Zhi-Zhu He

Direct Desktop Printed-Circuits-on-Paper Flexible Electronics

There currently lacks of a way to directly write out electronics, just like printing pictures on paper by an office printer. Here we show a desktop printing of flexible circuits on paper via developing liquid metal ink and related working mechanisms. Through modifying adhesion of the ink, overcoming its high surface tension by dispensing machine and designing a brush like porous pinhead for printing alloy and identifying matched substrate materials among different papers, the slightly oxidized alloy ink was demonstrated to be flexibly printed on coated paper, which could compose various functional electronics and the concept of Printed-Circuits-on-Paper was thus presented. Further, RTV silicone rubber was adopted as isolating inks and packaging material to guarantee the functional stability of the circuit, which suggests an approach for printing 3D hybrid electro-mechanical device. The present work paved the way for a low cost and easygoing method in directly printing paper electronics.

Personal electronics printing via tapping mode composite liquid metal ink delivery and adhesion mechanism

Printed electronics is becoming increasingly important in a variety of newly emerging areas. However, restricted to the rather limited conductive inks and available printing strategies, the current electronics manufacture is usually confined to industry level. Here, we show a highly cost-effective and entirely automatic printing way towards personal electronics making, through introducing a tapping-mode composite fluid delivery system. Fundamental mechanisms regarding the reliable printing, transfer and adhesion of the liquid metal inks on the substrate were disclosed through systematic theoretical interpretation and experimental measurements. With this liquid metal printer, a series of representative electronic patterns spanning from single wires to desired complex configurations such as integrated circuit (IC), printed-circuits-on-board (PCB), electronic paintings, or more do-it-yourself (DIY) devices, were demonstrated to be printed out with high precision in a moment. And the total machine cost already reached personally affordable price. This is hard to achieve by a conventional PCB technology which generally takes long time and is material, water and energy consuming, while the existing printed electronics is still far away from the real direct printing goal. The present work opens the way for large scale personal electronics manufacture and is expected to generate important value for the coming society.

Electro-hydrodynamic shooting phenomenon of liquid metal stream

We reported an electro-hydrodynamic shooting phenomenon of liquid metal stream. A small voltage direct current electric field would induce ejection of liquid metal inside capillary tube and then shooting into sodium hydroxide solution to form discrete droplets. The shooting velocity has positive relationship with the applied voltage while the droplet size is dominated by the aperture diameter of the capillary nozzle. Further, the motion of the liquid metal droplets can be flexibly manipulated by the electrodes. This effect suggests an easy going way to generate metal droplets in large quantity, which is important from both fundamental and practical aspects.

Self‐Propelled and Long‐Time Transport Motion of PVC Particles on a Water Surface

Driven by the Marangoni effect, a poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) particle runs in its orbit (a) with high velocity due to the release of surfactant and heat. The PVC particles are also able to efficiently drive an aluminum bulk and to induce spinning and quick runs on a water surface (b).

An Effective Finite Difference Method for Simulation of Bioheat Transfer in Irregular Tissues

A three-dimensional (3D) simulation of bioheat transfer is crucial to analyze the physiological processes and evaluate many therapeutic/diagnostic practices spanning from high to low temperature medicine. In this paper we develop an efficient numerical scheme for solving 3D transient bioheat transfer equations based on the alternating direction implicit finite-difference method (ADI-FDM). An algorithm is proposed to deal with the boundary condition for irregular domain which could capture accurately the complex boundary and reduce considerably the staircase effects. Furthermore, the local adaptive mesh technology is introduced to improve the computational accuracy for irregular boundary and the domains with large temperature gradient. The detailed modification to ADI-FDM is given to accommodate such special grid structure, in particular. Combination of adaptive-mesh technology and ADI-FDM could significantly improve the computational accuracy and decrease the computational cost. Extensive results of numerical experiments demonstrate that the algorithm developed in the current work is very effective to predict the temperature distribution during hyperthermia and cryosurgery. This work may play an important role in developing a computational planning tool for hyperthermia and cryosurgery in the near future. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4024064]

MRI-based three-dimensional thermal physiological characterization of thyroid gland of human body

This article is dedicated to present a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) based three-dimensional finite element modeling on the thermal manifestations relating to the pathophysiology of thyroid gland. An efficient approach for identifying the metabolic dysfunctions of thyroid has also been demonstrated through tracking the localized non-uniform thermal distribution or enhanced dynamic imaging. The temperature features over the skin surface and thyroid domain have been characterized using the numerical simulation and experimental measurement which will help better interpret the thermal physiological mechanisms of the thyroid under steady-state or water-cooling condition. Further, parametric simulations on the hypermetabolism symptoms of hyperthyroidism and thermal effects within thyroid domain caused by varying breathing airflow in the trachea and blood-flow in artery and vein were performed. It was disclosed that among all the parameters, the airflow volume has the largest effect on the total heat flux of thyroid surface. However, thermal contributions caused by varying the breathing frequency and blood-flow velocity are negligibly small. The present study suggests a generalized way for simulating the close to reality physiological behavior or process of human thyroid, which is of significance for disease diagnosis and treatment planning.

MRI-based finite element simulation on radiofrequency ablation of thyroid cancer

In order to provide a quantitative disclosure on the RFA (radiofrequency ablation)-induced thermal ablation effects within thyroid tissues, this paper has developed a three-dimensional finite element simulation strategy based on a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)-reconstructed model. The thermal lesions growth was predicted and interpreted under two treatment conditions, i.e. single-cooled-electrode modality and two-cooled-electrode system. The results show that the thermal lesions growth is significantly affected by two factors including the position of RF electrode and thermal-physiological behavior of the breathing airflow. Additional parametric studies revealed several valuable phenomena, e.g. with the electrodes movement, thermal injury with varying severity would happen to the trachea wall. Besides, the changes in airflow mass produced evident effects on the total heat flux of thyroid surface, while the changes in breathing frequency only generated minor effects that can be ignored. The present study provided a better understanding on the thermal lesions of RFA within thyroid domain, which will help guide future treatment of the thyroid cancer.

Computational study of thermal effects of large blood vessels in human knee joint

This paper is dedicated to present a comprehensive investigation on the thermal effects of large blood vessels of human knee joint during topical cooling and fomentation treatment. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis by taking full use of the anatomical CAD model of human knee joint was developed to accurately simulate the treatment process. Based on the classical Pennes bio-heat transfer equation, the time evolution of knee joints temperature distribution and heat flux from large blood vessels was obtained. In addition, we compared several influencing factors and obtained some key conclusions which cannot be easily acquired through clinical experiments. The results indicated that the thermal effects of large blood vessels could remarkably affect the temperature distribution of knee joint during treatment process. Fluctuations of blood flow velocity and metabolic heat production rate affect little on the thermal effects of large blood vessels. Changing the temperature of blood and regimes of treatment could effectively regulate this phenomenon, which is important for many physiological activities. These results provide a guideline to the basic and applied research for the thermally significant large blood vessels in the knee organism.

Characterizing Ice Crystal Growth Behavior Under Electric Field Using Phase Field Method

In this article, the microscale ice crystal growth behavior under electrostatic field is investigated via a phase field method, which also incorporates the effects of anisotropy and thermal noise. The multiple ice nucleis competitive growth as disclosed in existing experiments is thus successfully predicted. The present approach suggests a highly efficient theoretical tool for probing into the freeze injury mechanisms of biological material due to ice formation during cryosurgery or cryopreservation process when external electric field was involved.

Anatomical model-based finite element analysis of the combined cryosurgical and hyperthermic ablation for knee bone tumor

This paper is aimed at investigating the capacity of using combined cryosurgical and hyperthermic modality for treating knee bone tumor with complex shape. An anatomical model for human knee was constructed and a three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis was developed to determine temperature distribution of the tissues subject to single freezing (SF), single heating (SH) and alternate freezing-heating (AFH), respectively. The heat fluxes of the probes wall and the ablation volume are particularly tracked to comparatively evaluate the ablation ability of different probe configurations with varied diameter, number and active working length. As example, an effective conformal treatment strategy via one times insertion while cyclic freezing-heating using multiple probes is designed for a predefined knee bone tumor ablation. Both SF and SH could create large enough ablation volume, while it is hard for them to perform a conformal treatment on irregular and slender knee tumor. As an alternative, AFH could form a flexible and controlled shape and volume of the ablation by changing the size and number of the probes and adjusting their insertion depth. In addition, a thermal protection method is considered to reduce cryoinjury of the health tissue.