Process Development for Microscale Robotic Deposition of Concentrated Colloidal Gels

这笔拨款为加工工具的开发提供资金，以及加工计划系统，用于浓缩胶体的快速沉积。这是一种固体自由形状制造技术，目前的资助重点是在微米级的长度尺度上进行基于沉积的制造。所要开发的工具是由三维双级服务轴组成的机器人系统。由直线电机驱动的粗级将携带由压电陶瓷驱动的细级，压电陶瓷将实际支撑沉积头。过程建模将执行，以确定材料的流动行为和凝固特性。然后，这些模型将用于工艺规划CAE工具，以确定最佳的机器加工条件。整个项目将融合机器人、控制、制造和材料科学领域的专业知识，以极快的方式创建非常小的周期结构。如果成功，这项工作将使微尺度周期晶格的创建成为可能。通过在结构中开发有意缺陷，这些晶格可以用于为先进的光子器件提供光波导能力。所提出的方法的好处是构造这种装置所花费的时间。虽然标准的光刻方法可以达到相同的分辨率，但处理的时间是几天的数量级。当前系统的构建时间将以分钟为单位。这将允许在创建光子带隙结构方面探索巨大的设计空间，这可能是未来计算和通信应用的支柱。

This grant provides funds for the development of a processing tool, as well as a processing planning system, for the rapid deposition of concentrated colloidal gels. This is a solid freeform fabrication technology and the current grant is focused at performing deposition based fabrication on length scales the order of microns. The tool to be developed is a robotic system consisting of dual stage serving axes in 3 dimensions. A coarse stage driven by linear motors will carry a fine stage driven by piezos which will actually support the deposition head. Process modeling will be performed to determine material flow behavior and solidification characteristics. These models will then be used in a process planning CAE tool to determine optimal machine processing conditions. The overall project will fuse together expertise from the fields of Robotics, Controls, Manufacturing, and Materials Science to create very small scale periodic structures in an extremely rapid fashion.If successful, this work will enable the creation of microscale periodic lattices. By developing intentional defects in the structures, these lattices can then be used to provide optical waveguide capability for advanced photonic devices. The benefit of the proposed method is the time taken to construct such devices. While standard lithography methods can achieve the same resolution, the time for processing is on the order of days. The current system will have build times on the order of minutes. This will allow for the exploration of a huge design space in creating photonic bandgap structures that could be the future backbone of computing and communication applications.