ANSALDO , Alberto

Bucky gel actuators are one of the most promising type of electrochemical actuators based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs). They are lightweight, they are able to work in air without any liquid electrolyte and require just few volts to operate. In order to find real world applications where bucky gel actuators can outperform conventional motors,...

Oxidative polymerization of pyrrole directly on preformed bucky gel slurry was carried out in order to combine the remarkable properties of ionic actuators based on carbon nanotubes and polypyrrole. Bimorph solid state ionic actuators were prepared with this novel hybrid material and compared with classical bucky gel actuators. A small amount...

Bucky gel-based actuators represent one of the possible ways to exploit the outstanding electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes. Despite the continuous efforts to develop better devices, the lack of an accepted and simple way of characterizing the actuation mechanisms has often led to misestimate their performances. In this...

Simple fabrication, high power-to-weight and power-to-volume ratios, and the ability to operate in open air at low voltage make the ionic electroactive polymer actuators highly attractive for haptic applications. Whenever a direct tactile stimulation of the skin is involved, electrical and chemical insulation as well as a long-term stability of...

Simple fabrication, high power-to-weight and power-to-volume ratios, and the ability to operate in open air at low voltage make the ionic electroactive polymer actuators highly attractive for haptic applications. Whenever a direct tactile stimulation of the skin is involved, electrical and chemical insulation as well as a long-term stability of...

We report for the first time how coatings made by directly growing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the tip of neural microelectrodes outperform others made by electrodeposited CNT composites. Not only do they reduce microelectrode impedance but they also are able to inject high currents without degradation and are stable in time. These results...

Bucky gel actuators are typically fabricated by having an electrolyte layer sandwiched by two carbon nanotubes electrodes. They possess outstanding electrical and mechanical properties thanks to their composition, which make them very attractive for robotics applications. Even though carbon nanotube electrodes have been extensively studied in...

Chemical cross-linking of super-growth carbon nanotubes was performed to increase bucky gel actuators efficiency in transferring motion from the nano-scale to the micro-scale. The modification was achieved by a three-step reaction i.e. first an oxidation with nitric acid, then a chlorination process with thionyl chloride and finally the...

A series of novel poly(ionic liquid)s/carbon nanotubes composites were prepared and studied. The effect of the anion on the thermal, mechanical and electrical properties of the composites was investigated. We obtained electrical conductivities ranged from 20 to 40 S cm-1 which are amongst the highest reported for a material involving poly(ionic...

Carbon nanotube actuators possess the requirements to be used in soft robotic applications as they are lightweight, simple to assemble and can operate at low voltage. However, there is still a need to further enhance their performances - in particular strain and blocking force - in order to render their implementation in devices more viable. In...

Extracellular metal microelectrodes are widely used to record single neuron activity in vivo. However, their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is often far from optimal due to their high impedance value. It has been recently reported that carbon nanotube (CNT) coatings may decrease microelectrode impedance, thus improving their performance. To tease...

Finding the most appropriate technology for building electrodes to be used for long term implants in humans is a challenging issue. What are the most appropriate technologies? How could one achieve robustness, stability, compatibility, efficacy, and versatility, for both recording and stimulation? There are no easy answers to these questions as...

The ongoing interest in densely packed miniaturized electrode arrays for high-resolution epicortical recordings has induced many researchers to explore the use of nanomaterial coatings to reduce electrode impedance while increasing signal-to-noise ratio and charge injection capability. Although these materials are very effective, their use in...

Cortical stimulation mapping is a valuable tool to test the functional organization of the motor cortex in both basic neurophysiology (e.g., elucidating the process of motor plasticity) and clinical practice (e.g., before resecting brain tumors involving the motor cortex). However, compilation of motor maps based on the motor threshold (MT)...

Key points: The cortical mechanisms of grasping have been extensively studied in macaques and humans; here, we investigated whether common marmosets could rely on similar mechanisms despite strong differences in hand morphology and grip diversity. We recorded electrocorticographic activity over the sensorimotor cortex of two common marmosets...

The study of the complex interfaces between organic semiconductors and liquids have recently gained increasing attention due to their interesting applications as biosensors in biological environments, in photovoltaics, and in bioinspired light-harvesting systems. Here, we report a detailed characterization of the interface between polymer films...

High-density surface microelectrodes for electrocorticography (ECoG) have become more common in recent years for recording electrical signals from the cortex. With an acceptable invasiveness/signal fidelity trade-off and high spatial resolution, micro-ECoG is a promising tool to resolve fine task-related spatial-Temporal dynamics. However,...

Objective. Motor map has been widely used as an indicator of motor skills and learning, cortical injury, plasticity, and functional recovery. Cortical stimulation mapping using epidural electrodes is recently adopted for animal studies. However, several technical limitations still remain. Test-retest reliability of epidural cortical stimulation...

One of the most difficult tasks for the surgeon during the removal of low-grade gliomas is to identify as precisely as possible the borders between functional and non-functional brain tissue with the aim of obtaining the maximal possible resection which allows to the patient the longer survival. For this purpose, systems for acute extracellular...

Electrocorticography (ECoG) is becoming a common tool for clinical applications, such as preparing patients for epilepsy surgery or localizing tumor boundaries, as it successfully balances invasiveness and information quality. Clinical ECoG arrays use millimeter-scale electrodes and centimeter-scale pitch and cannot precisely map neural...