Innovation Wing Two

TechTalk – Wafer-scale Structural Coloration Using Gray-scale Lithographic Fabrication

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

November 28, 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
Structural colors use nanostructured building blocks or thin films to resonantly reflect or scatter light to generate colors and can exhibit higher resolution, saturation, and durability than pigment-based colors. To create structural color based paintings, it is essential to develop a capability of spatially varying the dimensions of these nanosized structures. Recently we reported a high-throughput and wafer-scale nanopatterning method by combining interference lithography and grayscale-patterned secondary exposure (IL-GPSE) to spatially modulate nanostructure feature sizes on large scale while maintaining sufficiently high resolution. Here, we employ the IL-GPSE method in the fabrication of wafer-scale structural color paintings, which can improve the patterning efficiency by orders of magnitude when compared with e-beam lithography. The fabrication techniques developed in this work have unique potentials for broader applications in biomedical sensing, spectral filtering, anti-counterfeiting or encryption, etc.

HKAE TechTalk – The Grain Boundary Ratchet: How to Engineer Grain Size

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

January 9, 2024 (Thursday) 2:30-3:30pm
We demonstrate that grain boundaries (GBs) behave as Brownian ratchets, exhibiting direction-dependent mobilities and unidirectional motion under oscillatory driving forces or cyclic thermal annealing. We observed these phenomena for nearly all nonsymmetric GBs but not for symmetric ones. Our observations build on molecular dynamics and phase-field crystal simulations for a wide range of GB types and driving forces in both bicrystal and polycrystalline microstructures. We corroborate these simulation results through in situ experimental observations. We analyze these results with a Markov chain model and explore the implications of GB ratchet behavior for materials processing and microstructure tailoring.

HKAE TechTalk – Vision-driven Robots: Challenges, Technologies and Applications

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

November 19 2024 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
Robotics and AI technologies are rapidly advancing in recent years, but intelligence levels of robots are still far below humans’ expectations. One of the major reasons is that a robot is not good at coordinating visual information captured by its vision systems, i.e. eyes, with motions of its arms, hands, and legs or wheels. Accurate, robust and efficient perception and effective use of the visual information is crucial for robots to successfully perform tasks in natural environments. This talk presents technical challenges in vision-driven robotics, our on-going work and latest results in vision-driven robot manipulation and vision-guided robot navigation, and applications of the technologies in manufacturing, logistics and robotic surgery.

TechTalk – Lifecycle Wake Mitigation Strategies of Wind Farms using Machine Learning Techniques: Layout Optimization and Cooperative Yaw Control

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

November 7, 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
The turbine wake refers to the trail left by the upstream turbines with the decreased wind speed and the increased turbulence intensity. The adverse wake effect correspondingly results in less energy production and triggers earlier fatigue failure of downstream turbines. The talk aims to propose solutions to lifecycle wake mitigation strategies, i.e., layout optimization in the design stage and cooperative yaw control in the operation stage, through advanced machine learning techniques and optimization methods. A machine learning wake model accurately predicts wake characteristics and demonstrates its advantages when applied to the freeform optimization and renovation of wind farms. A novel double-layer machine learning framework involving Bayesian optimization for cooperative wind farm control is established to improve the overall power output in the maintenance stage. Overall, these proposed solutions offer a promising path forward for the robust development of offshore wind farms in the long term.

TechTalk – MRI at 0.05 Tesla for Accessible Healthcare: Back to the Future?

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

October 10, 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
Despite a half-century of advancements, global MRI accessibility remains limited, hindering its full potential in health care. Initially, MRI development focused on low fields around 0.05 Tesla, but progress halted after the introduction of the 1.5 Tesla whole-body superconducting scanner in 1983. Using permanent 0.05 Tesla magnets and deep learning for electromagnetic interference elimination, we developed highly simplified 0.05 Tesla MRI systems that operate using a standard wall power outlet and without radiofrequency and magnetic shielding. We demonstrated its wide-ranging applicability for imaging both brain (Nature Communications 2021) and various anatomical structures at whole-body level (Science 2024). Furthermore, we developed three-dimensional deep learning reconstruction methodologies to boost image quality by harnessing extensive high-field MRI data (MRM 2023, Science Advances 2023, Science 2024). We hope these advances will eventually lead to a new class of affordable and computing–powered ultra-low-field MRI scanners for point-of-care applications, addressing unmet clinical needs in diverse health care settings.

HKAE TechTalk – Towards 6G: The Impacts of Wireless Communications Technologies Research to Society

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

October 22 2024 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
The rapid advancement of mobile communications technology is profoundly reshaping society and paving the way for the future. This talk will first guide the audience through the innovations and adoption progress of 5G technology, highlighting its transformative impacts. The discussion will then shift to ASTRI’s initiatives aiming at addressing critical pain points and customizing applications to enhance user experiences, showcasing how 5G continues to evolve and unlock its full potential. As we transition from 5G to 6G, a new landscape of opportunities and challenges is emerging, driven by academic research and operator requirements. Furthermore, the integration of artificial intelligence in 6G presents exciting possibilities for enhancing everyday life. The presentation will also introduce ASTRI’s research efforts on shaping a connected future, illustrating how these advancements can foster a more integrated and intelligent society.

Young Scholar TechTalk – Learning Out-of-Distribution Object Detectors from Foundation Models

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

September 16 2024 (Monday) 4:30-5:30pm
Out-of-distribution (OOD) object detection is a challenging task due to the absence of open-set OOD data. Inspired by recent advancements in text-to-image generative models, such as Stable Diffusion, we study the potential of generative models trained on large-scale open-set data to synthesize OOD samples, thereby enhancing OOD object detection. We introduce SyncOOD, a simple data curation method that capitalizes on the capabilities of large foundation models to automatically extract meaningful OOD data from text-to-image generative models. This offers the model access to open-world knowledge encapsulated within off-the-shelf foundation models. The synthetic OOD samples are then employed to augment the training of a lightweight, plug-and-play OOD detector, thus effectively optimizing the in-distribution (ID)/OOD decision boundaries. Extensive experiments across multiple benchmarks demonstrate that SyncOOD significantly outperforms existing methods, establishing new state-of-the-art performance with minimal synthetic data usage.

TechTalk – Smart Prefabrication Construction: A GBA Case

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

September 24, 2024 (Tuesday) 4:30-5:30pm
Prefabrication construction is one of the cutting-edge technologies using prefabricated components such as MiC (Modular Integrated Construction) to improve quality, productivity, safety and sustainability. Prefabricated buildings in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), especially those in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, have always faced challenges such as high variability, geographical dispersion of activities, and information fragmentation. This talk will take Hong Kong’s prefabricated buildings as an example to demonstrate a smart system implemented using digital twins, big data processing, BIM, and IoT-related technologies. The system uses various captured and collected construction big data for MiC production, logistics, assembly and monitoring. These data will be converted into multi-dimensional information through big data analytics encapsulated in digital clones to map and characterize physical entities such as components, locations, geometries, costs and construction schedules. This research topic is supported by the Innovation and Technology Commission of Hong Kong (ITC) and Chunwo Construction Co., Ltd.

A smart Far UVC system for effective inactivation of surface and airborne bacteria and viruses

Innovation Wing Two, Third exhibition / By

The spread of pathogenic microorganisms in public spaces poses a great threat to human health.

Professor Leung’s team develops a system using far ultraviolet C (UVC) light (wavelength: 222nm) for surface and air disinfection in an actual environment without affecting the normal usage of the area.
Many studies indicated that Far UVC will not create harmful effect on testing creatures such as mice. To further strengthen the safety use of the device for disinfection, the system will not irradiate far UVC light in the presence of people in the area so it will be totally safe in using it.

Young Scholar TechTalk – Next-generation Aqueous Magnesium-ion Batteries

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

October 8 2024 (Tuesday) 4:30-5:30pm
Aqueous magnesium batteries offer a promising alternative to lithium-ion technology due to their low cost, material abundance, safety, and comparable performance. However, magnesium metal anodes are hindered by passivation, and the narrow electrochemical stability window of aqueous electrolytes significantly limit the battery voltage. My research work introduces innovative aqueous electrolyte systems to address these challenges. A dual-electrolyte magnesium-air battery was developed, achieving a 50% higher peak power density and 46% higher open circuit voltage compared to traditional single-electrolyte systems. Subsequently, a novel water-in-salt electrolyte enabled the first rechargeable aqueous magnesium-ion battery with reversible magnesium metal anode stripping and plating behavior. Furthermore, a quasi-solid-state electrolyte was formulated to regulate ion storage at the cathode, delivering a voltage plateau of 2.6-2.0 V and a remarkable energy density of 264 Wh kg−1, nearly five times higher than current aqueous Mg-ion batteries. This work demonstrates significant advancements in aqueous magnesium batteries, offering a safe and high-performance energy storage solution for a clean energy future.