CAREER: Enabling High-resolution Selective Laser Printing with Nanoparticles

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award supports fundamental research to enable high-resolution additive manufacturing of metal and other inorganic structures and components for miniaturized electronic and robotic devices. Additively manufactured components and devices made of pure inorganic materials at the micro- and nano-scale offer the potential for significant performance advantages over similar components and devices made of polymers and nanocomposites. However, current commercially available laser-based additive manufacturing systems have limited capability to fabricate structures smaller than one hundred micrometers using pure inorganic materials. This research aims to reveal the fundamental interactions between short-wavelength lasers and inorganic nanoparticles, with the aim of overcoming these limitations. The resulting knowledge will establish a pathway toward affordable and scalable high-resolution manufacturing technology for high-performance functional devices, strengthening economic competitiveness and enabling applications in sensing, robotics, energy, communication, and national security. These advances will contribute to the health, prosperity, and welfare of the American people. In addition to research, this award will support educational programs at the intersections of materials, manufacturing, and devices, preparing the future workforce with cross-disciplinary capabilities in micro- and nano-manufacturing and functional electronic and robotic systems. Outreach efforts through various initiatives and programs will engage local K-12 students, fostering awareness and sparking interest in engineering careers. Additionally, partnerships with industry will help ensure long-term technological viability and facilitate translation to manufacturing and high-technology sectors in the United States. Affordable and scalable high-resolution patterning of inorganic materials offers substantial opportunities for next-generation technologies. However, the fundamental interactions between light and inorganic nanomaterials which could be harnessed for high-resolution manufacturing of functional devices remain unclear. The goal of this CAREER project is to understand the photothermal and photochemical transformation of materials during the photo-excitation of nanoparticles induced by short-wavelength lasers. This project will fill the knowledge gaps of how plasmonic effects enhance localized heating, how short-wavelength illumination reduces the energy budget for sintering, and how nonlinear optical effects enable feature sizes beyond the diffraction limit. Molecular dynamics simulations and numerical modeling, coupled with advanced material characterization techniques, will elucidate the processing physics and provide predictive tools for micro- and nano-scale fabrication. Furthermore, this project will investigate the processing-structure-property relationships for functional devices and related structure physics. 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. NSF Award ID: 2542359 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Wan Shou | Institution: University of Arkansas, FAYETTEVILLE, AR | Award Amount: $550,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2542359 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2542359.html