Publications related to From Spider Webs to a Biomimetic Optical Fibre Sensor

Status of SPIDER beam source after the first 3.5 years of operation

SPIDER is the negative ion source testbed for ITER neutral beam injector. It is currently the largest negative ion source ever built, equipped with a 100 keV accelerator, aiming at producing a negative ion beam with an extracted current density in hydrogen ...

2023

Nanoscale Lithography and Thermometry with Thermal Scanning Probes

Samuel Tobias Howell, Samuel Zimmermann

Thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) is an advanced lithography technique in which a heated atomic force microscope tip locally modifies a sample material. Due to the nanometer-sized tip apex diameter, t-SPL enables patterning of sub-10 nm structures ...

EPFL2018

Towards a novel "silky" way to detect chemical species using spider threads

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Silk possesses extraordinary properties that scientists are currently working hard on harnessing. Amongst them, this primeval material has shown early potential of having excellent optical properties. Through a regeneration process, it is possible to obtai ...

2016

From spider webs to a fibre-optic chemical sensor

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of prey on its web. For scientists, dragline silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable a ...

2016

Weaving our way towards a new generation of ﬁbre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

From the spider’s perspective, silk is not only a building material but also a safety net, a weapon and a sensory organ to detect the presence of preys on its web. Indeed, this primeval material has been shaped over hundreds of millions of years by spiders ...

Ieee2016

Towards a new generation of fibre-optic chemical sensors based on spider silk threads

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

A spider uses up to seven different types of silk, all having specific functions, to build its web. For scientists, native silk - directly extracted from spiders - is a tough, biodegradable and biocompatible thread used mainly for tissue engineering and te ...

Ieee2016

Spider silk: a novel optical fibre for biochemical sensing

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Isabelle Dicaire, Desmond Chow Ming Chia

Whilst being thoroughly used in the textile industry and biomedical sector, silk has not yet been exploited for fibre optics-based sensing although silk fibres directly obtained from spiders can guide light and have shown early promises to being sensitive ...

SPIE2015