Accelerated Discovery and Fabrication of Multiscale, Multimaterial, Multifunctional Systems
Abstract
The ability to precisely assemble multiple materials in three-dimensional (3D) space over multiple length scales will revolutionize a wide range of emerging fields, from the development of single multifunctional materials and devices for optoelectronics, sensors, actuators, and living materials, to the creation of fully integrated systems such as adaptive and autonomous architectures, wearables, implantables, and robotics. Ink-based printing processes, such as extrusion and inkjet printing, are ideal manufacturing techniques for these applications because they can pattern an unlimited number of organic, inorganic, and hybrid materials sets across a broad range of length scales, can be incorporated readily with a multitude of other ink- based printheads, and can be combined directly with pick and place techniques to realize fully integrated systems. However, the processes occurring during ink-based printing techniques are highly complex. Meanwhile, multifunctional inks continue to increase in number of ingredients that exhibit a plethora of chemical and physical interactions, which in turn gives rise to deeply involved interfacial phenomena when voxels are fused together to create 2D and 3D geometries. All of these factors can significantly impact the resulting microstructure, and subsequently the multifunctional properties and performance of the manufactured materials and systems. Quantifying these relationships for proper materials and process design requires a battery of characterization techniques at separate instruments or facilities, resulting in prohibitively long times to characterize samples for each combination of material and process parameters. Moreover, ink-based printing across multiple length scales requires both extremely fine resolution and large area patterning, which cannot be achieved with simple motion system architectures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 05, 2025
- Source ID
- FA95502410073
Entities
People
- J. Boley
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Boston University
- United States Air Force