MechSE Faculty Receive Grainger Funding

Two projects by MechSE faculty were recently selected by the College of Engineering to receive funding from the Grainger Program in Emerging Technologies.

Assistant Professor Min Feng Yu will receive Grainger funding to develop a new economical nanofabrication technology that allows him to write solid nanoscale nanostructures in three-dimensional free space using a nanoscale electrochemical "fountain pen". His project will explore ways to make three-dimensional nanostructures from a variety of commercially important materials, such as various metals, semiconductors and polymers; to develop control programs to automate the nanofabrication process; and eventually to scale up the process for manufacturing-level fabrication. Successful implementation of this technology can benefit a wide range of commercial interests, including but not limited to the fabrication of high-density interconnect bridges for integrated circuits, the economical repair of expensive photomasks, and the flexible manufacture of a high-end nanoscale needle probe or probe array products (such as physiological neural probes and high-density testing wafer probes.)

Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang and Grayce Wicall Gauthier Professor Placid Ferreira will receive Grainger funding to develop an electrochemical imprint machine to exploit the novel direct metal patterning capabilities of the novel solid-state superionic stamping (S4) process they recently developed. The S4 process electrochemically patterns metallic substrates using patterned solid ionic conductors without the use of liquids or large mechanical forces. The process is capable of precision in the tens of nanometers, does not contaminate the surface, and has very high process repeatability. The electrochemical imprint machine based on this process will produce silver and copper nanostructures with better than 50 nanometer features in films ranging in thickness from 50 nanometers to 500 nanometers with an imprint area of 2 square inches. Metallic structures with features in this range are critical to an important array of military, industrial and consumer devices, such as terahertz antennae; chemical, electronic and optical sensors; plasmonic sturctures and electronic interconnects.

The two-year Grainger Program in Emerging Technologies funds several grants annually for two kinds of projects: early-stage, highly novel ideas that could have a major impact on technology and business and mature-stage, "development" projects that close the gap between a proven idea and a viable product.