CAREER: Atmospheric-Pressure Manufacturing of Nanocrystalline Diamonds by Plasma-Assisted Flat Flame Vapor Deposition

这项学院早期职业发展(Career)赠款将支持研究，以建立具有良好控制的热、电和光学功能的纳米晶钻石的常压制造工艺的新知识。纳米金刚石是一类具有优异性能的碳纳米材料，在能源、半导体、生物医学和量子等领域有着广泛的应用。然而，目前最先进的制造纳米级钻石的方法要么依赖于非常高的压力，要么依赖于低压力的过程，并且缺乏可扩展性和可控性。这些缺陷源于缺乏高生产能力、可扩展制造所需的常压工艺的基础知识。新方法将为连续大规模制造高质量纳米晶体钻石提供一个在经济上可行的平台。该研究项目的成功可以推进对美国国家福利和国防具有战略重要性的各种技术，包括热管理、能量转换和存储、纳米传感、生物医学成像、量子计算。教育和宣传活动将有助于扩大STEM教育的参与度，并加强下一代劳动力，以解决社会挑战，特别是在先进制造领域。火焰气相沉积方法具有在常压下合成纳米晶体钻石的能力。与以一批接一批的方式运行的低压或高压工艺相比，常压火焰合成方法显示出巨大的前景，可以实现更高效、更具成本效益的连续生产，以便扩大到大批量和大面积。为了促进纳米金刚石的常压制备，本研究将研究火焰气相沉积与等离子体的耦合，假设火焰-等离子体耦合可以产生两种协同效应：1)提高生长速度、均匀性和稳定性，以实现规模化；2)提高原位掺杂效率，以控制纳米金刚石的功能。该项目将采用实验和建模相结合的方法，以促进对等离子体辅助火焰气相沉积过程的可控性和可扩展性的理解，研究原位掺杂能力，并开发连续的、具有在线质量诊断的大气原型，用于制造功能纳米晶体钻石材料和设备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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) grant will support research that will establish new knowledge of an atmospheric-pressure manufacturing process for nanocrystalline diamonds with well-controlled thermal, electrical and optical functionalities. Nanocrystalline diamonds are a class of carbon nanomaterials possessing prominent properties for a wide range of energy, semiconductor, biomedical and quantum applications. However, the current state-of-the-art approaches to fabricating nanoscale diamonds rely on either very high-pressure or low-pressure processes and lack scalability and controllability. These deficiencies stem from a lack of fundamental knowledge in atmospheric-pressure process required for high throughput, scalable manufacturing. The new approach will provide an economically viable platform for continuous, large-scale manufacturing of high-quality nanocrystalline diamonds. The success of this research project can advance a variety of technologies that have strategic importance to the U.S. national welfare and defense, including thermal management, energy conversion and storage, nanoscale sensing, biomedical imaging, quantum computing. The education and outreach activities will contribute to broadening the participation in STEM education and strengthening the next-generation workforce for solving societal challenges, particularly in the field of advanced manufacturing.The flame vapor deposition methods have the capability to synthesize nanocrystalline diamonds at atmospheric pressure. In contrast to the low-pressure or high-pressure processes that are operated in a batch-by-batch manner with long downtime for loading and unloading samples, the atmospheric-pressure flame synthesis approach shows great promise for continuous production that is more efficient and cost-effective for up-scaling to large quantities and large areas. To advance the atmospheric-pressure manufacturing of nanocrystalline diamonds, the research work will investigate the coupling of flame vapor deposition and plasma, with the hypothesis of two synergistic effects that can be made by flame-plasma coupling: 1) improving the growth rate, uniformity and stability for scaling up, and 2) increasing the in-situ doping efficiency for controlling the functionality of nanocrystalline diamond. The project will take a combined experimental and modeling approach to advance the understanding of the controllability and scalability of plasma assisted flame vapor deposition process, study the in-situ doping capability, and develop a continuous, atmospheric prototype with in-line quality diagnosis for manufacturing functional nanocrystalline diamond materials and devices.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.