PECASE: The Science Underpinning Mechanical Self-Assembly

该学院的早期职业发展（Career）提出了机械自组装的研究，这是一种在微米和亚微米尺度上制造的新方法，在这种情况下，可控制的机械故障可用于在薄膜中产生高度有序的屈曲，开裂和扣层分层模式。通过全面的数值，理论和实验研究，将了解控制有趣的自发模式形成的机制。反向分析将用于设计和控制组件，这些组件将自己组织成所需的模式和功能。这些努力特别旨在提供足够完整的结果，并以相对简单的方式呈现它们，以便它们可以在微电子，MEMS和生物医学工程中得到广泛应用。这些自发模式将用于制造生物传感器和药物输送的微阵列，研究蛋白质和细胞迁移，以及制造有序的纳米线。机械自组装是一个具有重大科学意义、技术重要性和教育价值的广阔领域，固体力学可以对此作出实质性的贡献。预计机械自组装将为微加工提供新的和相对容易的解决方案，从而使更大的工程界受益。为了满足材料和纳米技术不断增长的教育需求，一个教育项目与研究工作完全结合，其中包括一个让纽约贫困高中生参与科学和工程的暑期项目，新的本科和研究生课程，以及一个通过远程学习向公众宣传的推广项目。职业发展计划将为他在机械自组装研究和教育方面的终身综合贡献奠定坚实的基础，并为长期意义和可持续性做好准备。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) proposes research on Mechanical Self-Assembly which is a new approach to fabrication at the micron- and submicron-scales, where controlled mechanical failure may be utilized to generate highly ordered buckling, cracking, and buckle delamination patterns in thin films. Through comprehensive numerical, theoretical, and experimental investigations, the mechanisms governing the intriguing spontaneous pattern formations will be understood. Reverse analyses will be carried out to design and control components that organize themselves into desired patterns and functions. The efforts are especially aimed at providing sufficiently complete results and present them in a relatively simple way such that they may receive wide applications in microelectronics, MEMS, and biomedical engineering. These spontaneous patterns will be employed to manufacture microarrays for biosensors and drug delivery, study protein and cell migration, and fabricate ordered nanowires.Mechanical self-assembly is a wide-open field of great scientific interest, technological importance, and educational value, to which solid mechanics can make substantial contributions. It is expected that mechanical self-assembly will yield new and relatively easy solutions to microfabrication, thereby benefit the larger engineering community. An educational program is fully integrated with the research effort to meet the ever-increasing educational demands of materials and nanotechnology, which includes a summer program to engage underprivileged New York high-school students in science and engineering, new undergraduate and graduate courses, and an outreach program to inform the general public via remote learning. The career development plan will build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education in mechanical self-assembly, and poised for long-term significance and sustainability.