New Nanomanufacturing Techniques for the Fabrication of Plasmonic Surfaces for Photovoltaic, Catalytic and Sensing Applications

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The intense interactions between light and metal particles with nanoscale dimensions provide the foundation for transformative sensing, catalytic and photovoltaic technologies. Even though many such devices have been successfully prototyped from these so-called plasmonic nanomaterials, the fabrication techniques currently utilized, while well-suited to a research intensive environment, are incompatible with a manufacturing setting. This award supports a research effort aimed at defining a platform that replaces current best-practice techniques with those responsive to the scalability, throughput, yield and cost-effectiveness requirements of nanomanufacturing. If the nanomanufacturing platform is validated it could act as the synthetic foundation underpinning for: (i) sensor technologies able to detect various cancers, E. coli, explosives, drugs and heavy metal contaminents, (ii) catalytic surfaces geared towards environmental remediation or "green" chemical syntheses powered by sunlight and (iii) a new class of photovoltaics reliant on plasmonic materials. Research activities are being integrated with education initiatives through projects which train both undergraduate and graduate students in the design of instrumentation able to synthesize technologically relevant nanomaterials and provide real-time monitoring of manufacturing processes. Outreach initiatives are being directed toward the matriculation of women into the Engineering profession.The research being carried out will define the nanomanufacturing platform needed to fabricate photoactive surfaces comprised of periodic arrays of complex three-dimensional nanostructures which express the intense plasmonic resonances needed to enable photovoltaic, catalytic and sensing applications. It will utilize an existing synthetic framework whereby: (i) lithography defines nanostructured precursors at site-specific locations, (ii) directed assembly transforms them into nanostructured templates with high crystallinity and pristine surfaces and (iii) solution-based syntheses sculpt these templates into complex nanostructures. The studies aim to: (i) validate this synthetic framework as an inexpensive nanomanufacturing platform able to fabricate functional photoactive surfaces consisting of periodic arrays of sub-50 nm nanostructures with pristine surfaces and unprecedented complexity, (ii) overcome existing knowledge barriers related to the maximum realizable array density and potential throughput bottlenecks which, if left unreconciled, challenge the viability of the nanomanufacturing platform, (iii) demonstrate a new set of instrumentation which is responsive to the scalability and throughput needs of a nanomanufacturing setting and (iv) establish an in situ optical diagnostic which can in real-time provide the feedback required to direct nanostructure assembly processes to programmed endpoints.