Cette thèse traite des aspects tribologiques et dynamiques de la perception tactile donnée par un doigt lors du balayage d'une surface. Une attention particulière est portée à l'analyse directe des spectres des vibrations induites par contact entre le doigt et la surface touchée, qui représente un nouveau champ de recherche. En fait, si le fait que les vibrations activent les afférentes tactiles et leur rôle essentiel pour la perception des textures fines est une chose acquise (duplex theory of tactile texture perception), le lien entre les caractéristiques de la surface, leur perception et les caractéristiques des spectres des vibrations induites est encore inconnu. Le travail de est animés par la volonté de contribuer à comprendre les mécanismes du toucher, élément clé de nombreuses applications touchant différents domaines : la quantification de la qualité des textiles, l'ergonomie des objets du quotidien (affectant grandement leur compétitivité commerciale), l'identification des imperfections de surface; la conception de dispositifs tactiles de communication , le développement de capteurs tactiles artificiels pour les prothèses intelligentes ou assistants robotisés, le développement des interfaces homme-machine pour l'interaction avec les réalités virtuelles ou des systèmes de télé-opération (télédiagnostic ou microchirurgie), ou encore le développement de tests d'évaluation de la sensibilité tactile lors d'un diagnostic. L'étude d'un doigt se déplaçant sur une surface, comporte plusieurs difficultés liées aux caractéristiques du contact et aux mesures mêmes. Ces problèmes ont fait que la première étape du travail présenté a été la conception d'un nouveau dispositif expérimental, baptisé TriboTouch, développé pour reproduire le balayage d'une surface par un doigt dans des conditions de contact réalistes (vitesse de balayage, charge normale, rugosité de surface, etc.) et surtout, en évitant la production de bruit. Le banc d'essai a été conçu pour garantir la reproductibilité des mesures et pour effectuer des mesures sans introduire de bruit parasite. Il permet de réaliser à la fois des mesures de la dynamique globale et des mesures de la dynamique locales (au niveau de la zone de contact) employant un doigt en silicone. L'analyse présentée s'intéresse au comportement de l'index de la main droite, en contact avec différentes surfaces (rugueuses périodiques ou isotropes et issues de textiles), analysé pour différentes vitesses de balayage et valeurs de la charge appliquée en soulignant le rôle des empreintes digitales. Un modèle numérique simple a été développé pour reproduire le comportement des vibrations induites lors du balayage de deux surfaces périodiques et les résultats sont comparés aux résultats expérimentaux. La correspondance de la distribution des fréquences de vibrations a mis en évidence le rôle clé des empreintes digitales dans les spectres de vibration et, en conséquence, pour la perception tactile. / This thesis deals with the tribological and dynamic aspects of tactile perception given by the scanning of the finger on a surface. The attention is focused on a direct analysis of the vibration spectrum characteristics, induced by the surface features that is a relatively new research field. In fact, it is accepted that vibrations activate the tactile afferents and their essential role for the perception of fine textures (duplex theory of tactile texture perception) but it is still unknown the link with the surface texture characteristics and the features of the induced vibration spectra. The work is aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of the tactile sense, that is basilar for manifold different applications: textile quality quantification, ergonomics of everyday objects (which largely affects their commercial competitiveness), identification of surface imperfections, the design of tactile communication devices, the development of artificial tactile sensors for intelligent prostheses or robotic assistants, the development of human-machine interfaces for interaction with virtual realities or teleoperation systems, such as for telediagnosis or microsurgery, reproducing real perception (virtual reality), increasing the human perception (augmented reality), development of tests for evaluation of tactile sensitivity during diagnosis or monitoring process in rehabilitation. The study of a finger that moves on a surface involves different difficulties that are related to the material characteristics and to the measurements themselves. For these reasons, a new experimental set-up, named TriboTouch, has been developed to reproduce the finger/surface scanning phenomena under real values of the contact feature (scanning velocity and amplitude, surface roughness, etc..), avoiding undesired vibrations. The test bench has been designed to guarantee the measurements reproducibility and to perform measurements without introducing external noise. The set-up permits to carry out both measurements of the global dynamics and local ones (at the contact zone) employing a silicone fake finger. In the presented analysis, the behavior of the right hand index finger scanning on the surface sample with periodical and isotropic roughness and on textiles has been investigated for different scanning speed, highlighting the role of fingerprints A simple numerical model have been developed for reproducing the behavior of the induced vibrations when sliding two periodical surfaces and the numerical results have been compared with the experimental ones. The presented work has shown the possibility to obtain objective indexes for the tactile perception characterization, by means of the friction induced vibration spectrum analysis, in agreement with the neurophysiological studies present in literature.

La validation du modèle de réponse globale des échantillons ou des structures présente des lacunes qui peuvent être surmontés par l'utilisation de techniques de mesure de plein champ. Les techniques de mesure plein champ offrent la possibilité d'acquérir une quantité importante de données expérimentales qui pourraient être utiles dans le cadre de l'identification des paramètres de la Loi de comportement. Parmi les techniques de mesure de champ complet, le plus populaire est la corrélation d'images mono et stéréo. Les stratégies existantes pour rendre l'utilisation des données de plein champ comme la méthode de champ virtuel, la méthode écart d'équilibre, la méthode de Gap équation Constitutive et la méthode de réciprocité ont été limitées à des applications 2D. Cependant, pour un échantillon d'épaisseur finie, les effets 3D doivent être remplis. Plus important encore, dans le cas de la plasticité, triaxialité du stress joue un rôle important. Son effet doit donc être inscrits dans la modélisation du comportement de la matière. Ainsi, dans cette thèse, nous proposons une méthode pour identifier les paramètres d'une loi de comportement élasto-plastique dans lequel le modèle mécanique peut comporter cinématique 3D. La stratégie s'est avérée être le bruit robuste, presque indépendamment de la conjecture de paramètre initial et de raffinement de maillage et permet de différencier les modèles de comportement avec la même réponse globale sur la base de l'erreur de corrélation moyenne. L'identification est avérée bon pour une ou plusieurs caméras. La validation de la stratégie est faite d'acier inoxydable. La réponse globale du déplacement de charge identifié de la stratégie avec la corrélation d'image mécanique mono et stéréo est très proche des expériences. Enfin, les paramètres du matériau ont été identifiés avec l’estimation initial très différents mais tous convergent vers les mêmes valeurs finales qui montrent la solidité de la stratégie proposée. / The objective of the thesis is to formulate a strategy that gives a robust identification of constitutive law from full-field measurements taking into account 3D effects. Model validation from global response of samples or structures has shortcomings that can be overcome by the use of full-field measurement techniques. Full-field measurement techniques offer the opportunity to acquire large amount of experimental data that might be useful in the context of identification of constitutive law parameters. Among the full field measurement techniques the most popular is digital and stereo image correlation. The existing strategies to make use of full-field data like the Virtual Field Method, the Equilibrium Gap Method, the Constitutive Equation Gap Method and the Reciprocity Method were limited to 2D applications. However, for a specimen with finite thickness 3D effects must be included. Most importantly, for the case of plasticity, stress triaxiality plays an important role. Its effect must therefore be accounted for in the modelling of the constitutive behaviour of the material. Thus in this thesis we propose a method to identify the parameters of an elasto-plastic constitutive law in which the mechanical model can have 3D kinematics. The strategy has been shown to be noise robust, almost independent of initial parameter guess and mesh refinement and allows differentiating between constitutive models with same global response on the basis of mean correlation error. The identification is shown to be good for both single and multiple cameras. The strategy validation is done for stainless steel. The global identified load displacement response of the strategy for mono and stereo mechanical image correlation is very close to the experiments. Lastly, the material parameters have been identified with very different initial guess but all converge to the same final values which show the robustness of the proposed strategy.

Les interactions physiques comportent divers gestes dextres et sont sources d’échanges d’informations très variées. Différentes interfaces haptiques ont été développées pour reproduire ces mouvements dextres et ces interactions. Cependant il est impossible actuellement de concevoir une interface simulant tous les types d’interactions avec un retour haptique réaliste. Je propose d’identifier les interactions les plus importantes et les zones de la main les plus intéressantes à stimuler, et ensuite d’étudier comment associer certains dispositifs pour améliorer le ressenti de l’utilisateur. Il semble intéressant de développer une interface se concentrant sur : la transition entre les mouvements de l’utilisateur en espace libre et au contact d’un objet, le retour d’effort, et enfin la déformation locale et globale de la pulpe, et ce sur 4 zones : les phalanges distales du pouce, de l’index et de l’annulaire, et le côté extérieur de l’index. Afin de rendre cela réalisable dans le cadre d’une thèse, j’ai entrepris de développer une interface à retour d’effort à contacts intermittents sur le pouce et l’index, tout en prenant en compte l’ajout futur d’un retour plus complet. Pour cela, j’ai tout d’abord élaboré un effecteur instrumenté permettant d’acquérir, sans contact, la position de la dernière phalange d’un doigt en 6D. Puis j’ai dimensionné une interface de type gant à deux doigts, capable de déplacer, en 6D, ces effecteurs dans l’ensemble de l’espace de travail des doigts et de générer un retour d’effort quand cela est nécessaire. Enfin j’ai étudié la commande de ce système lors de ses différentes phases de fonctionnement et ses performances ont été évaluées. / Physical interactions involve highly dexterous movements and exchanges of diverse information. Numerous haptic interfaces were developed with the aim to reproduce these dexterous gestures and each of these interactions. However, it is technically impossible to date to design an interface simulating all of them with a realistic haptic feedback.I propose to identify the most important interactions and the hand areas the most interesting to stimulate, and then to study how associate different devices to improve the feeling of an operator. I decided to focus on: the transition between user’s movements in free space and in contact with an object, force feedback, and finally local and global deformation of the fingers’ pulp, with an emphasis on the four following areas: distal phalanges of the thumb, index and middle finger, plus the external side of the index finger. To make this possible during a PhD, I finally decided to focus on an intermittent contact force feedback interface for the thumb and index fingers, by taking into account the future integration of more complete feedback. Therefore, I first developed instrumented end-effectors able to remotely measure the 6D configuration of the distal phalanx of the fingers without any contact with them. Then I dimensioned and designed a glove-type haptic interface with two fingers. This device allows controlling the position and orientation of the intermittent contact end-effectors in 6D throughout the whole fingers workspace. It is also able to generated force feedback when necessary. Finally, I studied the control laws of this interface in all its operating phases and its performances were evaluated.

In this thesis work, novel planar nanodiodes (PNDs) using an amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) film as the active layer have been electrically characterised for the first time. Simulation techniques and experimental methods, such as e-beam lithography (EBL) and nanoimprint lithography (NIL), have been explored for these devices. In addition, a novel approach was realized that produced self-aligned contacts for the nanostructured devices. A preliminary parameter space for experimentation of the PNDs was ascertained by simulating the devices using a technology computer aided design (TCAD) simulator. In this study Silvaco’s ATLAS default IGZO material system was adopted. These simulations showed device performance to be heavily dependent on the carrier concentration of the film, owing to the high leakage current during the off-state of device operation. Furthermore, device geometry had a significant influence on the device’s electrical response. Channel width, length and trench width were all examined. Experimental characterisation of PNDs were attained by fabricating devices using EBL. These devices are the first to exhbit diode-like DC electrical response from an IGZO-based PND. Full current rectification was obtained with a rectification ratio of 10^4 for devices with a long, narrow channel with a width of 50nm and a length of 4μm. This particular device geometry had a turn-on voltage, Von, of 2.2V and did not breakdown within the −10V bias range tested. An output drive current of 0.1μA at 10V was obtained by the single PND device. It was also demonstrated that by increasing the channel width, Von could be reduced; however, rectification also diminished. It is reasoned that the exposed IGZO surface was subject to contamination from the ambient which changed the device’s electrical response after 17 days. An ultraviolet NIL (UV-NIL) technique was developed to produce the PNDs. This fabrication method offers a suitable route towards high-volume manufacture of these nanodevices, which is critical for them to be incorporated into a low-cost RF energy harvester. A novel NIL process was established in which the contact pads were self-aligned to within ~ 200nm of the channel by patterning both metal and semiconductor layers with a single imprint. DC electrical characterisation of the imprinted PNDs produced high rectifications ratios at a lower Von. The greater number of devices tested allowed a coarse parameter space for channel width and length to determined. PNDs with a channel aspect ratio (length divided by width) of more than 20 exhibited the greatest DC rectification of 10^4. An alumina capping layer was found to eliminate hysteresis in the electrical response; however, the greater permittivity value had no noticeable effect on device performance. Finally, a large-signal RF analysis is carried out on a device which suggest no deterioration in device perfromance up to at least 1GHz.

L’élément constitutif des synapses centrales est le site synaptique individuel, comprenant une zone active du côté présynaptique et une densité postsynaptique associée. Du fait de limitations techniques nos connaissances sur le mode de fonctionnement d’un site synaptique restent insuffisantes. Pour faire progresser cette question nous projetons d’effectuer des enregistrements en paires entre interneurones de la couche moléculaire du cervelet. Ces neurones forment des synapses qui ont des signaux élémentaires quantiques de grande taille, et les synapses comprennent parfois un seul site synaptique, ce qui fait qu’ils offrent des avantages décisifs pour ce projet. Les réponses postsynaptiques à des trains de potentiels d’action seront étudiées dans différentes conditions expérimentales. Les résultats seront interprétés par un modèle supposant que les vésicules synaptiques doivent se lier à un petit groupe de sites d’arrimage avant l’exocytose. / The unitary element of central synaptic transmission is a single synaptic site, with one active zone as presynaptic component and the postsynaptic density as postsynaptic partner. Due to technical limitations there is much uncertainty on the mode of functioning of a single synaptic site. To address this issue it is planned to perform paired recordings between interneurons of the molecular layers of the cerebellum. These neurons form synapses with a large quantal size, and occasionally displaying a single release site, and are thus favorable for this study. Postsynaptic responses will be studied in response to trains of presynaptic action potentials under various conditions. The results will be compared to a model supposing the obligatory binding of vesicles to a small complement of docking sites prior to exocytosis.

In the year of 2035, it is expected that Sweden will have a surplus of 10 000 people educatedwithin human resources and behavioral sciences as a result of an increase in popularity for nonvocationaleducations. As a result, many graduates will not have the opportunity to work intheir area of competence. Studies show that contacts often are crucial for newly graduatedstudents to find work. The aims of this study are to find an understanding of how newlygraduated sociology students experience the importance of contacts; which parts of the socialnetwork that are used; and how they use their social network to establish themselves in the labormarket. Differences in how males and females use their social network are also examined.Previous findings show that social network and social capital are critical components of anindividual’s job search in a saturated labor market. Using qualitative semi-structured interviewsand analysis with theories about social network, social capital, and gender, this study finds thata majority of the respondent’s social network comes from previous workplaces and contactsfrom the university. This study shows that social network is important for gaining access to andestablishing oneself in the labor market; that social capital differs during the respondent career;and that women and men use their social network in gender differentiated ways.

The master thesis is focused on the calculation of electrodynamic forces acting on the contacts of the moulded case circuit breaker Siemens 3VA5 from OEZ Letohrad. This work is divided into ten chapters. In the introductory chapter it is described why it is important to deal with the calculation of the electrodynamic forces and the design of the current path. The second chapter describes the problem of the origin and effect of electrodynamic forces on individual parts of the electrical device. The third chapter describes the parameters, properties and design of the 3VA5 Siemens circuit breaker. The fourth chapter describes the Finite Element Methods. The fifth chapter describes how to create a 3D current path model in Solidworks. The sixth to ninth chapter is focused on the stationary calculation of moments in the program Ansys Maxwell by means of Magnetostatic Analysis and on the calculation of the total repulsive force between contacts with the influence of ferromagnetic materials. The last chapter is focused on dynamic calculation of moments and forces acting on contacts in a certain time interval.

The master thesis deals with the phenomena called electro-dynamic force in the electrical apparatus. Nowadays, there are high requirements for electrical devices. The devices and especially their contacts are subject to high demands on reliability, reliability and mechanical durability. The electro-dynamic forces caused by the passage of electric current mechanically deform the current path. The design of the electrical apparatus must take these forces into account. Equations for electro-dynamic forces calculation are presented. In master thesis, individual parts of the current path are derived and described. Various configurations and designs of the current path are solved. The thesis also deals with the issue of forces in electrical contacts. Individual theoretical equations are then applied to a particular disconnector QAK, made by company IVEP, a.s. Parts of the disconnector were redrawn into 3D program SolidWorks. The model was analysed in program ANSYS Maxwell. The thesis compares the achieved results of analytical equations and numerical simulations.

This work deals with the advanced methods of contact’s fabrication for monocrystalline solar cells and the appropriate methods for the analysis of their properties with a focus on the study and realization the contact’s structures with low contact and sheet resistance fabricated by galvanic and electroless processes. In the first part of the work is discussed the theory of solar cells and buried contacts and in the second part of the work is an evaluation of practical realization.

This work deals with a theoretical analysis of contacting semiconductor chips using wire-bonding method. There are mentioned basic types of chips packages and their contacts. In the thesis is also described software Ansys. The number of the mechanical stress and deformation simulation within micro-wire during thermocompress process were made.