Proceedings of Online Meetup: Nanocrystals in Additive Manufacturing (AdditiveNC)
Publication date: 3rd May 2020
Concurrent advances in the programmable synthesis of nanostructured materials and additive 3D manufacturing have created a rich opportunity space to fabricate novel materials and devices. In particular, creating complex hierarchical device geometries from micro/mesoporous materials presents several scientifically interesting and technologically relevant challenges. Previously, we showed how digital light processing of photoresponsive building block defined by an oxozirconium methacrylate cluster with 12 methacrylic acid ligands can be used to enable the creation of complex superstructures characterized by multi-level porous networks. Recently, we observed the directional connection at the molecular level of these colloidal building blocks to form micropores (6 angstroms). We studied and revealed mechanisms for each level of porosities from primary micropores, secondary mesopores, tertiary mesopores to macroscopic structures. This work demonstrates how exciting opportunity space emerging at the intersection of inorganic building blocks, micro/mesoporous materials and 3D digital light processing. The strategy of combining nanobuilding blocks and theri self-assembly with 3D printing opens new pathways to create functional hierarchical superstructures and devices with complex geometries.
This work was supported by NSF-CMMI 1635433. This work was performed in part at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant ECCS-1542081). This work made use of the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Facilities which are supported through the NSF MRSEC program (DMR-1719875).