Success Stories

Particle-stabilized Foams and Emulsions with Outstanding Stability

Nowadays, foams and emulsions are used in a variety of applications, ranging from food and pharmaceuticals to cosmetics, oil recovery and materials manufacturing. The particle-stabilized foams and emulsions with outstanding stability have been prepared using short amphiphilic molecules to tailor in situ the wettability of the particle surface. more…

Rapid Prototyping of Ceramic Materials: All-Ceramic Dental Restorations From Laboratory to Market

The desire for metal-free or all-ceramic bridges led to a first effort at two groups of researchers at the Chair of Nonmetallic, Inorganic Materials at ETH Zurich and at the University Zurich. They started in the early 1990'ties a first collaboration with the aim to substitute metal-porcelain bridges by an "all-ceramic-teeth-bridge system" and to test the new restorations in clinical trails. more...

Functional Ceramic Micro Components for Microsystems Technology Nonmetallic Materials

Thin film ceramic components and layers will become an integral part of microsystems technology in the future. Colloidal dispersed oxide particles as used in classical ceramic powder processing have now been considered as building blocks for microdevices. more...

Nanometer-thin, Soft Polymer Cushions: A Novel Coating on Chips for the Analysis of Genes and Proteins

Now that the sequences of the human genome are known, increasing emphasis is being placed on gene expression analysis (genomics) and on the study of the structure, function and expression of proteins (proteomics). Typical biological samples (such as cell extracts, tissue samples or blood) contain a large number of different DNAs, RNAs and especially proteins often in very low concentrations. more...

Numerical Simulation of Composite Materials

Composite materials bring together the individual properties of physically different phases or components with the aim of creating a material which shows new and superior properties compared to the individual components. In order to maximize the usage of this class of materials it is necessary that reliable and accurate simulation techniques are available in order to predict the behavior of short fiber composites in operation. more...

Semiconducting quasi 1-dimensional Metal Compounds

Realization of the often-made promise of mass-produced, low-cost "plastic electronics" based on semi-conducting organic materials requires, among other qualities, ease of processing and stability during fabrication and practical use of the final products. Our novel semi-conducting material is a quasi-one dimensional chain-structure with a backbone of linearly arranged platinum atoms. more...

Microstructuring of Bulk Metallic Glass by Hot Mold Quenching — Preparation of Tools for Microinjection Molding of Polymers

Injection molding of polymers including micro- and submicrometer features is a field which experienced a boom in the last decade with mass applications such as compact discs. Some current efforts aim to extend the field into microfluidics with applications such as the "labCD", a microanalytical tool with a complex system of high aspect ratio microchannels. more...

Probing a Critical Length-Scale at the Glass Transition

More than 50 years of scientific debate could not clarify whether glasses are a thermodynamic state of matter or merely slow liquids. We here tackle this fundamental question from a fresh perspective which is inspired by a modern approach to nonequilibrium thermodynamics. more...