CAREER: Laser-Induced Solvothermal Synthesis for the Direct-Write, Microscale Additive Processing of Metals and Oxides

该学院早期职业发展（CAREER）项目有助于开发包含混合材料组合物的微型设备的制造方法。增材制造是3D打印任意形状材料的能力，目前正在彻底改变产品的制造方式。然而，大多数增材制造方法，特别是金属和氧化物材料的增材制造方法，都是在毫米级或更大的尺度上进行的。小的长度尺度对于诸如传感器、电子器件和医疗诊断设备等正在变得小型化和便携的产品是重要的。此外，大多数增材制造方法都是为制造包含单一材料的部件而定制的，并且不太适合于组合多种不同材料的部件。这项研究计划将探索使用基于激光的制造来应对这些挑战。增材制造具有定制成分的微型部件的能力将使医疗保健，化学和生物医学传感以及能量存储等领域取得进展。这项研究将使用来自多个不同研究领域的技术，包括化学，材料科学，光学，力学和热建模，从一系列角度应对制造挑战。将推行教育举措，包括在K-12水平，夏令营开发，并在本科和研究生水平的课程创新的不同学生的外联。教育推广活动将侧重于研究光在制造方法中的应用。在这项研究中，激光的焦点体积将被用作高温飞秒尺度的溶剂热反应器，其中材料将被合成和沉积在激光焦点处的流体前体。该方法将利用溶液相化学，但将合成限制在微米尺度，从而利用激光直写制造中固有的三维控制。该方法将被研究用于直接从溶液前体加工各种各样的无机材料，包括金属、氧化物、合金、陶瓷及其复合物。研究的一个重点将是高熵氧化物的制造。目标包括高熵材料的合成，热反应环境的表征和建模，探索加工条件（如激光功率，扫描参数和前体化学）的影响，以及高通量制造的并行化和可扩展性的研究。教育举措的目的是在普通活动之间建立联系（例如，摄影）和光使能的制造方法（例如，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project contributes to the development of manufacturing methods for microscale devices containing mixed material compositions. Additive manufacturing, which is the ability to 3D-print materials of arbitrary shape, is currently revolutionizing the way in which products are made. However, most additive manufacturing methods, especially for metals and oxide materials, are conducted on the millimeter scale or larger. Small length scales are important for products such as sensors, electronics, and medical diagnostic devices which are becoming miniaturized and portable. Further, most additive manufacturing methods are tailored for fabrication of parts containing a single material and are not well-suited for parts combining multiple different materials. This research initiative will explore the use of laser-based manufacturing to address such challenges. The ability to additively manufacture microscale parts with tailored composition will enable advances in areas such as healthcare, chemical and biomedical sensing, and energy storage. This research will use techniques from multiple different fields of study, including chemistry, materials science, optics, mechanics, and thermal modeling, to tackle the manufacturing challenges from a range of angles. Educational initiatives will be pursued, including outreach to diverse students at the K-12 level, summer camp development, and curriculum innovation at undergraduate and graduate levels. The educational outreach will focus on examining how light is used in manufacturing methods. In this research, the focal volume of a laser will be used as a high-temperature femtoliter-scale solvothermal reactor, wherein materials will be synthesized and deposited at the laser focus from fluid precursors. This method will exploit solution phase chemistry, but confine the synthesis to the microscale, thereby taking advantage of the three-dimensional control inherent in laser direct-write manufacturing. This method will be studied for processing a wide variety of inorganic materials directly from solution precursors, including metals, oxides, alloys, ceramics, and composites thereof. A key focus of the research will be on the manufacturing of high entropy oxides. Aims include synthesis of high entropy materials, characterization and modeling of the thermal reaction environment, exploration of effects of processing conditions such as laser power, scan parameters, and precursor chemistry, and investigation of parallelization and scalability for high-throughput fabrication. Educational initiatives will aim to draw connections between commonplace activities (e.g., photography) and light-enabled manufacturing methods (e.g., photolithography) such that students and the public will gain appreciation for the technological innovations that enable the fabrication of so many of the devices used in daily life.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.