CAREER: Manufacturing Cofacially Aligned Nanolayered Architectures through Electrostatic Levitation: Fundamental Research with Integrated Education

纳米材料通过在能源、电子、生物医学、环境等领域的众多创新解决方案改变了世界。随着尺寸的大幅减小，纳米层之间的所谓“近场相互作用”(从直接邻近)变得不再是微不足道的，导致不想要的粘合和无序的团聚，这是充分利用其独特性能的障碍。该学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)奖支持研究使用静电悬浮来克服纳米层之间的近场净吸引，并以可扩展的方式制造三维表面排列纳米层(3D-CAN)。3D-CAN架构可以产生许多无与伦比的性能，广泛应用于隔热、信号调谐、催化、节能和传感等领域，有机会以高效的制造解决方案、医疗保健、环境保护和空间探索等检测系统造福社会。研究和教育活动将通过各种机制整合，如将研究与新的证书颁发课程相结合，为社区大学生举办STEM日和工作坊，与女性工程师学会合作为女本科生提供SWE-Teas研究博览会，以及为K-8少数族裔学生提供电子活动的乐趣，旨在培养更多样化的、这个职业奖项的最终研究目标是了解纳米层之间的近场相互作用并对其进行编程，以制造可扩展的3D-CAN架构。该团队将应用电晕放电将准永久电荷诱导到纳米层中，以主动编程每个纳米层之间的静电相互作用，并进一步分析和使用静电悬浮来生产3D-CAN架构。首先，将利用表面力装置和原子力显微镜研究电晕充电前后纳米层之间的近场相互作用机制，以建立力-距离分布。然后，通过设计陶瓷和聚合物纳米膜多层结构中的电荷分布，研究在实验室规模制造3D-CAN的基本原理。此外，将探索在生产规模上制造3D-Can，使用具有纳米薄膜2次方堆叠的酶辅助卷到卷的方法。此外，将分别使用环境原子力显微镜和改进的瞬变平面源来评估静电悬浮启用的3D-CAN的机械稳健性和极端隔热能力。研究成果有望扩大对纳米材料之间近场相互作用的理解，从而提高控制纳米材料之间近场相互作用的能力，这将为高效制造大规模3D-CAN以及潜在地为许多其他有序纳米结构提供新的解决方案。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nanomaterials have changed the world through numerous innovative solutions to energy, electronics, biomedicine, environment and so forth. With a substantially reduced size, the so-called “near-field interaction” (from immediate proximity) between nanolayers become nontrivial, causing unwanted adhesion and disordered agglomeration, a hurdle to harness the full advantage of their unique properties. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award supports research to investigate the use of electrostatic levitation to overcome the near-field net attraction between nanolayers and to manufacture three-dimensional cofacially aligned nanolayers (3D-CAN) in a scalable manner. 3D-CAN architectures can produce many unmatched properties with broad applications for thermal insulation, signal tuning, catalysis, energy saving, and sensing, etc., with an opportunity to benefit the society with efficient manufacturing solutions, detection systems for healthcare, environment protection, and space exploration, etc. The research and education activities will be integrated through various mechanisms, such as integrating research with new certificate-offering coursework, hosting STEM Days and workshops for community college students, offering a SWE-Teas Research Expo to female undergraduates in collaboration with the Society of Women Engineers, as well as providing the Fun with Electronics events for K-8 minority students, all aiming at fostering a more diverse, domestic engineering workforce in US.The ultimate research goal of this CAREER award is to understand and program the near-field interaction between nanolayers for the manufacturing of scalable 3D-CAN architectures. The team will apply corona discharging to induce quasi-permanent charges into nanolayers to actively program the electrostatic interaction between each nanolayer and further analyze and employ electrostatic levitation to produce 3D-CAN architectures. First, the near-field interaction mechanisms between nanolayers before and after corona-induced charging will be investigated using a surface force apparatus and by atomic force microscopy to establish force-distance profiles. Then, fundamentals in fabricating 3D-CAN at a lab scale will be studied by designing the charge distribution in multi-layer architectures of both ceramic and polymer nanofilms. In addition, manufacturing 3D-CAN, in a production scale, will be explored using an enzyme-assisted roll-to-roll method with power-of-two stacking of nanofilms. Further, the mechanical robustness of electrostatic-levitation enabled 3D-CAN and its capability of extreme thermal insulation will be evaluated with an environmental atomic force microscope and a modified transient plane source, respectively. Research outcomes are expected to expand the understanding, and thus, the capability of controlling near-field interactions between nanomaterials, which will provide a novel solution for efficiently manufacturing of large-scale 3D-CAN and potentially to many other ordered nano-architectures.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.