A nanonewton force sensor using a U-shape tapered microfiber interferometer.

Nanomechanical measurements, especially the detection of weak contact forces, play a vital role in many fields, such as material science, micromanipulation, and mechanobiology. However, it remains a challenging task to realize the measurement of ultraweak force levels as low as nanonewtons with a simple sensing configuration. In this work, an ultrasensitive all-fiber nanonewton force sensor structure based on a single-mode-tapered U-shape multimode-single-mode fiber probe is proposed and experimentally demonstrated with a limit of detection of ~5.

Biofilm inspired fabrication of functional bacterial cellulose through ex-situ and in-situ approaches.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been explored for use in a range of applications including tissue engineering and textiles. BC can be produced from waste streams, but sustainable approaches are needed for functionalisation. To this end, BslA, a B.

Self-Assembled, Hierarchical Structured Surfaces for Applications in (Super)hydrophobic Antiviral Coatings.

A versatile method for the creation of multitier hierarchical structured surfaces is reported, which optimizes both antiviral and hydrophobic (easy-clean) properties. The methodology exploits the availability of surface-active chemical groups while also manipulating both the surface micro- and nanostructure to control the way the surface coating interacts with virus particles within a liquid droplet. This methodology has significant advantages over single-tier structured surfaces, including the ability to overcome the droplet-pinning effect and in delivering surfaces with high static contact angles (>130°) and good antiviral efficacy (log kill >2).

Flexible Platform of Acoustofluidics and Metamaterials with Decoupled Resonant Frequencies.

The key challenge for a lab-on-chip (LOC) device is the seamless integration of key elements of biosensing and actuation (e.g., biosampling or microfluidics), which are conventionally realised using different technologies.