I-Corps: Bubble printing of colloidal nanoparticles for commercial display and other applications

I-Corps：用于商业显示和其他应用的胶体纳米粒子的气泡印刷

• 批准号: 2146871
• 负责人: Yuebing Zheng
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-12-01 至 2023-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2146871&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Bubble; printing; colloidal; nanoparticles

The broader impact/commercial impact of this I-Corps project is developing commercial high-resolution display panels at a low cost for futuristic applications such as augmented reality/virtual reality displays and flexible displays. Current manufacturing techniques have a limited resolution on the pixel size of the display, which restricts consumer displays screens of 8K resolution and higher to display sizes of 32 inches or more. Introducing similar resolution in smaller but high-performance displays increases the cost, which limits the potential customer base. Using the proposed technology, the cost may be controlled due to the manufacturing ability of small pixels at similar throughput. Apart from displays, other industry domains that benefit from high-resolution manufacturing equipment are printed and flexible electronics, biosensors, and solar cell manufacturing. For example, higher resolution in solar cells increases the charge retention capacity and may convert light to heat at a greater efficiency, resulting in an improved range of solar products. Once commercialized, the technology is expected to create scientific advances in lithography at the industry level and increase partnerships between industry and academia. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a laser-based manufacturing technique called “Bubble Printing.” A laser-absorbing material is coated on the substrate and is excited with a low-powered laser beam. The resultant optical heating results in the formation of a microbubble in the solution above the substrate, at the solution-substrate interface. The microbubble attracts the ink and colloidal particles in the solution to the heated spot and the ink/particles are attached firmly to the substrate due to attractive Van der Waals forces. Upon moving the laser beam, the heated spot continuously shifts, allowing the continuous printing of quantum dots. By tuning the power and speed of the laser beam, the bubble size and the resultant printing resolution may be precisely controlled. This technology has been demonstrated on glass and flexible substrates, with different particles such as quantum dots (for displays), nanoalloys (for catalysis), biomolecules (for sensing), colloidal particles (for 3D nanomanufacturing), and metallic inks (for SERS and electrically conductive lines) at the academic level. The proposed activity would result in the development of commercial bubble printer to achieve industrial standards in display patterning resolution and uniformity, along with scoping other entry points in related industries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目的更广泛影响/商业影响是以低成本开发商用高分辨率显示面板，用于增强现实/虚拟现实显示器和柔性显示器等未来应用。当前的制造技术对像素尺寸的分辨率有限。显示器的尺寸，这将 8K 分辨率及更高分辨率的消费者显示器限制为 32 英寸或更大的显示器尺寸，在较小但高性能的显示器中引入类似的分辨率会增加成本，从而限制了潜在的客户群的使用。除了显示器之外，由于在相似产量下的小像素制造能力，成本可以得到控制，受益于高分辨率制造设备的其他行业领域是印刷和柔性电子、生物传感器和太阳能电池制造。太阳能电池的更高分辨率增加了电荷保持能力，并可以以更高的效率将光转化为热，从而改善太阳能产品的范围，一旦商业化，该技术预计将在行业层面上创造光刻科学进步并增加合作伙伴关系。工业界和学术界之间。 I-Corps 项目基于一种名为“气泡印刷”的激光制造技术的开发。激光吸收材料被涂在基材上，并用低功率激光束激发，从而产生光学加热。在基材上方的溶液中，在溶液-基材界面处形成微泡，微泡将溶液中的油墨和胶体颗粒吸引到加热点，并且由于油墨/颗粒牢固地附着在基材上。移动激光束时，加热点会不断移动，从而可以连续打印量子点，通过调整激光束的功率和速度，可以精确控制气泡尺寸和最终的打印分辨率。该技术已在玻璃和柔性基板上得到验证，具有不同的颗粒，例如量子点（用于显示器）、纳米合金（用于催化）、生物分子（用于传感）、胶体颗粒（用于3D纳米制造）、拟议的活动将导致商业气泡打印机的开发，以达到显示图案分辨率和均匀性的工业标准，并确定相关行业的其他切入点。授予 NSF 的法定使命，并通过评估反映使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准，被认为值得支持。