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Welcome to the Soft Electronics Laboratory at NTU!

Electronic devices that have been rapidly being re-defined are making profound changes in healthcare, energy, neuroscience, robotics and fabrics. The Wei Yan Research Group is a highly interdisciplinary research team working on fundamental and applied research in advanced electronic materials and devices at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. The overarching goal of the laboratory is to develop novel functional materials, innovative fabrication strategies and unusual devices for next-generation flexible and soft electronics via leveraging the interface of materials science, electronics, biomedicine, mechanics, physics, etc. Specifically, the three interconnected themes are: 
(i) fabrication of novel electronic and optoelectronic materials with unprecedented properties via control over their structure at the atomic and molecular level;

(ii) development of micro- and nano-structured electronic and optoelectronic devices with sophisticated functionalities compatible with flexible, soft, curved substrates and highly complex and constrained environments via advanced manufacturing technology, such as fiber thermal drawing, etc.

(iii) enabling unique solutions to grand challenges in various fields such as healthcare, biomedicine, energy, neuroscience, robotics and textiles.

Open Positions 

NTU is ranked 12th in the world in QS World University Ranking 2021. The Electrical & Electronics subject and the Materials Science subject are ranked 4th and 1st in the world, respectively. We are always looking for outstanding and highly motivated students and postdocs to join the lab, working in a serious but friendly, vibrant and cooperative environment. Currently there are several open positions for undergraduate students, PhD students (full university scholarship) and postdocs (internationally competitive salary). Candidates with excellent background in materials science, electronics, electrical engineering, optoelectronics, optics, physics, mechanical engineering, robotics or biomedicine are welcome to apply. If you are interested, please send your CV and research statement (including experience, achievement, research interests, etc.) to Prof. Yan (wei.yan@ntu.edu.sg). 

News

12-2022

Prof. Wei Yan was selected as a winner of the 2022 iCANX Young Scientist Award! There were 10 winners worldwide and the other 9 winners were from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, Case Western Reserve University, USA, University of California, Los Angels, USA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, Rice University, USA, Argonne National Laboratory, USA, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich, Switzerland, Northwestern University, USA, Queen’s University, Canada.

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09-2022

Our smart piezoelectric fabrics enabled project entitled "The Well-Dressed Spacecraft: Electronic Textile Enhanced Thermal Blanket as Debris (and Cosmic Dust) Sensor" was awarded the 1st Place, NASA Tech Briefs Design Competition (Aerospace/Defense Category) 2022. Congratulations to the team (Juliana Cherston, Wei Yan, Grace Noel, Yuchen Sun, David Veysset, Steve Kooi, Syamantak Payra, Irmandy Wicaksono, Hajime Yano, Yoel Fink, Joseph A. Paradiso) !! The second generation of the fabric has just been sent to the international space station via the CRS2 SpX-25 mission on Friday, July 15, 2022.

09-2022

Our paper about intelligent fabrics has been published at National Science Review! Congratulations to Shengtai Qian, Mingyang Liu!

08-2022

Our invited highlight for Science 377 (2022) 180 has been published at Matter! Congratulations to Mingyang Liu, Zhiwei Lin and Xingbei Wang!

08-2022

Prof. Xungai Wang, an Alfred Deakin Professor, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Future Fibres), and Director of the ARC Research Hub for Future Fibres at Deakin University in Australia highlights the breakthrough and significance of our Nature work at Matter (IF=19.98).

07-2022

Prof. Wei Yan was selected as a Finalist for the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of Year 2022 in Engineering and Technology (in total 30 finalists worldwide)!

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06-2022

Prof. Xiaoming Tao at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University highlights the breakthrough and significance of our Nature work at National Science Review (IF=23.17). She comments: The recent paper published in Nature by Wei Yan et al. is indeed part of the exciting progress...

05-2022

Prof. Jun Chen at UCLA highlights the breakthrough and significance of our acoustic fabrics at Matter (IF=19.98). 

04-2022

Prof. Meifang Zhu (a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences) highlights the breakthrough and significance of our work at Advanced Fiber Materials (IF=12.98). She comments: "The advances presented here constitutes a landmark in the field of smart fibers, fabrics and beyond and offers an entirely new perspective on innovation and development of the traditional textile industry."

03-2022

Dr. Wei Yan's first-author paper about a new generation of acoustic fabrics has been published at Nature now!

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Prof. Wenhui Song at the Centre for Biomaterials in Surgical Reconstruction and Regeneration, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, University College London highlighted the breakthrough and significance of the work at Nature.

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Nature Podcast reports the advances and impacts of the work. See the conversation between Benjamin, the team and Prof. Weihui Song here.

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The homepage of MIT highlights the work with "A fabric that “hears” your heart's sounds".

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This work has also been featured by other 56 media or presses including ScienceNews, CBC, UK Today News, googlenews, Science and Technology Daily, China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc.

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11-2021

Our work about the space fabric has been featured by IEEE Spectrum with "What the well-dressed spacecarft will be wearing". 

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09-2021

Dr. Wei Yan was awarded the prestigious Nanyang Assistant Professorship and will join the School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering as an Assistant Professor at NTU in January 2022!

09-2021

Dr. Wei Yan was awarded the IEEE Best Young Scientist Award for his academic excellence!

 

11-2020

Dr. Wei Yan and the team developed a high-tec fabric that has been sent to the International Space Station to "listen" to space dust! This work was featured by MIT news

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08-2020

Our work about novel metallic fibers for neural interrogation was published in Nature Nanotechnology. This work was featured by EPFL news!

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Prof. A. Lindsay Greer at the University of Cambridge and Dr. Marc S. Lavine at Science highlighted the breakthrough and significance of the work in Nature Nanotechnology and Science, respectively.

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09-2019

Dr. Wei Yan was honored the 2019 Professor René Wasserman Award (the only winner), EPFL, Switzerland!

Research commission: "For his important and impactful contributions to the fields of flexible electronics and advanced fiber materials. His research has led to the development of flexible fiber-based devices, and textiles, with electronic and optoelectronic properties on par, or better than, conventional wafer-based systems."

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10-2019

Our invited review article co-first authored by Dr. Wei Yan has been published in Advanced Materials.

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07-2017

A multifunctional fiber probe that integrates optical fibers and single crystal semiconductor detectors simultaneously guides and senses photons has been published in Advanced Materials.

Given the depth and impact of this work, we were invited by the Editorial Board of Advanced Materials to write a review paper on electronic and optoelectronic fibers (Highly cited paper, ESI).

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Contact Us

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S1 B1B 37

50 Nanyang Avenue

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

School of Materials Science and Engineering

Nanyang Technological University
Singapore 639798
​​Email: wei.yan@ntu.edu.sg

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