I-Corps: Plasma Deposition of Metal and Metal-oxide Materials on Flexible Substrates

该I-Corps项目专注于开发一种低温常压等离子体烧结方法，该方法通过允许在纺织品和聚合物等柔性基材上沉积无针孔薄膜来解决增材制造中的关键问题。该技术支持多个领域的广泛商业应用，包括半导体制造，生物医学和医疗保健。尽管已经有多种努力来推动当前增材制造技术的极限，但主要挑战之一是如何在柔性和多孔基底上打印和控制沉积材料的表面特性。该技术通过在不同类型的基材上选择性烧结纳米材料来解决这个问题，例如纸张，纱布甚至人体皮肤，这使得其在柔性电子产品，医疗设备和个性化医疗保健中的商业应用成为可能。该技术可用于在纱布或人体皮肤上打印射频天线，以监测个人的重要参数。该技术还可用于在柔性聚合物薄膜上存款复杂的电子电路，该薄膜可安装在无人机上，以减轻负载重量并实现能源效率。I-Corps的这一项目是基于开发低温大气等离子体烧结方法，以在柔性表面上存款纳米材料。在该方法中，通过在大气等离子体射流的活性等离子体区域中注入金属和金属氧化物纳米颗粒来原位进行纳米颗粒的烧结。由大气等离子体提供的活化能和随后由下游等离子体对纳米颗粒的退火导致均匀薄膜的形成。该技术已被测试用于在硅、玻璃和聚酰亚胺上沉积金、银和氧化石墨烯薄膜，以及用于改善生物传感器响应的丝网印刷纸电极。该技术的显著特点是在环境压力和室温下进行，这使得该解决方案有利于在各种表面上沉积材料，如纸张，纱布和复杂的三维物体。该奖项反映了NSF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 I-Corps project focuses on the development of a low-temperature, atmospheric plasma sintering method that addresses critical issues in additive manufacturing by allowing the deposition of pinhole free thin films on flexible substrates such as textiles and polymers. The technology supports a wide range of commercial applications across multiple fields, including semiconductor manufacturing, biomedicine, and healthcare. Although there have been multiple efforts to push the limits of current additive manufacturing technologies, one of the major challenges is how to print and control the surface properties of deposited materials on flexible and porous substrates. The technology addresses this issue by enabling selective sintering of nanomaterials on different types of substrates, such as paper, gauze and even human skin, which enables its commercial application in flexible electronics, medical devices, and personalized healthcare. The technology can be used to print a radio frequency antenna on gauze or human skin to monitor the vital parameters of an individual. The technology can also be used to deposit complex electronic circuits on a flexible polymer film, which can be mounted on a drone to reduce the load weight and attain energy efficiency.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a low-temperature, atmospheric plasma sintering method to deposit nanomaterials on flexible surfaces. In this method, the sintering of nanoparticles is carried out in-situ by injecting metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles in the active plasma region of the atmospheric plasma jet. The activation energy provided by the atmospheric plasma and subsequent annealing of nanoparticles by the downstream plasma leads to the formation of a uniform thin film. This technique has been tested for the deposition of gold, silver, and graphene oxide thin films on silicon, glass, and polyimide, as well as screen printed paper electrodes for improving the response of biosensors. The salient feature of the technique is that the process is carried out at ambient pressure and room temperature, which makes the solution advantageous for depositing materials on various surfaces such as paper, gauze, and complex three-dimensional objects.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.