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

由碳、金属或陶瓷材料组成的纳米级材料，如纳米管、纳米薄膜和纳米微管，已被发现以其原始形式表现出接近理论强度、损伤容限、能量转换和光学性能。当这些纳米尺度的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强度的水平，而初始材料的质量密度只有一小部分。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、能量吸收材料、组织工程支架、能量转换和波操纵装置。目前基于激光写入的纳米制造技术无法制造出尺寸大于几毫米的纳米结构。虽然各种添加剂制造方法能够创建复杂的宏观三维对象，但它们还没有实现创建具有纳米级特征的体系结构的能力。该项目将推进宏观物体的可扩展纳米制造方面的知识，这些宏观物体由用于轻量化和弹性的精确定义的三维纳米结构组成。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。研究成果将被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动手研究和教育的机会。该项目旨在建立支持可扩展添加剂纳米制造的理论和实验基础，克服3D打印中存在的障碍，即实现纳米级精度。研究了在可控的亚波长光场投影到原料基元上的情况下，创建具有纳米级特征的三维结构的过程。为了获得最佳的生产速度，建立了一个基于多物理的建模和实验平台，以阐明控制新打印机构速度和分辨率的动力学。然后用一套新的仪器来实施这项研究，这些仪器能够并行生产具有纳米结构的大面积样品。此外，这项研究建立了理论和实验框架，以预测和防止缺陷的产生，同时扩大到几个数量级的维度。这项研究使创造三维纳米结构的新概念成为可能。它为将纳米结构可靠地扩展到组件和设备提供了科学和工程基础，这些应用包括结构支撑、能量存储和转换以及波操纵。

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.