Smart Materials Devices

A new generation of reconfigurable, adaptive and eco-friendly ICT systems and devices

Smart Material Devices are a new generation of reconfigurable, adaptive, and eco-friendly ICT devices and systems that exploit micro- and nano-structured materials, innovative configurations, and architectures, allowing their application to be adapted and their performance to be optimized based on usage conditions, industrial requirements, and emerging applications.

SMD include reconfigurable metamaterials and metasurfaces for mobile communications, multifunctional (bio)sensors that can be integrated into fabrics and/or biodegradable for monitoring environmental and personal parameters, optoelectronic devices and circuits based on 1D and 2D materials made on silicon substrates and/or printable on flexible substrates.

Technologies

2d printable electronics

In the not-too-distant future, we may perhaps be able to print ourselves an iPad or a smartphone, using a simple inkjet printer and a sheet of paper.

Systems for Energy Harvesting

We develop devices, based on silicon which is cheap and biocompatible, that exploit nanostructuration to achieve an efficient thermal-to-electrical conversion efficiency.

Reflecting Intelligent Surfaces

Reflecting Intelligent surfaces is a novel technology based on metasurfaces which been recently proposed as a solution for 6G communication networks and Radar Cross Section (RCS) control.

Implantable and bioresorbable sensors and systems

We envision a radically new technology for in-vivo bioresorbable sensing of analytes of clinical interest where optical devices, power and light sources, synthetic receptors - made out of materials that completely dissolve with biologically benign byproducts in biofluids - will be developed and integrated together into an optoelectronic sensing system.

3D printing of smart materials

We develop new sensing technologies for the monitoring of human body motions, that can be applied to organs and to surfaces in general. Specifically, it can be adapted to a wide range of different applications from the monitoring of intestine motility to the recognition of hand gestures.