SBIR Phase I: Surface Texturing for Inhibiting Bacterial Biofilm Formation (Machining Process and Machine Tool System Development)

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将使金属表面上的小鲨鱼图案的制造。Sharklet图案是一种工程微表面纹理，模仿鲨鱼皮肤的纹理，并在不使用抗菌剂的情况下抑制细菌生物膜的生长。Sharklet表面纹理技术已成功地在软材料中使用抛光方法生产，但由于缺乏合适的制造工艺，其向金属应用的扩展受到抑制。这个项目将证明一个微型开槽过程的可行性。在钢模上加工出Sharklet图案，便可将图案转移至金属表面进行测试，从而证明微槽加工的功效。该项目的商业潜力是显著减少医院感染，这是美国第四大死亡原因。仅在医疗保健领域，这种图案化金属表面的估计市场规模就为86亿美元。受益于这项技术的其他市场包括能源、海洋（超过4.5亿美元/年）和太空探索。此外，微米级微开槽工艺能力的存在将为国防和电子行业提供高性能的冷却解决方案，这些行业迫切需要在其冷却设备中制造更小和更紧密间隔的通道，以显着提高其热性能。此外，许多微加工中心正在加工具有50-100微米通道宽度的3D通道，用于微流体研究。制作宽度低于或接近1微米的通道和凹槽的能力将使尖端的微流体研究人员能够以更低的成本在3D微/纳米尺度上探索额外的基本流体现象，而不是使用传统的（2D几何限制）和昂贵的基于MEMS的蚀刻工艺。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will enable the manufacture of Sharklet patterns on metallic surfaces. A Sharklet pattern is an engineered micro-surface texture that mimics the texture of shark skin and inhibits bacterial biofilm growth without the use of anti-microbial agents. The Sharklet surface texture technology has been successfully produced in soft materials using photolithographic methods but its extension to metals-based applications has been inhibited by the absence of a suitable manufacturing process. This project will demonstrate feasibility of a micro-grooving process. The efficacy of the micro-grooving process will be proved by machining the Sharklet pattern in steel dies, thereby facilitating the transfer of the Sharklet pattern to metal surfaces for testing. The commercial potential of this project is a significant reduction in hospital-borne infections, the 4th leading cause of death in United States. The estimated market size of such patterned metallic surfaces in the healthcare sector alone is $8.6 billion. Additional markets benefiting from this technology include energy, marine (exceeding $450 million/year), and space exploration. In addition, the presence of a micro-grooving process capability at the micron size scale will enable high-performance cooling solutions for defense and electronics industries that are experiencing a strong need for making smaller and more tightly spaced channels in their cooling devices to significantly enhance their thermal performance. Additionally, many micro-machining centers are machining 3D channels with 50-100 micron channel widths for micro-fluidics research. The ability to make channels and grooves below or near 1 micron in width will enable cutting-edge micro-fluidics researchers to explore additional fundamental fluidics phenomena at 3D micro-/nano-scales at a reduced cost footprint, compared to using conventional (2D geometry-limited) and expensive MEMS-based etching processes.