Precision nanocomposites for smart surfaces and materials

该设备将用于在聚合物基质中均匀分散纳米颗粒，以生产用于微加工的新复合材料。磁性和电功能复合材料的可靠生产是提高微成型、微接触印刷和卷对卷加工等多种微制造技术的重要手段。这些技术采用了最好的硅基微加工技术，具有更低的成本和更通用的聚合物制造工具。因为大多数聚合物是电绝缘的，很少有传感器或执行器可以用这些材料生产。通过向大块材料中添加纳米颗粒，塑料和聚合物可以直接与柔性电路、触觉传感器和可拉伸电子设备的集成系统连接。然而，这些基于复合材料的微结构面临的最大挑战之一是难以在小体积（<1000 um^3）中实现均匀的纳米颗粒分布（从而实现均匀的性能）。由于纳米粒子在小范围内的负载可能有显著差异，因此两个复合微机电系统（MEMS）器件的电气和机械行为可能不一致，这些器件的最小尺寸可能为1微米或更小。本次申请的目标是购买能够在复合材料制造过程中对精确剪切速率、混合参数和温度提供最大控制的设备，使我们能够实现最大的微尺度均匀性，并提高聚合物功能复合材料的电气或磁性能。这将在使用最小体积百分比的纳米颗粒的情况下实现，从而使复合材料的机械性能尽可能接近未加载的聚合物材料。这些复合材料将立即应用于生产用于抗静电MEMS拾取和放置的导电干胶，以及用作聚合物微流体通道内的执行器，如主动阀或泵。

This proposed equipment will be used to homogeneously disperse nanoparticles within polymer matrices for the production of new composites for microfabrication. Reliable production of magnetic and electrically functional composites is very important as a means to improve multiple micro-manufacturing technologies such as micromolding, micro contact printing and reel-to-reel fabrication. These technologies adapt the best of silicon based microfabrication techniques, with the generally lower costs and more versatile fabrication tools available with polymers. Because most polymers are electrically insulating, few sensors or actuators can be produced using these materials. By adding nanoparticles to the bulk material, plastics and polymers can be directly connected with integrated systems for flexible circuits, tactile sensors, and stretchable electronics. One of the greatest challenges for these composite based microstructures however is the difficulty in achieving homogeneous nanoparticle distribution (and therefore uniform properties) in small volumes (<1000 um^3). As the nanoparticle loading may be significantly different across small areas, electrical and mechanical behavior may be inconsistent between two composite micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices which may have minimum dimensions of 1 micrometer or less. The goal of this application is to purchase equipment that will provide the greatest control over the exact shear rates, mixing parameters and temperatures during composite creation to allow us to achieve the maximum microscale homogeneity and improve the electrical or magnetic performance of polymer functional composites. This will be achieved while using the minimum volume percentage of nanoparticles so as to keep mechanical performance of the composites as close to that of unloaded polymer materials as possible. These composites will find immediate application in the production of electrically conductive dry adhesives for anti-static MEMS pick and place, and as actuators within polymer microfluidic channels as active valves or pumps.