SNM: Thermal Drawing of Fibers with Individually Addressable Nanoelectrode Array for Cellular Electrophysiology

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Individually addressable nanoelectrode array fibers are fibers with continuous metal nanowires in their core. They have many uses such as probes for thin-film resistivity, cellular electrophysiology and neural electrical signal recorders. There is a strong demand for such fibers with a predicted global commercial market of billions of dollars. Despite the huge economic and technological impact that high-volume production of these fibers would bring, success in their reliable and scalable manufacturing has been limited. This Scalable NanoManufacturing (SNM) award will overcome the fundamental limits for scaling up the manufacturing of such fibers in a totally lithography-independent and, thus, very low-cost manner. This award will generate knowledge in nanomanufacturing, biomedicine, electronics, and materials science and help nurture and educate future engineers and scientists in the area of nanomanufacturing. Through this project, underrepresented students will gain research experiences, which will help their transition into industry or advanced studies. The planned outreach activities to high school, industry and general scientific community will stimulate awareness and interest in nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing.This award supports a novel nanocomposite approach to tackle grand challenges for scale-up manufacturing of fibers embedded with long metal nanowires. The fundamental constraints are the fluid instability induced by the low viscosity of molten metals and the large interfacial energy with the amorphous cladding materials. There also exists a fundamental size limit to the diameter of thermally drawn metal wires below which the metal wires become inherently unstable and their size extremely difficult to control, if not impossible. The team will conduct research to overcome the fundamental limits and technical barriers to enable a reliable scalable nanomanufacturing of fibers with individually addressable nanoelectrode arrays. The research will address an unmet need in cellular electrophysiology and specifically revolutionize cell-based assays. The research includes theoretical material and functional design for nanoelectrode arrays, scalable nanomanufacturing of fibers with metal nanowires through thermal drawing, in-situ observation and ex-situ characterization of nanoelectrode arrays, and development and validation of nanoelectrode-enabled cell-based assay platform.