Projects

On-going projects

On-going projects supported by external funding

• “Self-Assisted Electric Field-Effect Thermoelectric Generators-SELFTEG”, 2020.01-2023.12, Vetenskapsrådet (VR). This project aims to  develop energy converters by combing thermoelectric generators and triboelectric  nanogenerators for energy harvesting and thermal sensing. 

• Wireless Brain-Connect inteRfAce TO machineS: B-CRATOS, H2020-FETOPEN, 2021-2025. www.B-Cratos.eu, In this consortium project, FTE-FN is responsible for development of beyond the state-of the-art electronic skin for tactile feedback used on prosthetic upper limbs.

• SSF, BOS: Software Principles and Techniques for Body-centric Operating System, WP 2, Software for energy-efficient processing of tactile and tremor signals, 2022-2027. In this consortium project, FTE-FN aims to develop neural networks and machine learning for energy-efficient processing of tactile and tremor signals.

Previous projects

previous projects supported by external funding

• Graphene technology, funded by Knut & Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW). As the key to the application of graphene in general, we work on growth of single-layer graphene, development of high quality graphene transfer, scalable process technology for graphene field effect transistors, surface functionalization for graphene sensors, and heterogeneous integration of graphene for flexible devices.

• Graphene for interconnects, Funded by Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). The purpose of this project is to develop high performance printed graphene interconnects processed at low temperature for large area flexible electronic devices. Specifically, we work on solution-processable scalable production of graphene nanoplateletts from graphite, graphene composites, formulation of graphene inks and post-treatment of printed thin films.

• Soft thermoelectrics, Funded by Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). If thermoelectric devices for wasted heat harvesting are capable of being soft, conformal to complicated surfaces and, even more, compliant to a deformable object while benign to human body and environment, their potential of applications will be substantially increased. In this project, we focus on process development for building up stretchable thermoelectric generators using elastomer as substrate, exploration of nanocarbon materials for printable thermoelectric materials and study in-depth the hetero-junctions for reliability and robustness of thermoelectric generators.  

• Si based thermoelectrics, Funded by Vetenskapsrådet (VR). The best thermoelectric materials, Bi₂Te₃ and Sb₂Te₃ used in conventional thermoelectric  generator (TEG) operating in the range of low temperature are characterized by their figure of merit ZT~1. They are environmentally harmful, expensive, in contrast to Si, an abundant, cheap and non-toxic material. In addition, Si technology has been well established for the ultra-large scale integrated circuits widely used today. However, Si has too low ZT values (~0.01 at room temperature) to be useful in TE applications. The main purpose of this project is to replace the existing thermoelectric materials with Si by developing phononic structures to boost the ZT.