CAREER: An Integrated Research and Educational Program to Understand Nano Additive Manufacturing by Electrochemical Deposition

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award supports fundamental research on a novel nanoscale additive manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing makes three-dimensional objects by adding material at locations specified by the digital computer model of the desired part. Additive manufacturing processes available now can make metal or plastic parts with sizes ranging from several meters to few micrometers only. This award supports fundamental research and education to provide needed knowledge for the development of an additive manufacturing process capable of making parts at nanoscale with sizes in the range of few nanometers to several micrometers through voxel-by-voxel material addition without the need for any support structures. Such parts made from a wide variety of conductive materials have potential applications in biomedical, defense, electronics, energy, healthcare, automotive, or aerospace industries. Therefore, results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. This research involves several disciplines including manufacturing, electrochemistry, materials science, and control theory. The multi-disciplinary approach will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education. Specific outreach activities targeting K-12 students, parents and general public are expected to help developing highly educated work force for the next generation advanced manufacturing. The electrochemical additive manufacturing process can overcome several limitations of existing additive manufacturing techniques, such as their inability to achieve sub-micrometer size, intrinsic thermal damage, and inevitable need of support structures to produce overhanging parts. However, some scientific barriers are yet to be overcome to realize electrochemical deposition for additive manufacturing at nanoscale. This research is to fill the knowledge gap on the mechanism(s) of localization during electrochemical deposition at nanoscale. The research team will perform molecular dynamics simulation to understand the mechanism of localization in electrochemical deposition at nanoscale, develop physics-based models to predict deposition rate and residual stress in nano electrochemical deposition and conduct experiments to verify the models, test the hypothesis that nanoscale localization of electro deposition will occur if an electrochemically activated catalyst is involved in the deposition reaction, and establish relationships between process parameters and feasible feature sizes in nanoscale electrochemical deposition.