SBIR Phase I: Surface Texturing for Inhibiting Bacterial Biofilm Formation (Machining Process and Machine Tool System Development)

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将使在金属表面上制造鲨鱼图案成为可能。鲨鱼图案是一种工程微表面纹理，模仿鲨鱼皮肤的纹理，在不使用抗微生物剂的情况下抑制细菌生物膜的生长。Sharklet表面纹理技术已经成功地使用光刻方法在软材料中生产，但由于缺乏合适的制造工艺，其向金属基应用的扩展受到了抑制。本项目将论证微刻槽工艺的可行性。微开槽工艺的有效性将通过在钢模具上加工Sharklet图案来证明，从而便于将Sharklet图案转移到金属表面进行测试。这个项目的商业潜力是大大减少医院传播感染，这是美国第四大死亡原因。据估计，仅在医疗保健领域，这种图案金属表面的市场规模就高达86亿美元。受益于这项技术的其他市场包括能源、海洋（每年超过4.5亿美元）和太空探索。此外，微米级微槽工艺能力的存在将为国防和电子工业提供高性能冷却解决方案，这些工业迫切需要在冷却设备中制造更小、更紧密间隔的通道，以显着提高其热性能。此外，许多微加工中心正在加工50-100微米通道宽度的3D通道，用于微流体研究。制造宽度小于或接近1微米的通道和凹槽的能力，将使尖端的微流体研究人员能够以更低的成本探索3D微/纳米尺度上的其他基本流体现象，而不是使用传统的（2D几何限制）和昂贵的基于mems的蚀刻工艺。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will enable the manufacture of Sharklet patterns on metallic surfaces. A Sharklet pattern is an engineered micro-surface texture that mimics the texture of shark skin and inhibits bacterial biofilm growth without the use of anti-microbial agents. The Sharklet surface texture technology has been successfully produced in soft materials using photolithographic methods but its extension to metals-based applications has been inhibited by the absence of a suitable manufacturing process. This project will demonstrate feasibility of a micro-grooving process. The efficacy of the micro-grooving process will be proved by machining the Sharklet pattern in steel dies, thereby facilitating the transfer of the Sharklet pattern to metal surfaces for testing. The commercial potential of this project is a significant reduction in hospital-borne infections, the 4th leading cause of death in United States. The estimated market size of such patterned metallic surfaces in the healthcare sector alone is $8.6 billion. Additional markets benefiting from this technology include energy, marine (exceeding $450 million/year), and space exploration. In addition, the presence of a micro-grooving process capability at the micron size scale will enable high-performance cooling solutions for defense and electronics industries that are experiencing a strong need for making smaller and more tightly spaced channels in their cooling devices to significantly enhance their thermal performance. Additionally, many micro-machining centers are machining 3D channels with 50-100 micron channel widths for micro-fluidics research. The ability to make channels and grooves below or near 1 micron in width will enable cutting-edge micro-fluidics researchers to explore additional fundamental fluidics phenomena at 3D micro-/nano-scales at a reduced cost footprint, compared to using conventional (2D geometry-limited) and expensive MEMS-based etching processes.