About Us
We are a multidisciplinary team focusing on translating fundamental material principles into purpose-driven technologies with clear impact. Our current research interests include mechano-materials science and engineering, soft electronics manufacturing, sense digitalization, cyber-human interfaces and systems and sustainable materials technologies.
Research Directions
Soft Electronics Manufacturing
When electronics move from rigid boards to deformable substrates, mechanics and interfaces become defining design parameters. We create ultrathin, stretchable electronic building blocks for seamless wearable and implantable systems. Key advances include a 1.3-µm-thick elastic conductor for nerve stimulation, a universal plug-and-play interface for assembling stretchable devices, and water-responsive supercontractile films that enhance conformability for tissue-electronics interfaces.
Cyber-Human Interfaces & Systems
Interfaces become transformative when they enable efficient, precise information exchange across physical, chemical, and biological domains—mirroring how living systems integrate multimodal cues to perceive, adapt, and respond. Inspired by this biology-guided interfacial communication, we build systems where compliant devices and learning architectures convert rich sensory inputs into intuitive interaction and assistive control. Representative examples include soft grippers with cutaneous slip perception, multimodal gesture recognition integrating vision and stretchable somatosensory sensing, and a breath-driven machine interface enabled by mixed proton–electron conduction in graphdiyne.
Sustainable Materials Technologies
Accelerating decarbonisation calls for sustainable chemistry that advances safer energy storage for clean electrification and converts complex biomass into platform chemicals to reduce fossil-derived production. Through a joint initiative with the Max Planck Society and leading Singaporean partners, Sustainable Chemical Conversion of Biomass (SCCB), we pursue emissions reductions by enabling circular biomass valorisation for sustainable aviation fuel pathways. Complementing this, we engineer electrolyte and interphase chemistry for batteries operating under extreme and safety-critical conditions. Recent advances include early-terminating SEI formation via nucleophilic fluorination to raise initial Coulombic efficiency, and anion-modulated solvation and electric double layers enabling lithium-ion storage from −60 to 80 °C.
授人以鱼，不如授之以渔。
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”