Additive Nanomanufacturing of Scalable, Three-dimensional Nano-Architectures for Ultra-lightweighting and Resilience

纳米材料，如纳米管、纳米膜和纳米柱，由碳、金属或陶瓷材料组成，已经被发现在其原始形式下表现出接近理论强度、损伤容限、能量转换和光学特性。当这些纳米级元素被精确地构建成定义良好的三维拓扑结构时，它们形成的宏观结构可以达到接近理论的强度，而质量密度仅为初始材料的一小部分。如果这种纳米结构是可制造的，那么许多应用都是可能的，例如，超轻型，吸能材料，组织工程支架，能量转换和波浪操纵装置。目前基于激光书写的纳米制造技术无法制造出尺寸大于几毫米的纳米结构。虽然各种增材制造方法能够创建复杂的宏观三维物体，但它们还没有实现创建具有纳米级特征的架构的能力。该项目将推进宏观物体的可扩展纳米制造知识，这些宏观物体由精确定义的三维纳米结构组成，以实现轻量化和弹性。研究人员将进行理论和实验研究，以了解、预测和控制光场、数字光学和原料材料之间的相互作用，从而可靠地生产大面积、三维纳米结构。这项研究需要了解基础科学和工程学科，包括纳米制造、光学、力学、机电一体化、物理和化学。研究结果将整合到新的课程和项目中，为高中、本科生、研究生和代表性不足的学生提供实践研究和教育机会。该项目旨在为可扩展的增材纳米制造建立理论和实验基础，克服3D打印的现有障碍，实现纳米级精度。本研究研究了在受控的亚波长光场投射到原料基元上的过程，以创建具有纳米级特征的三维结构。为了获得最佳的打印速度，建立了基于多物理场的建模和实验平台，以阐明控制新打印机构速度和分辨率的动力学。然后使用一套新的仪器来实施这项研究，这些仪器可以并行生产具有纳米结构的大面积样品。此外，本研究建立了理论和实验框架，以预测和防止在扩展到几个数量级以上的维度时产生缺陷。这项研究使创建三维纳米结构的新概念成为可能。它为纳米结构的可靠升级提供了科学和工程基础，用于包括结构支撑，能量存储和转换以及波浪操纵在内的应用组件和设备。

Nanoscale materials such as nanotubes, nanofilms, and nanopillars, composed of carbon, metallic or ceramic material, have been found to exhibit near theoretical strength, damage tolerance, energy conversion and optical properties in their pristine form. When these nanoscale elements are precisely architected into well-defined, three-dimensional topologies, they form macroscopic structures that can reach near-theoretical strength with only a fraction of the mass densities of the starting materials. If such nano-architected structures are manufacturable, many applications are possible, e.g., ultra-lightweight, energy-absorbing materials, tissue engineering scaffolds, energy conversion and wave manipulation devices. Current nanofabrication technologies, based on laser-writing, are incapable of creating these nanostructures in dimensions larger than a few millimeters. While a variety of additive manufacturing approaches are capable of creating complex macroscopic three-dimensional objects, they have not achieved capabilities for creating architectures with nanoscale features. This project will advance knowledge in scalable nanomanufacturing of macroscopic objects comprised of precisely defined, three-dimensional nano-architectures for lightweighting and resilience. The researchers will conduct theoretical and experimental studies to understand, predict and control the interactions between light field, digital optics, and feedstock materials, leading to reliable production of large area, three-dimensional nano-architectures. The research requires understanding fundamental science and engineering disciplines, including nanomanufacturing, optics, mechanics, mechatronics, physics, and chemistry. The research results will be integrated into new curricula and projects to give hands-on research and education opportunities for high school, undergraduate, graduate and under-represented students.The project aims to build the theoretical and experimental foundations underpinning scalable additive nanomanufacturing, overcoming existing barrier in 3D printing, which is to achieve nano-scale precision. The research studies a process to create three-dimensional architectures with nanoscale features under controlled sub-wavelength light field projection onto feedstock primitives. To achieve optimal production speed, a multi-physics based modeling and experimental platforms are established to elucidate the kinetics governing the speed and resolution of the new printing mechanism. The research is then implemented with a new set of instrumentations that enable the parallel production of large area samples with nano-architectures. Additionally, this research establishes theoretical and experimental frameworks to predict and prevent defect generation while scaling up to dimensions over several orders of magnitude. This research enables a new concept of creating three-dimensional nano-architectures. It provides a scientific and engineering basis towards reliable upscaling of nano-architectures to components and devices for applications including structural supports, energy storage and conversion, and wave manipulations.