Plasma Microreactors: a Manufacturing Platform for Nanoscale Metal Oxides

过渡金属氧化物（TMOs）是一类特殊的材料，由于其介电特性和化学惰性的促进，在许多世纪定义技术（例如平板显示器，电容器和储能）中具有广泛的适用性。TMOs也是概念上简单的材料，具有至关重要的特性，它们可以由低成本和天然丰富的金属与氧结合形成，因此提供了具有商业吸引力的材料解决方案。近年来，TMOs的应用需求和研究兴趣激增，这揭示了其基本的复杂性和尚未发现的应用机会。掺杂、缺陷工程、量子限制和延伸到三元或高熵氧化物可以带来新的或改进的性能，并可以创造破坏性材料。然而，为了实现应用性能的阶跃变化，需要大规模的制造精度，这促使TMOs材料的生产精度不断提高，以及建立可扩展制造工艺的必要性。该项目将提供一个具有纳米级精度（低至10纳米尺度）和原子控制化学成分的TMOs材料合成平台。在大气压下运行的冷微等离子体反应堆是该制造技术平台的核心，该平台依赖于21世纪最新的等离子体技术发展。TMOs的合成是通过低温大气压微等离子体与含氧气体中的固体金属原料相互作用进行的，有助于减少浪费，实现可持续、零损失和“更环保”的制造技术。

Transition metal oxides (TMOs) are an extraordinary class of materials that have found wide applicability for a number of century-defining technologies (e.g. flat-panel display, capacitors and energy storage) mainly due to their dielectric properties and facilitated by chemical inertness. TMOs are also conceptually simple materials with crucially important properties, they can be formed by low-cost and naturally abundant metals in combination with oxygen, therefore offering commercially attractive materials solutions. Recently, TMOs have seen a surge in application demand and research interest, which revealed their fundamental complexity and yet-to-discover application opportunities. Doping, defect engineering, quantum confinement and extending to ternary or high entropy oxides can lead to new or improved properties and can create disruptive materials. However, to achieve a step change in application performance, manufacturing precision is required at scale, which motivates the production of TMOs materials with ever increasing precision as well as the necessity to establish scalable manufacturing processes. This project will deliver a platform to synthesize TMOs materials with nanoscale precision (down to sub-10 nm scales) and atomically controlled chemical composition. A cold microplasma reactor operated at atmospheric pressure is at the core of this manufacturing technology platform which relies on the most recent 21st century plasma technology developments. The synthesis of TMOs is carried out through the interactions of a cold atmospheric pressure microplasma with a solid metal feedstock in an oxygen-containing gas, contributing to reduce waste and leading to a sustainable, zero-loss and 'greener' manufacturing technology.