MRI: Acquisition of a Powder ALD/CVD Reactor for Next Generation Nanomanufacturing

该主要研究仪器（MRI）奖支持获得一种流化床气相沉积反应器，该反应器能够将精确的纳米级涂层应用于一系列材料。这种涂层可以改善各种技术领域材料的加工和性能，如电子（为环境监测提供智能粉尘）、可再生能源和化学加工（大大减少碳排放）、增材制造（改善医疗植入物或航空航天部件）和制药（提高药物输送的有效性）。该仪器将使研究人员能够研究流化床处理的细节，并了解如何将其应用于新的应用。该反应堆将安装在佐治亚理工学院电子和纳米技术研究所的共享用户设施内，该研究所是nsf资助的国家纳米技术协调基础设施的一个节点，确保佐治亚理工学院、东南地区和全国的用户都能访问。多种教育活动，包括将粉末加工课程内容整合到现有课程中，以及创建自我引导的入门视频，将提高对该工具的认识和使用。虽然气相沉积方法在微电子中无处不在，但它们很少用于其他大批量制造情况。然而，流化床气相沉积反应器技术的发展正在改变现状，现在将这种纳米材料涂层应用于以前的禁用材料（如粉末，纤维）在技术上和经济上都是可行的。该反应器的独特功能将允许对以下方面进行基础研究：(i)微胶囊粉末中电子器件自下而上制造过程中的传热和传质，（ii）复杂胶体颗粒分散光学现象中长度尺度和有序/无序的影响，（iii）增材制造先进原料的流变性，以及如何使用反应物和孕育剂来制造具有优越性能的新材料。（iv）按需回收碳纤维复合材料的重量、强度和界面功能化之间的相互作用，以及(v)控制机械催化剂运行的机制，以实现工业加工中新的全电动范式。对于这些和相关的用例，粉末搅拌-通过流态化-是必不可少的，以确保均匀沉积。小批量可以使用稀缺的样品或原型材料。大量提供制造和研究宏观物体/设备/部件以及探索生产规模所需的材料数量。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of a fluidized bed vapor deposition reactor capable of applying precise nanoscale coatings to a range of materials. Such coatings can improve the processing and performance of materials in technology sectors as diverse as electronics (enabling smart dust for environmental monitoring), renewable energy and chemical processing (greatly reducing carbon emissions), additive manufacturing (improving medical implants or aerospace components), and pharmaceuticals (increasing the effectiveness of drug delivery). The instrument will allow researchers to study the details of fluidized bed processing and understand how it can be applied to new applications. The reactor will be installed within the shared-user facility at Georgia Tech’s Institute for Electronic and Nanotechnology, a node of the NSF-funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, ensuring accessibility to users at Georgia Tech, the southeast region, and the country. Multiple educational activities, including the integration of course content on powder processing into the existing curriculum as well as the creation self-guided primer videos, will increase awareness of and access to the tool. While vapor deposition methods are ubiquitous in microelectronics, they are rarely used in other high-volume manufacturing situations. However, the development of fluidized bed vapor deposition reactor technology is changing the status quo, now making it technically feasible and economically viable to apply such nanomaterial coatings to previous off-limits materials (e.g., powders, fibers). The unique capabilities of this reactor will permit fundamental investigations of the (i) heat and mass transfer during the bottom-up manufacturing of electronic devices in microcapsule powders, (ii) impact of length scale and order/disorder in the optical phenomena of dispersions of complex colloidal particles, (iii) rheology of advanced feedstock for additive manufacturing and how reactants and inoculants can be used to create new materials with superior properties, (iv) interplay between weight, strength, and interfacial functionalization in on-demand recyclable carbon fiber composites, and (v) mechanisms governing mechanocatalyst operation to enable new all-electric paradigms in industrial processing. For these and related use-cases, powder agitation – via fluidization – is essential to ensure uniform deposition. Small volumes enable work with scarce samples or prototype materials. Large volumes provide the quantity of material needed to fabricate and study macroscopic objects/devices/parts and to explore manufacturing scale-up.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.