds using UV photolithography, (ii) producing PDMS soft moulds from SU-8 masters, (iii) making aqueous high solids loading alumina suspension, (iv) filling patterned PDMS mould with the aqueous alumina suspension and (v) demoulding and sintering. The rheological properties (zeta potential and viscosity) of aqueous alumina suspensions have been characterized in relation to the varying pH values and concentration of dispersant (D-3005). The optimal parameters of alumina suspension for mould filling have been achieved at a pH value = 11; concentration of dispersant = 0.05 g ml−1; amount of binder = 0.75%; highest solid loading = 70 wt%. After pressurized mould filling, complete, dense and free-standing micro-components have been achieved by using a 70 wt% alumina suspension and an optimum fabrication technique, while the overall linear shrinkage is found to be about 22%.

Investigation of techniques for the measurement of articular cartilage surface roughness.

A fabrication process of the net shape 316-L stainless-steel micro machine components is reported. The fabrication process combines softlithography and powder metallurgy to produce microcomponents of complex geometries of high quality. The process starts with softlithography by producing ultra thick SU-8 master moulds and their negative replicas of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Then stainless-steel slurry is prepared by mixing super fine 316-L steel powder and binder to fill the PDMS moulds. The two binders used in the experiments were Duramax D-3005 and a mixture of B1000 and B1007. The PDMS micro moulds are filled with the metallic slurries and green parts are obtained from de-moulding, before going through de-binding and sintering in forming gas atmosphere. The fabrication steps were repeatedly tested. The resultant micro parts show high quality shape retention which is attributed to the quality of the SU-8 master moulds. The hardness property of the sintered microcomponents was tested with a micro indenter and a 200 g load was applied. The Vickers hardness of the sintered components was found to be about 255, which was higher than 225 of annealed 316L stainless steel and the two binders make little difference on the hardness of the sintered samples.

A net-shape fabrication process of alumina micro-components using a soft lithography technique

A lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is developed in this article in a combination with X-ray computed tomography to simulate fluid flow at pore scale in order to calculate the anisotropic permeability of porous media. The binary 3D structures of porous materials were acquired by X-ray computed tomography at a resolution of a few microns, and the reconstructed 3D porous structures were then combined with the LB model to calculate their permeability tensor based on the simulated velocity field at pore scale. The flow is driven by pressure gradients imposed in different directions. Two porous media, one gas diffusion porous layer used in fuel cells industry and glass beads, were simulated. For both media, we investigated the relationship between their anisotropic permeability and porosity. The results indicate that the LB model is efficient to simulate pore-scale flow in porous media, and capable of giving a good estimate of the anisotropic permeability for both media. The calculated permeability is in good agreement with the measured date; the relationship between the permeability and porosity for the two media is well described by the Kozeny–Carman equation. For the gas diffusion layer, the simulated results showed that its permeability in one direction could be one order of magnitude higher than those in other two directions. The simulation was based on the single-relaxation time LB model, and we showed that by properly choosing the relaxation time, it could give similar results to those obtained using the multiple-relaxation time (MRT) LB method, but with only one third of the computational costs of MRTLB model.

Net shape fabrication of stainless-steel micro machine components from metallic powder

This article presents an overview on the state of the art of Tyre Pressure Monitoring System related technologies. This includes examining the latest pressure sensing methods and comparing different types of pressure transducers, particularly their power consumption and measuring range. Having the aim of this research to investigate possible means to obtain a tyre condition monitoring system (TCMS) powered by energy harvesting, various approaches of energy harvesting techniques were evaluated to determine which approach is the most applicable for generating energy within the pneumatic tyre domain and under rolling tyre dynamic conditions. This article starts with an historical review of pneumatic tyre development and demonstrates the reasons and explains the need for using a tyre condition monitoring system. Following this, different tyre pressure measurement approaches are compared in order to determine what type of pressure sensor is best to consider in the research proposal plan. Then possible energy harvesting means inside land vehicle pneumatic tyres are reviewed. Following this, state of the art battery-less tyre pressure monitoring systems developed by individual researchers or by world leading tyre manufacturers are presented. Finally conclusions are drawn based on the reviewed documents cited in this article and a research proposal plan is presented.