Congratulations to Jingyang Yan for passing his Ph.D. final defense on March 31!

It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Jingyang Yan, the first Ph.D. student of Du lab, for successfully passing his Ph.D. final defense. Jingyang Yan presented his culmination of five years of hard work, dedication, and perseverance at LSL-N410 on March 31, 2023. We would like to express our gratitude to Jingyang Yan for all his valuable contributions to the lab. Well done, Jingyang Yan!

Congratulations to Ryan Packer, Ilya McCune-Pedit, and Isabella Lambros for Winning Three Awards in the NSF Poster Competition in the 2022 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE)

Three junior NSF REU students, Ryan Packer, Ilya McCune-Pedit, and Isabella Lambros worked in Summer 2022 in Du lab. Their projects were presented in the NSF poster competition in the ASME-IMECE on October 30 – November 2, 2022, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, OH.

Ryan won the Best Presenter Award.

Ilya won the Most Enthusiastic Presentor.

Bella won the Most Informative Poster.

Congratulations to Jessica Wu and Jingyang Yan for Winning the Best Presenter Award in the NSF REU Poster Competition in the 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE)

Jessica Wu, a junior NSF REU student, developed a robust inking and drying system for a continuous roll-to-roll (R2R) microcontact printing process, ultimately to achieve advancements in the quality-controllable, large-scale R2R printing of flexible electronics. This technology was presented in the NSF REU poster competition in the IMECE on Nov. 01-05, 2021, and won Best Presenter Award. Ph.D. student, Jingyang Yan mentored Jessica Wu for partial fulfillment of his research project in scale up and quality control of the R2R microcontact printing process. The research project is aimed to achieve high-precision printing and comprehensive micro-scale pattern transfer with reasonable, industry-scale printing speeds, with decreased cost printing results from standard practices. We would like to thank the NSF program directors (Grant: NSF GOALI CMMI-1916866) for funding this REU research.

Congratulations to Peter DiMeo for Winning Third Place in the NSF REU Poster Competition in the 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE)

Peter DiMeo, a senior NSF REU student, integrated high-speed passive autofocus control of high-magnification lenes using nanometer precision piezo actuation in Summer 2021 in Du Lab. This technology was presented in the NSF REU poster competition in the IMECE on Nov. 01-05, 2021, and won Third Place Award. This research is based on Peter’s research report on the poster that won First Place in NSF poster competition in IMECE 2021, and his recent research paper published on Optics Express (https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-29-13-19862&id=451833). This research project is aimed to solve the focus problems in imaging high precision targets, like nano or micro-scale printed patterns in R2R, in high dynamic scenarios that require incredibly fast and precise position control of high-mass and high-magnification lenses. We would like to thank the NSF program directors (Grant: NSF CAREER CMMI-1942185) for funding this REU research.

Congratulations To The Four MIE 211 (Strength of Materials) UTAs For Winning MIE Students of The Year Award 2021

Congratulations to Laura Townsend, Ian Goodine, Aliecia Bottali, and Tyler Sullivan. The four MIE 211 (Strength of Materials) UTAs win the MIE Students of The Year Award 2021. Laura Townsend and Ian Goodine win the ME Social Impact Award, Aliecia Bottali and Tyler Sullivan respectively win IE Research Star and Outstanding Growth Awards. The winners were nominated and finally selected after the voting by the entire faculty of the MIE department. They all showed an enthusiastic and thorough attitude and strong assistant to Prof. Xian Du’s teaching of this large size class.

Lab research topics under NSF grants

The lab ongoing research projects under NSF grants include:

Contact xiandu@umass.edu if you are interested in the projects.

Congratulations to Peter DiMeo for Winning First Place in the NSF Poster Competition in the 2020 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE)

A junior NSF REU student, Peter DiMeo, developed a motorized device capable of autofocusing images in real-time in Summer 2020 in Du Lab. This technology was presented in the NSF poster competition in the IMECE on Nov. 16-19, 2020, and won First Place in the Overall-NSF Research Awards.

(https://www.umass.edu/ials/news-and-events/mechanical-engineering-student-wins-first-prize-nsf-poster-competition).

Design of PDMS stamp casting machine (Capstone senior design project 2019-2020)

A senior design team (Jonathan Rajcula (Team Lead), Nicholas Bougler (Design Lead), Max Armbruster
(Fabrication Lead), Daniel Dell’Anno (Analysis Lead), Jiacheng Xing (Evaluation Lead)) worked with the UMass Amherst Intelligent Sensing Lab on engineering a device to manufacture high quality micropatterned PDMS stamps in 2019 Fall semester and 2020 Spring semester. These stamps are to be used on a roll to roll microprinting machine being developed in the Intelligent Sensing Lab, which will utilize the stamps in fabricating flexible circuitry. The objectives of the project are to: 1) Learn the process of PDMS stamps and create a stamp compatible with the lab’s Roll to Roll Fabrication Machine. 2) Search for an appropriate material compatible with CO2 laser-etching serving as the PDMS mold. 3) Design and to improve a metal housing that holds the mold piece. 4) Find a sufficient method to evaluate the quality of the final prototype. 5) Measure the elastic modulus of the PDMS stamp, combining all of the tested results and anticipating an efficient modulus model that works properly with the project. The team has came up with a method to efficiently create patterns on a PDMS stamp by preprocessing a mold with patterns. Specifically, the mold is assembled with three parts, a two piece aluminum housing and an acrylic die. The team has done multiple experiments and has confirmed that acrylic is the material compatible with the CO2 laser-etching machine. With a series of incoming issues (housing leakage, flatness/thickness of the PDMS stamp), the team redesigned a new aluminum housing and improved its functions on dealing with mentioned issues. Some footage of the team doing work in the lab is reported in https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lisa-dell-anno-esq-706a95a5_daniel-dellanno-20-wasnt-planning-on-attending-activity-6615285033106231296-W4vk/.