CAREER: An Integrated Research and Educational Program to Understand Nano Additive Manufacturing by Electrochemical Deposition

该学院早期职业发展（CAREER）计划奖支持对新型纳米级增材制造工艺的基础研究。增材制造通过在所需部件的数字计算机模型指定的位置添加材料来制造三维物体。现在可用的增材制造工艺可以制造尺寸从几米到几微米的金属或塑料零件。该奖项支持基础研究和教育，为增材制造工艺的开发提供所需的知识，该工艺能够通过逐体素材料添加来制造尺寸在几纳米到几微米范围内的纳米级零件，而无需任何支撑结构。由各种导电材料制成的此类部件在生物医学、国防、电子、能源、医疗保健、汽车或航空航天工业中具有潜在的应用。因此，这项研究的成果将有利于美国的经济和社会。这项研究涉及多个学科，包括制造，电化学，材料科学和控制理论。多学科方法将有助于扩大代表性不足的群体在研究中的参与，并对工程教育产生积极影响。针对K-12学生、家长和公众的具体推广活动预计将有助于为下一代先进制造业培养受过高等教育的劳动力。电化学增材制造工艺可以克服现有增材制造技术的若干限制，例如它们不能实现亚微米尺寸、固有的热损伤以及不可避免地需要支撑结构来生产悬伸部件。然而，要实现纳米级增材制造的电化学沉积，还需要克服一些科学障碍。本研究旨在填补纳米尺度下电化学沉积过程中局部化机理的知识空白。研究小组将进行分子动力学模拟，以了解纳米电化学沉积中的局部化机制，开发基于物理的模型来预测纳米电化学沉积中的沉积速率和残余应力，并进行实验来验证模型，测试如果电化学活化催化剂参与沉积反应，电沉积将发生纳米尺度局部化的假设，并在纳米级电化学沉积中建立工艺参数与可行特征尺寸之间的关系。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award supports fundamental research on a novel nanoscale additive manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing makes three-dimensional objects by adding material at locations specified by the digital computer model of the desired part. Additive manufacturing processes available now can make metal or plastic parts with sizes ranging from several meters to few micrometers only. This award supports fundamental research and education to provide needed knowledge for the development of an additive manufacturing process capable of making parts at nanoscale with sizes in the range of few nanometers to several micrometers through voxel-by-voxel material addition without the need for any support structures. Such parts made from a wide variety of conductive materials have potential applications in biomedical, defense, electronics, energy, healthcare, automotive, or aerospace industries. Therefore, results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. This research involves several disciplines including manufacturing, electrochemistry, materials science, and control theory. The multi-disciplinary approach will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education. Specific outreach activities targeting K-12 students, parents and general public are expected to help developing highly educated work force for the next generation advanced manufacturing. The electrochemical additive manufacturing process can overcome several limitations of existing additive manufacturing techniques, such as their inability to achieve sub-micrometer size, intrinsic thermal damage, and inevitable need of support structures to produce overhanging parts. However, some scientific barriers are yet to be overcome to realize electrochemical deposition for additive manufacturing at nanoscale. This research is to fill the knowledge gap on the mechanism(s) of localization during electrochemical deposition at nanoscale. The research team will perform molecular dynamics simulation to understand the mechanism of localization in electrochemical deposition at nanoscale, develop physics-based models to predict deposition rate and residual stress in nano electrochemical deposition and conduct experiments to verify the models, test the hypothesis that nanoscale localization of electro deposition will occur if an electrochemically activated catalyst is involved in the deposition reaction, and establish relationships between process parameters and feasible feature sizes in nanoscale electrochemical deposition.