Precision nanocomposites for smart surfaces and materials

该设备将用于将纳米颗粒均匀分散在聚合物基体中，以生产用于微细加工的新型复合材料。 磁性和电功能复合材料的可靠生产是非常重要的，作为一种手段，以改善多种微制造技术，如微成型，微接触印刷和卷到卷制造。 这些技术采用了最好的硅基微加工技术，通常成本较低，更通用的制造工具与聚合物。 由于大多数聚合物是电绝缘的，因此很少有传感器或执行器可以使用这些材料生产。 通过将纳米颗粒添加到散装材料中，塑料和聚合物可以直接与柔性电路，触觉传感器和可拉伸电子产品的集成系统连接。 然而，这些基于复合材料的微结构的最大挑战之一是难以在小体积（<1000 μ m^3）中实现均匀的纳米颗粒分布（并因此实现均匀的性质）。 由于纳米颗粒负载在小面积上可能显著不同，因此两个最小尺寸为1微米或更小的复合微机电系统（MEMS）装置之间的电气和机械行为可能不一致。本申请的目标是购买能够对精确剪切速率提供最大控制的设备，在复合材料的生产过程中，我们可以调整混合参数和温度，使我们能够实现最大的微观均匀性，并提高聚合物功能复合材料的电或磁性能。 这将在使用最小体积百分比的纳米颗粒的同时实现，以便保持复合材料的机械性能尽可能接近未加载的聚合物材料的机械性能。 这些复合材料将立即应用于生产用于抗静电MEMS拾取和放置的导电干粘合剂，以及作为聚合物微流体通道内的致动器，如主动阀或泵。

This proposed equipment will be used to homogeneously disperse nanoparticles within polymer matrices for the production of new composites for microfabrication. Reliable production of magnetic and electrically functional composites is very important as a means to improve multiple micro-manufacturing technologies such as micromolding, micro contact printing and reel-to-reel fabrication. These technologies adapt the best of silicon based microfabrication techniques, with the generally lower costs and more versatile fabrication tools available with polymers. Because most polymers are electrically insulating, few sensors or actuators can be produced using these materials. By adding nanoparticles to the bulk material, plastics and polymers can be directly connected with integrated systems for flexible circuits, tactile sensors, and stretchable electronics. One of the greatest challenges for these composite based microstructures however is the difficulty in achieving homogeneous nanoparticle distribution (and therefore uniform properties) in small volumes (<1000 um^3). As the nanoparticle loading may be significantly different across small areas, electrical and mechanical behavior may be inconsistent between two composite micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices which may have minimum dimensions of 1 micrometer or less. The goal of this application is to purchase equipment that will provide the greatest control over the exact shear rates, mixing parameters and temperatures during composite creation to allow us to achieve the maximum microscale homogeneity and improve the electrical or magnetic performance of polymer functional composites. This will be achieved while using the minimum volume percentage of nanoparticles so as to keep mechanical performance of the composites as close to that of unloaded polymer materials as possible. These composites will find immediate application in the production of electrically conductive dry adhesives for anti-static MEMS pick and place, and as actuators within polymer microfluidic channels as active valves or pumps.