I-Corps: Technology Transfer for Commercialization of Industrial, Electronic and Medical Device Products Based on a Patented Ultrananocrystalline Diamond Coating

I-Corps：基于专利超纳米晶金刚石涂层的工业、电子和医疗器械产品商业化技术转让

• 批准号: 1504652
• 负责人: Orlando Auciello
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Dallas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-11-15 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1504652&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Technology; Transfer; Commercialization; Industrial

Product reliability is one of the main issues that any company worries about and offers to the customers. For example, chemical attack of metal-based anodes and cathodes by the harsh Li-ion battery environment shortens substantially the battery lifetime and strongly reduces it performance. Current metallic prostheses, such as hips and knees, implanted in humans, exhibit corrosion by body fluids, resulting in pain and need for early replacement. This I-CORPS team focuses on identifying and developing the commercialization pathway for novel patented ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films as coatings for critical components of industrial, electronic, and medical devices/systems exposed to harsh chemically and mechanical environments, improving their lifetime and performance by at least one order of magnitude. The focus of the proposed effort will be to explore the insertion into the market of a new generation of Li-ion batteries (LIBs) with UNCD-coated anodes, cathodes, membranes, and inner walls case, to produce LIBs with ¡Ý 10x longer life and smaller dimensions than for current LIBs, due to the protective action of the UNCD coatings on all battery components from corrosion. The technology will be demonstrated for coin-type cell phone small batteries. The other application of UNCD coatings will be for medical devices and implants, for which preliminary work done by this team group has demonstrated that UNCD coatings can enable a new generation of medical implants with order of magnitude longer life and superior performance than current uncoated metal implants (e.g., hips, knees, dental implants, which are failing due to chemical attach by body fluids), which are failing due to chemical attack by body fluids.The patented UNCD coatings will be grown using microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) and hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) techniques, available to the team, to determine which provides the best coating properties for the specific application. The research work over the last 20 years has demonstrated that the UNCD films exhibit unique nanostructures with 3 to 5 nm grain sizes, and a unique combination of properties, namely: 1) highest hardness and resistance to wear (similar to single crystal diamond) compared to any other known coating, 2) extremely smooth surface (rms roughness of ~ 3-5 nm), 3) lowest friction coefficient compared to any other coatings, 4) extremely low stress, 5) tunability of surface wettability from highly hydrophobic (no water adhesion to the surface) to highly hydrophilic (high water adhesion), 6) extremely resistant to chemical attack by any strong acid and human body fluids (critical for applications as coating for medical implants), 7) electrically conductive when doped with boron atoms in the diamond lattice or nitrogen atoms in the grain boundaries, 8) electrically insulating when grown without B or N incorporation, 9) B-doped UNCD exhibits the widest electrochemical potential compared with other electrode materials, 10) UNCD films exhibit one of the lowest threshold voltages for electron emission, 11) UNCD films can be processed by lithography and etching processes used for fabrication of silicon based MEMS/NEMS devices, to produce a new generation of these devices far superior than silicon based counterparts, and 12) UNCD is extremely biocompatible. The UNCD properties mentioned above enable multi-functionalities for a wide range of technological applications as described above, which can make a substantial impact in several high-tech markets. The MPCVD technique will be implanted in an industrial-type system capable of growing UNCD films on up to 200 mm diameter substrates to demonstrate immediate transfer of the UNCD growth process into an industrial compatible process. The HFCVD technique will be implemented in a system capable of growing UNCD films on up to 100 mm diameter substrates.

产品可靠性是任何公司都担心并提供给客户的主要问题之一。例如，恶劣的锂离子电池环境对金属基阳极和阴极的化学侵蚀大大缩短了电池寿命，并大大降低了电池性能。目前植入人体的金属假体，例如臀部和膝盖，会受到体液的腐蚀，导致疼痛并需要早期更换。该I-CORPS团队专注于确定和开发新型专利超纳米晶金刚石（UNCD）薄膜的商业化途径，作为暴露于恶劣化学和机械环境的工业，电子和医疗设备/系统的关键组件的涂层，将其寿命和性能提高至少一个数量级。该计划的重点将是探索新一代锂离子电池（LIB）的市场，该电池具有UNCD涂层的阳极、阴极、膜和内壁外壳，由于UNCD涂层对所有电池组件的腐蚀保护作用，该电池的寿命比现有的LIB长10倍，尺寸更小。该技术将用于硬币型手机小型电池。UNCD涂层的其他应用将用于医疗器械和植入物，该团队所做的初步工作表明，UNCD涂层可以使新一代医疗植入物具有比当前未涂层金属植入物更长的寿命和上级性能（例如，髋关节、膝关节、牙科植入物，这些产品由于体液的化学附着而失效），这些产品由于体液的化学侵蚀而失效。获得专利的UNCD涂层将使用微波等离子体化学气相沉积（MPCVD）和热灯丝化学气相沉积（HFCVD）技术生长，该技术可供团队使用，以确定哪种技术为特定应用提供最佳涂层性能。过去20年的研究工作表明，UNCD薄膜具有独特的纳米结构，晶粒尺寸为3至5 nm，以及独特的性能组合，即：1）最高的硬度和耐磨性（类似于单晶金刚石）与任何其他已知涂层相比，2）极其光滑的表面（rms粗糙度约3-5 nm），3）与任何其他涂层相比，最低的摩擦系数，4）极低的应力，5）高度疏水的表面润湿性的可调性，（表面无水粘附）至高度亲水性（高水粘性），6）对任何强酸和人体体液的化学侵蚀具有极强的抵抗力（对于作为医用植入物的涂层的应用是关键的），7）当在金刚石晶格中掺杂硼原子或在晶界中掺杂氮原子时是导电的，8）当在没有B或N掺入的情况下生长时是电绝缘的，9）与其它电极材料相比，B掺杂的UNCD表现出最宽的电化学电势，10）UNCD膜表现出电子发射的最低阈值电压之一，11）UNCD膜可以通过用于制造硅基MEMS/NEMS器件的光刻和蚀刻工艺来处理，生产出比硅基同类产品更优越上级的新一代设备，12）UNCD具有极强的生物相容性。上述联合国裁军谈判会议的特性使上述各种技术应用具有多功能性，可对若干高科技市场产生重大影响。MPCVD技术将被植入一个工业型系统，能够在直径达200毫米的衬底上生长UNCD薄膜，以证明UNCD生长过程立即转移到工业兼容过程中。HFCVD技术将在一个能够在直径达100 mm的衬底上生长UNCD薄膜的系统中实施。