EPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing: Additive nanomanufacturing via probe-based pick-and-place nanoparticle assembly

位于东京的联合国大学估计，一块2克硅片的平均成本为1.6公斤化石燃料、73克化学品和32公斤水。这主要是因为到目前为止使用的纳米制造技术是一种逐层相加和相减的过程。到目前为止，纳米制造领域的创新主要集中在缩小特征尺寸上，这些特征尺寸现在已经达到了非常小的尺寸；进一步的规模不一定会带来更高的性能。这开启了更新现有电子设备的可能性，因为主要驱动因素是功能，而不是缩放(或特征大小节点)。与此同时，学术界对纳米粒子自组装的大量研究也很感兴趣。这些技术对于理解如何利用化学使粒子以预定的模式排列非常重要。在这次联谊会中，我打算将这些发展推向一种定向的、添加的纳米制造技术，使用纳米级的探测器来挑选和放置纳米颗粒。这项拟议的研究旨在让纳米级机器人手臂拾取和放置纳米颗粒，以制造功能更强的新设备，更新纳米级设备，并减少纳米制造过程中产生的减法废物。

The United Nations University in Tokyo estimates that an average 2g silicon chip costs 1.6kg of fossil fuel, 73g of chemicals and 32 kg of water. This is primarily because the nanomanufacturing technology used thus far is a layer-by-layer additive and subtractive process. Innovations thus far in nanomanufacturing have focused mostly on reducing feature sizes, which have now reached remarkably small dimensions; further scaling will not necessarily deliver increased performance. This opens up the possibility of updating existing electronics, as functionality rather than scaling (or the feature size node) is the main driver. Meanwhile in academia, considerable research into self-assembly of nanoscale particles has also been of interest. These techniques have been very important in understanding how to use chemistry to make particles arrange themselves in pre-determined patterns. In this fellowship, I intend to advance these developments towards a directed, additive nanomanufacturing technique using nanoscale probes to pick and place nanoparticles. The proposed research aims to have nanoscale robotic arms picking and placing nanoparticles to manufacture new devices with increased functionality, update nanoscale devices and to reduce the subtractive waste generated in nanomanufacturing.