In today's economy of planned obsolescence, most consumer electronics can only be customized at the software level. In contrast, hardware that is specific to the user is out of economic reach for the vast majority of the world's population. Therefore, one of the key manufacturing challenges of the 21st century is the sustainable, energy-efficient, and cost-effective customizable production of systems that are personalized to each individual. This need is especially acute in the medical arena, in which personalized health monitoring requires integrated systems that are customized to the unique physiological composition and the geometric form of the individual. This Scalable NanoManufacturing (SNM) research project explores the surface chemistry and physical processes needed to directly print three-dimensional integrated systems with nanoscale features, and strategies to monitor and assure quality control of the printed materials and structures. These techniques can be used to realize three-dimensional customized systems such as smart contact lenses, which would enable a paradigm shift in continuous and non-invasive health monitoring by integrating sensors that can detect chemical changes in the body with wireless communication and power to transmit data to the user. This research combines several disciplines including nanomanufacturing, modeling and simulation, process control, system integration, and in situ characterization. The societal impact of the work is through public education workshops, outreach programs, and a new university course on advanced nanomanufacturing.
Current nanomanufacturing research has focused on high-volume, high-throughput techniques to produce millions of identical parts, making it impossible to customize integrated systems at a deep hardware level. To address these challenges, the research team will explore a new methodology to directly print functional nanomaterials onto non-planar, flexible surfaces with unparalleled spatial resolution in three dimensions. The manufacturing platform combines spatial atomic layer deposition with electrohydrodynamic-jet printing, and incorporates in situ process monitoring and control. The research spans disciplines from molecular control of surface chemistry, to modeling coupled electro-chemo-mechanical processes that occur during printing on a curved or non-planar surface, to characterizing the impact of geometric tolerances on component performance. The additive nanomanufacturing platform enables integration of multiple functions including power, sensing, and logic into a smart contact lens that can interface with sensitive regions of the human body to monitor chemical/electrochemical changes at the cellular level. A fundamental understanding of the physical, chemical, thermal, and transport phenomena that guide the precision and accuracy of the manufacturing process will be the focus of the research, which will unveil the underlying scientific challenges to printing integrated systems at the nanoscale.
