Roll-to-roll Self-assembly of Advanced Photonic NanoMaterials (R2R-4Photonics)

将来自光子学/等离子体/超材料学术界(英国在这一领域很强大)涌现的新想法应用于现实世界是一个主要问题。在这一领域，金属和介电材料在纳米尺度上的复杂结构产生了全新的光学性质，这些性质是许多器件和材料的基础。然而，由于纳米尺度的架构是由学者设计的，几乎没有考虑到可制造性，这些想法中的大多数很早就因为成本、方法和体积的考虑而失败。我们的目标是颠覆这一模型，更认真地研究一些不同的制造路线，这些路线看起来很有希望实现具有新颖和有用的光子材料和超材料功能的制造纳米结构的放大。然而，只考虑可制造性的盲目方法不太可能找到有用的功能。因此，我们得到了过去5年开发的一系列成功平台的大力指导，这些平台由于使用了自下而上的自组装，已经嵌入了向上扩展的承诺。在这个项目中，我们开发了这种定向组装，以实现真正的制造能力。这一领域的成功将被许多英国公司直接利用，无论是大公司还是小公司，但更重要的是，将对英国的制造业方式产生变革。尽管英国对自上而下的纳米制造进行了巨额投资，但几乎没有产生什么商业回报。基于自我组装的替代方法已经具有吸引力(例如在联合利华内部)，并以现实的成本模型提供大规模生产的途径。该行业需要的不是创意，而是一个成熟的制造业研究计划，使它们能够利用这些进步。我们的计划将通过紧密耦合的纳米组装、纳米光子学和纳米制造来实现这一目标。

It is a major problem to exploit the new ideas emerging from the Photonics/Plasmonics/Metamaterials academic community (in which the UK is strong) for real-world applications. In this field, the intricate structure of metals and dielectrics on the nanoscale produces radically new optical properties which are the basis for many devices and materials. However because the nanoscale architectures are designed by academics with little thought to manufacturability, most of these ideas founder very early against cost, method and volume considerations. We aim to invert this model, examining much more seriously a number of different fabrication routes that look promising for delivering scale-up of manufacturing nanostructures with novel and useful photonic materials and metamaterials functionality. However, blind approaches from considerations only of manufacturability are unlikely to locate useful functionalities. As a result we are strongly guided by a set of successful platforms developed over the last 5 years, which already embed the promise of scale-up due to their use of bottom-up self-assembly. In this programme, we develop such directed-assembly towards real capabilities for manufacturing. Success in this domain will be directly exploited by a number of UK companies, both large and small, but even more importantly will be transformative for UK approaches to manufacturing. Despite huge investments in top-down nanofabrication in the UK, little commercial return has been produced. Alternative approaches based on self-assembly already have traction (for instance inside Unilever), and offer routes to mass-scale production with a cost model that is realistic. What industry needs is not the ideas, but a well-developed research programme into the manufacturing space that will allow them to make use of these advances. Our programme will deliver this through tightly coupling nanoassembly, nanophotonics, and nano-manufacturing.