Coercivity Modulation in Fe-Cu Pseudo-Ordered Porous Thin Films Controlled by an Applied Voltage: A Sustainable, Energy-Efficient Approach to Magnetoelectrically Driven Materials.

Fe-Cu films with pseudo-ordered, hierarchical porosity are prepared by a simple, two-step procedure that combines colloidal templating (using sub-micrometer-sized polystyrene spheres) with electrodeposition. The porosity degree of these films, estimated by ellipsometry measurements, is as high as 65%. The resulting magnetic properties can be controlled at room temperature using an applied electric field generated through an electric double layer in an anhydrous electrolyte. This material shows a remarkable 25% voltage-driven coercivity reduction upon application of negative voltages, with excellent reversibility when a positive voltage is applied, and a short recovery time. The pronounced reduction of coercivity is mainly ascribed to electrostatic charge accumulation at the surface of the porous alloy, which occurs over a large fraction of the electrodeposited material due to its high surface-area-to-volume ratio. The emergence of a hierarchical porosity is found to be crucial because it promotes the infiltration of the electrolyte into the structure of the film. The observed effects make this material a promising candidate to boost energy efficiency in magnetoelectrically actuated devices.

Virtual reality aided training of combined arm and leg movements of children with CP.

Cerebral palsy (CP) occurs in over 2 out of 1000 live births and can impair motor control and cognition. Our goal was to create a robotic rehabilitation environment that mimics real-life situations by allowing simultaneous exercise of upper and lower limbs. We chose to use the Lokomat as a gait robot and added a novel removable arm robot, called PASCAL (pediatric arm support robot for combined arm and leg training), that was integrated into the Lokomat environment. We also added a virtual reality (VR) environment that enables the subject to perform motivating game-like scenarios incorporating combined arm and leg movements. In this paper we summarize the design of PASCAL and present the novel virtual environment including first experimental results. The next step will be to test whether a combined application of the virtual environment and the two simultaneously working robots is feasible in healthy participants, and finally to clinically evaluate the entire system on children with CP.