Photochemically Induced, Polymer-Assisted Deposition for 3D Printing of Micrometer-Wide and Nanometer-Thin Silver Structures

用于微米宽和纳米薄银结构 3D 打印的光化学诱导聚合物辅助沉积

• 批准号: 1947753
• 负责人: Chao Wang
• 金额: $ 48.55万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1947753&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Photochemically; Induced; Polymer; Assisted; Deposition

This award supports research that will contribute new knowledge related to additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic (silver) structures, promoting both the progress of new manufacturing technologies and advancing a broad range of scientific applications. AM is the process of making a three-dimensional object of virtually any shape from a digital computer model. The technique, often called 3D printing, has the potential to revolutionize the way things are made. Currently, there are many additive manufacturing processes to make metal parts. However, almost all additive manufacturing processes currently available require high-temperature processes, which can often cause damage to the products to be printed and deteriorate the product performance. Additionally, many of these processes are limited to macroscale components, with dimensions at the millimeter scale or above, due to size limitations for metal powder. This award supports fundamental research to help develop a room-temperature AM process that enables high-resolution printing without thermal damage. The new process will utilize solution-based layer-by-layer deposition to produce highly reflective and highly conductive metal microstructures directly from soluble metal salts. The metallic microstructures produced by this process have wide applications in semiconductor electronics, energy, healthcare, biomedical, aerospace, soft robotics, and automotive industries. Therefore, results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. This research involves several disciplines including manufacturing, photochemistry, photonics, and materials science. The multi-disciplinary approach will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education.Prevalent AM metal manufacturing mainly relies on thermal or laser assisted metal fusion or ink-jet printing of metal powders and nanoparticles, and has serious limitations, including large feature sizes, rough surfaces, high optical/electrical loss, and incompatibility with soft materials. This research will fill this knowledge gap by exploring a new solution-based photochemically-induced polymer-assisted deposition process to allow scalable production of metal microstructures. The research team will introduce a three-dimensional molecular precursor, consisting of an interlaid network of polymers, metal salt, and reductants, that can turn into continuous metal films and structures upon ultraviolet illumination. The research team will build a model to study the fundamental chemical and physical aspects of the growth mechanism, design a series of experiments to verify the model, explore the fundamental limits of the critical dimensions of the printed structures, combine theoretical and experimental studies, and characterize the structural, optical, and electrical performance of the printed films. Further, we will apply this technique to a variety of substrate materials, including non-flat surfaces, to construct three-dimensional structures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项支持将贡献与金属（银）结构增材制造（AM）相关的新知识的研究，促进新制造技术的进步并推进广泛的科学应用。AM是从数字计算机模型制作几乎任何形状的三维物体的过程。这项技术通常被称为3D打印，有可能彻底改变事物的制造方式。目前，有许多增材制造工艺来制造金属零件。然而，目前几乎所有的增材制造工艺都需要高温工艺，这往往会对要打印的产品造成损坏，使产品性能恶化。此外，由于金属粉末的尺寸限制，这些工艺中的许多工艺限于尺寸在毫米级或以上的宏观尺度部件。该奖项支持基础研究，以帮助开发一种室温AM工艺，从而实现无热损伤的高分辨率打印。新工艺将利用基于溶液的逐层沉积，直接从可溶性金属盐中生产高反射和高导电的金属微结构。由该工艺产生的金属微结构在半导体电子、能源、医疗保健、生物医学、航空航天、软机器人和汽车工业中具有广泛的应用。因此，这项研究的成果将有利于美国的经济和社会。这项研究涉及多个学科，包括制造，光化学，光子学和材料科学。多学科的方法将有助于扩大在研究和积极影响工程教育中的代表性不足的群体的参与。普遍的AM金属制造主要依赖于热或激光辅助金属熔融或金属粉末和纳米颗粒的喷墨打印，并具有严重的局限性，包括大的特征尺寸，粗糙的表面，高的光/电损耗，和软材料的不兼容性。这项研究将通过探索一种新的基于溶液的光化学诱导聚合物辅助沉积工艺来填补这一知识空白，以实现金属微结构的可规模化生产。研究小组将介绍一种三维分子前体，由聚合物、金属盐和还原剂的夹层网络组成，在紫外线照射下可以变成连续的金属薄膜和结构。研究团队将构建模型研究生长机制的基本化学和物理方面，设计一系列实验验证模型，探索印刷结构临界尺寸的基本极限，将联合收割机理论和实验研究相结合，表征印刷薄膜的结构、光学和电学性能。此外，我们还将把这项技术应用于各种基底材料，包括非平坦表面，以构建三维结构。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。