Collaborative Research: Acoustic Field-Assisted Stereolithography for Multi-Material Additive Nanomanufacturing

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The successful development of nanomachines is pivotal for the realization of future intelligent nanorobots, nanofactories, and nanomedicine. Through applications in nano and micro surgery, targeted drug delivery, and environmental pollutant removal, the impact of nanomachines on every aspect of daily lives as well as the global economy is expected to be significant. However, the manufacturing of nanomachines is challenging due to the difficulty in combining multiple materials or assembling multiple components into a three-dimensional structure to achieve the desired functionalities. Most currently reported nano and micromachines are limited to very simple designs with spherical or cylindrical geometries and thus limited functions, while requiring a large amount of labor, time, and cost for fabrication. This award investigates the scalable and efficient manufacturing of multi-material three-dimensional objects consisting of arbitrarily distributed nano-sized building-blocks. The project studies the advent of multi-functionality by nanoparticle localization through patterning and building 3D objects by solidifying particle-polymer suspensions layer-by-layer. Furthermore, this research advances knowledge of multi-material structure design and development, and paves the way for a new scientific paradigm for the design, fabrication, and application of multi-functional nanomachines. Course modules on additive nanomanufacturing are planned for education in engineering both at the two collaborative universities and at local middle and high schools. Special attention is given to encourage the participation of women, persons with disabilities, and traditionally underrepresented groups. Current manufacturing methods for nanomachines are limited by scalability, efficiency, and material and geometric diversity. To overcome these constraints, this project aims to establish a new additive nanomanufacturing strategy for fabricating 3D multi-material particle-polymer nanocomposites, and to test the hypothesis that the localized nanoparticle distribution can produce multi-functionalities. The research approach -- acoustic field-assisted stereolithography -- utilizes an acoustic field to pattern nanoparticles with macro-to-nano scale resolutions and build a 3D object by solidifying the particle-polymer suspensions layer-by-layer. This research integrates multiple physical phenomena with nanomanufacturing and involves various disciplines of science and engineering including modeling and simulation, process design and development, material and device characterization. This project contributes to advances in additive nanomanufacturing, nanotechnology, and innovations in nanomaterials and nanomachines.