CAREER: Additively Manufactured Nanomaterial Layers with Submicron Structures

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Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, instead of conventional manufacturing technologies with subtractive features and a longer lead time. As a revolutionary technology, additive manufacturing significantly improves logistics, quickly enables new products and increases material readiness, critical to bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. However, there are many challenges to 3D printing. For example, one significant difficulty stemming from most 3D printing principles is precisely controlling structural orders (e.g., patterned dots, lines, pillars) when manufacturing multiple materials at small scales (e.g., nanomanufacturing in the semiconductor industry). This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will support the research needed to develop a new additive manufacturing method that can precisely process a diversity of materials. The new manufacturing platform will enable layer-by-layer nanomaterial deposition at desired locations with optional polymers or nanoparticles. The multidisciplinary study includes research in polymer science, nanoparticle synthesis, and interfacial engineering. As a result, the newly-enabled composites could have broad applications in sensors, actuators, soft robotics, supercapacitors, batteries, and regenerative medicine. By involving female and underrepresented minority students in teaching, research, and international collaborations, this project will enhance their education and their representation in an important workforce.Current 3D printing methods rely heavily on external fields (e.g., electrical, magnetic, and acoustic assistance) to precisely place nanoparticles at desired locations and control their long-range orders. However, these 3D printing platforms mandate nanoparticles to be field-interactive, and they have manufacturing limitations when highly concentrated nanoparticles form agglomerations in colloids. This research will advance fundamental knowledge of a new 3D printing method, Multiphase Direct Ink Writing (MDIW), to improve additive manufacturing precision and efficiency. MDIW will enable the deposition of submicron-scale structures without the constraints on part size and build speeds that are typically present in nanoscale additive manufacturing. In addition, this research involves studying the fundamentals of polymer science and nanoparticle engineering to generate new knowledge concerning a 3D printing method for directed nanoparticle assembly. Specifically, the research team will develop a new nanomanufacturing mechanism with layering capabilities, synthesize nanoparticles of controlled dimensions and with desired surface features, and form patterned surfaces with desired profiles by manipulating polymer-nanoparticle interactions to create submicron hierarchical structures. The heterogeneous microstructures generated in the nanocomposites will possess desirable nanoparticle distributions and orientations with controlled packing density, enabling the demonstration of rapidly-prototyped multifunctional sensors.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.