3D Nanostructure Design and Fabrication
Abstract
The Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) is designed to improve the capabilities of U.S. Universities to conduct research and to educate scientists and engineers in selected technical areas of importance to national defense. DURIP funding provides for the acquisition of research equipment and instrumentation for this purpose. This proposal is for the purchase of a Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT 30 printer. The P.I., Professor Mike Fiddy, of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte will use the equipment to augment and enhance research capabilities in the area ofV&V for computational methods for metamaterials. The group at UNC Charlotte develops inverse algorithms both for imaging applications and, more recently, to design of structures with predetermined scattering character istics. These designs require the fabrication of engineered structures with subwavelength features which can result in unusual permittivities and permeabilities. For example, for thermal imaging and signature management in the IR, the ability to write 3D structures with fa5 accuracy is essential. The Nanoscribe Photonic Professional G"f 3D printer permits the fabrication of 3D nanostructures, with features as small as I OOnm. This fabrication tool will directly support a number of on-going DoD and government funded research p rojects, the primary one being the development of inverse scattering/imaging methods. Inverse scattering algorithms are important in remote sensing and imaging for defense, envirorunental and medical applications, but they are also ill-posed problems, notoriously ill-conditioned in the presence of noise, and still quite limited in performance when strongly scattering targets are of interest. Algorithm development goes hand-in-hand with verification using both simulated and measured data, the latter being of much more importance. The Nanoscribe allows known 3D multiple scattering structures to be fabricated with precision. Scattered field measurements from increasingly complex structures advance algorithm improvement and the associated signal processing, when measured data are noisy, scattered field phase is missing or only a limited angular field of view or a real target is possible from data collection. The counterpart to determining quantitative information about a target from scattering data, is the possibility of specifying desired scattering characteristics and using an inverse method to define an appropriate scattering structured. This kind of synthesis problem also has many useful applications, one example being to arrange an array of closely spaced antennas to operate without interfering with each other. The Nanoscribe s writing resolution allows one to write metamaterial structures for use at all wavelengths in the near, mid, and far infrared, as well as THz. Designing metamaterials which have unusual electromagnetic responses that do not typically occur in nature is an exciting application area, especially when viewed as an inverse problem. One can also incorporate nanoparticles into the polymers which will be used with the Nanoscribe. Through compos ite medium calculations, combinations of various particles and polymers can change the electromagnetic parameters of 3D printed structures over a wide range of values.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1510381
Entities
People
- Michael Fiddy
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill