I-Corps: Multi-functional nanostructures with directed irradiation synthesis for smart biomaterials

I-Corps项目的广泛影响和商业潜力将是一种革命性的方法，通过提供一种绿色、廉价、快速和通用的工艺，制造新型智能多功能纳米结构，满足下一代先进材料的需求。这种纳米结构合成方法在生物技术、能源和工具等领域都有应用。例如，在医疗保健领域，美国每年有近100万人遭受与医疗植入物有关的感染。此外，由于组织整合不良，骨内植入物在其使用寿命中可能会松动，导致炎症和疼痛，并可能需要额外的手术。这些问题可以通过合成增强生物组织整合的固有抗菌生物材料表面来潜在地解决。这项技术的商业化有可能重新定义工业材料设计范式。这个I-Corps项目是基于一种被称为定向辐照合成（DIS）和定向等离子体纳米合成（DPNS）的材料等离子体处理形式。该技术能够通过创建定制的纳米级形貌（孔隙、棒状、锥状、波纹等）和化学（化学计量学、氧化态等）来改变材料表面的固有特性，方法是将表面暴露在受控的离子、电子和中性粒子的通量中，这些粒子具有受控的质量、动量和影响力，以及其他条件。这使得在离子诱导侵蚀和表面扩散主导的辐照表面上使用自组织排列的原子对原子控制的保真度达到了一个新的水平。这项技术将改变纳米结构系统的合成和设计，利用依赖于组成的机制，驱动微纳米结构的自组织，从而实现其生物特性的可调性和控制。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be a transformative approach at fabricating novel smart multi-functional nanostructures that meet the needs of next generation advanced materials by providing a process that is green, cheap, fast, and versatile. This approach to nanostructure synthesis has applications in biotechnology, energy and tooling, among others. For example, in the healthcare field each year nearly one million people in the United States suffer from an infection related to medical implants. Additionally, implants in bone can loosen over their lifetime due to poor tissue integration, resulting in inflammation and pain, and possibly requiring additional surgeries. These issues can potentially be solved through the synthesis of inherently anti-bacterial biomaterial surfaces that enhance biological tissue integration. The commercialization of this technology has the potential to redefine industrial material design paradigms.This I-Corps project is based around a form of plasma processing of materials called Directed Irradiation Synthesis (DIS) and Directed Plasma Nanosynthesis (DPNS). This technology is able to change the inherent properties of a material surface by creating customized nanoscale topographies (pores, rods, cones, ripples, etc.) and chemistries (stoichiometry, oxidation state, etc.) by exposing the surface to a controlled flux of ions, electrons, and neutral particles with controlled mass, momentum, and fluence, among other conditions. This allows a new level of fidelity with atom-by-atom control using self-organized arrangement in irradiated surfaces that is dominated by ion-induced erosion and surface diffusion. This technology will transform the synthesis and design of nano-structured systems by leveraging the composition-dependent mechanisms that drive self-organization on micro- and nano-structures to enable tunability and control of their biological properties.