I-Corps: High-Throughput Manufacturing of Three-Dimensional Nanostructured Materials

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是更好地识别通过高通量全息方法制造的三维纳米结构材料的商业机会。这些材料具有亚微米级的桁架状结构，使其具有更好的性能，如提高强度与重量比。一个类比就是我们如何使用桁架来建造桥梁，而不是坚固的钢块。这种制造方法将使工业规模制造在美国多个行业中有用的材料成为可能。例如，膜分离被用于生物医学测试、药物和治疗生产、科学研究和水处理。各种类型的三维纳米结构材料也可以改善光学设备，如相机、显微镜和照明。这个i-Corps项目将确定CHISEL(协调全息工业规模电磁光刻)的独特优势，它有可能大大降低三维纳米结构材料的成本。用于制造集成电路的传统光刻技术质量高，但速度慢且成本高。压印光刻等技术速度更快、成本更低，但仅限于制造基本的二维结构。凿子将以高产能实现连续的纳米级制造。该方法控制几个干涉光束的相位，以连续地形成光敏材料的图案。第一代凿工具(即阿尔法工具)可以具有比传统投影光刻高几个数量级的体积图案化速率(并且具有类似或更少的资本成本)。

The broader impact / commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to better identify the commercial opportunity for three-dimensional nanostructured materials made via high-throughput holographic methods. These materials have a truss-like structure at submicron length scales, giving them better properties like improved strength-to-weight ratio. An analogy would be how we use trusses for bridges instead of solid hunks of steel. This manufacturing method will enable industrial-scale manufacturing of materials useful in multiple US industries. For example, membrane separations are used, for example, in biomedical testing, drug and therapeutic production, scientific research, and water treatment. Optical devices such as cameras, microscopes, and lighting could also be improved by various types of these three-dimensional nanostructured materials.This I-Corps project will identify the particular advantages of CHISEL (coordinated holographic industrial-scale electromagnetic lithography), which has the potential to greatly reduce the cost of three-dimensional nanostructured materials. Conventional photolithography for making integrated circuits is high quality, but slow and costly. Techniques such as imprint lithography are faster and cheaper, but limited to making essentially two-dimensional structures. CHISEL will enable continuous nanoscale manufacturing with high throughput. The method controls the phase of several interfering optical beams to continuously pattern a photosensitive material. A first-generation CHISEL tool (i.e. alpha tool) can have a volume patterning rate several orders of magnitude greater than conventional projection lithography (and with comparable or less capital cost).