Collaborative Research: Acoustic Field-Assisted Stereolithography for Multi-Material Additive Nanomanufacturing

纳米机器的成功开发是实现未来智能纳米机器人、纳米工厂和纳米医学的关键。通过在纳米和微外科手术、靶向药物输送和环境污染物去除方面的应用，纳米机器对日常生活的各个方面以及全球经济的影响预计将是显著的。然而，纳米机器的制造是具有挑战性的，因为很难将多种材料组合或将多个组件组装成三维结构以实现所需的功能。目前报道的大多数纳米和微机器都局限于非常简单的设计，具有球形或圆柱形几何形状，因此功能有限，同时需要大量的劳动力，时间和制造成本。该奖项旨在研究由任意分布的纳米级构建块组成的多材料三维物体的可扩展和高效制造。该项目通过纳米粒子定位，通过一层一层地固化颗粒-聚合物悬浮液来构建3D物体，研究多功能的出现。此外，本研究促进了多材料结构设计与开发的知识，为多功能纳米机器的设计、制造和应用开辟了新的科学范式。计划在两所合作大学和当地初中和高中的工程教育中开设增材纳米制造课程模块。特别注意鼓励妇女、残疾人和传统上代表性不足的群体的参与。目前纳米机器的制造方法受到可扩展性、效率、材料和几何多样性的限制。为了克服这些限制，本项目旨在建立一种新的增材纳米制造策略，用于制造3D多材料颗粒-聚合物纳米复合材料，并验证局部纳米颗粒分布可以产生多功能的假设。研究方法——声场辅助立体光刻技术——利用声场对纳米颗粒进行宏观到纳米级分辨率的建模，并通过一层一层地固化颗粒聚合物悬浮液来构建3D物体。该研究将多种物理现象与纳米制造相结合，涉及多个科学和工程学科，包括建模和仿真、工艺设计和开发、材料和器件表征。该项目促进了增材纳米制造、纳米技术以及纳米材料和纳米机器的创新。

The successful development of nanomachines is pivotal for the realization of future intelligent nanorobots, nanofactories, and nanomedicine. Through applications in nano and micro surgery, targeted drug delivery, and environmental pollutant removal, the impact of nanomachines on every aspect of daily lives as well as the global economy is expected to be significant. However, the manufacturing of nanomachines is challenging due to the difficulty in combining multiple materials or assembling multiple components into a three-dimensional structure to achieve the desired functionalities. Most currently reported nano and micromachines are limited to very simple designs with spherical or cylindrical geometries and thus limited functions, while requiring a large amount of labor, time, and cost for fabrication. This award investigates the scalable and efficient manufacturing of multi-material three-dimensional objects consisting of arbitrarily distributed nano-sized building-blocks. The project studies the advent of multi-functionality by nanoparticle localization through patterning and building 3D objects by solidifying particle-polymer suspensions layer-by-layer. Furthermore, this research advances knowledge of multi-material structure design and development, and paves the way for a new scientific paradigm for the design, fabrication, and application of multi-functional nanomachines. Course modules on additive nanomanufacturing are planned for education in engineering both at the two collaborative universities and at local middle and high schools. Special attention is given to encourage the participation of women, persons with disabilities, and traditionally underrepresented groups. Current manufacturing methods for nanomachines are limited by scalability, efficiency, and material and geometric diversity. To overcome these constraints, this project aims to establish a new additive nanomanufacturing strategy for fabricating 3D multi-material particle-polymer nanocomposites, and to test the hypothesis that the localized nanoparticle distribution can produce multi-functionalities. The research approach -- acoustic field-assisted stereolithography -- utilizes an acoustic field to pattern nanoparticles with macro-to-nano scale resolutions and build a 3D object by solidifying the particle-polymer suspensions layer-by-layer. This research integrates multiple physical phenomena with nanomanufacturing and involves various disciplines of science and engineering including modeling and simulation, process design and development, material and device characterization. This project contributes to advances in additive nanomanufacturing, nanotechnology, and innovations in nanomaterials and nanomachines.