Abstract
The transfer of nanoscience accomplishments into commercial products is hindered by the lack of understanding of barriers to nanoscale manufacturing. We have developed a number of nanomanufacturing processes that leverage available high-rate plastics fabrication technologies. These processes include directed assembly of a variety of nanoelements, such as nanoparticles and nanotubes, which are then transferred onto a polymer substrate for the fabrication of conformal/flexible electronic materials, among other applications. These assembly processes utilize both electric fields and/or chemical functionalization. Conducting polymers and carbon nanotubes have been successfully transferred to a polymer substrate in times less than 5 minutes, which is commercially relevant and can be utilized in a continuous (reel to reel/roll to roll) process. Other processes include continuous high volume mixing of nanoelements (CNTs, etc) into polymers, multi-layer extrusion and 3D injection molding of polymer structures. These nanomanufacturing processes can be used for wide range of applications, including EMI shielding, flexible electronics, structural materials, and novel sensors (specifically for chem/bio detection). Current techniques to characterize the quality and efficacy of the processes are quite slow. Moreover, the instrumentation and metrology needs for these manufacturing processes are varied and challenging. Novel, rapid, in-line metrology to enable the commercialization of these processes is critically needed. This talk will explore the necessary measurement needs for polymer based nanomanufacturing processes for both step and continuous (reel to reel/roll to roll) processes.
