US-Korea Planning Visit: On-the-Fly Manufacturing of 3D Shaped Particles

摘要这项拟议研究的总体目标是在美国伦斯勒理工学院(RPI)的Aram Chung博士和韩国首尔国立大学(SNU)的Sunghoon Kuan博士之间建立一个新的合作伙伴关系，以开展“光学流体”的合作研究。这两个研究小组将开发一种基于流体和光之间相互作用的新制造范式，称为光流体制造。简而言之，光流体制造由两个耦合过程组成：(1)微通道中的惯性流；(2)光激活聚合。钟氏集团在了解流体横截面工程(第一步)中的惯性流方面拥有丰富的专业知识。另一方面，权氏集团开创了名为光流控无掩模光刻(OFML)的光激活聚合工艺(步骤2)。因此，流体力学(钟博士)和光子学(权博士)这两个具有截然不同和互补学科的研究小组形成了理想的合作关系。这种协同式的“光+流”一体化将为解决复杂的非常规问题开辟新的科学方向。复杂形状的颗粒可以提供独特的性质和附加功能，这些特性和附加功能在自组装、光子学、生物技术、结构材料和制药等应用中具有很大的实用价值。然而，制造大量具有可伸缩性、几何形状可调和功能可调的均匀3D形状的颗粒仍然具有挑战性。本项目中提出的光流控制造具有精确控制流量和光线条件的能力，允许动态重新配置制造。该过程使用单一设备产生各种可伸缩和可调的形状颗粒，并具有高通量和全自动化。简而言之，在微通道中流动的光敏流体通过流体惯性水平工程，然后暴露在正交图案的紫外光下，合成复杂的3D形状颗粒。拟议的制造系统的好处是它能够很容易地重新配置。相比之下，当前的大多数粒子制造系统缺乏对粒子形状的可调性，但通过动态调节流动和光线设置，可以实时生成任意粒子形状。因此，通过这种合作，将展示对流体和光线的完全控制，从而实现复杂形状粒子生成的新范例。

AbstractThe overall goal of the proposed research is to establish a new collaboration between Dr. Aram Chung at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) from the US and Dr. Sunghoon Kwon at Seoul National University (SNU) in Korea for collaborative research on "Optofluidics". The two research groups will develop a new manufacturing paradigm based on interactions between fluids and light, which is referred to as Optofluidic Manufacturing. In short, Optofluidic Manufacturing is comprised of two coupled processes: (1) Inertial flow in a microchannel, and (2) Light activated polymerization. The Chung group has a strong expertise in understanding inertial flow for flow cross sectional engineering (Step 1). On the other hand, the Kwon group has pioneered the light activated polymerization process termed Optofluidic Maskless Lithography (OFML) (Step 2). Therefore, two research groups with distinct and complementary disciplines in fluid mechanics (Dr. Chung) and photonics (Dr. Kwon) make an ideal collaborative relationship. This synergistic "Opto+fluidic" integration will open new scientific directions to solve complex unconventional problems. Complex shaped particles can provide unique properties and additional functionalities that can be of great practical use for applications such as self-assembly, photonics, biotechnology, structural materials, and pharmaceutics. However, it still remains challenging to fabricate large quantities of uniform 3D shaped particles with scalability, tunable geometries, and adjustable functionalities. Optofluidic manufacturing proposed in this project has the ability to precisely control flow and light conditions, allowing for dynamic reconfiguration of the fabrication. The process generates various scalable and tunable shaped particles using a single device with high-throughput and full automation. Briefly, flow streams of photosensitive fluids in a microchannel are horizontally engineered via fluid inertia and then exposed to orthogonal patterned UV light, synthesizing complex 3D shaped particles. The benefit of the proposed manufacturing system is its ability to be readily reconfigured. In contrast, most of the current particle manufacturing systems have a lack of tunability for particle shape, but by modulating flow and light settings on-the-fly, arbitrary particle shapes can be generated in real-time. Therefore, through this collaboration, full controls of fluid and light will be demonstrated, enabling a new paradigm of complex shaped particle generation.