Meniscus-Guided 3D Nano-Printing

Abstract

3D printing has been emerging as a disruptive technology that can transform lifestyles, industries, and economies around the world. 3D printing – a class of techniques known as additive manufacturing – can provide the simplest ways to create complex objects and potentially unify the traditional manufacturing steps of molding, carving, welding, and assembly. To make the leap to become a true manufacturing platform for electronic and photonic industries, techniques in 3D printing basically should possess both nanoscale spatial resolution and freedom of materials selection. I will present a “meniscus-guided” 3D printing method and its use for electronics and photonics integration. The method effectively exploits a mechanically flexible ink meniscus downsized by pulling to print various nanomaterials in three-dimension [1]. The printed size is accurately controlled down to ~ 50 nm by tuning the pulling speed. Since the ink meniscus can position various nanoscale dynamics in materials transfer, interaction, and reaction at will, the method has the printability of functional materials from polymers [1,2], CNTs [3], graphene [4], metals [5,6], to single nanoparticles [7,8], potentially realizing new concept 3D nanosystems for electronics and photonics [9]. I will also discuss future plan to further develop this meniscus-guiding method. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong | jtkim@hku.hk [1] J. T. Kim et al, Adv. Mater. 23, 1968 (2011) [2] J. T. Kim et al, ACS Macro Lett. 1, 375 (2012) [3] J. H. Kim et al, ACS Nano 10, 8879 (2016) [4] J. H. Kim et al, Adv. Mater. 27, 157 (2015) [5] S. K. Seol et al, Small 11, 3896 (2015) [6] S. Lee et al, ACS Appl. Mater. & Inter. 9, 18918 (2017) [7] J. T. Kim et al, Nat. Commun. 5, 3380 (2014) [8] Y. Tuna*, J. T. Kim* et al, ACS Nano 11, 7674 (2017) [9] J. Pyo*, J. T. Kim* et al, Adv. Opt. Mater. 4, 1190 (2016)