4:00 pm
GCIS and Zoom Room W301
"Materials by Design: Three Dimensional (3D) Nano-Architected Meta-Materials"
Creation of extremely strong and simultaneously ultra lightweight materials can be achieved by incorporating architecture into material design. In our research, we design and fabricate three-dimensional (3D) nano-architected materials that can exhibit superior and often tunable thermal, photonic, electrochemical, biochemical, and mechanical properties at extremely low mass densities (lighter than aerogels), which renders them useful, and often enabling, in many technological applications. Dominant properties of such meta-materials are driven by their multi-scale nature: from characteristic material microstructure (atoms) to individual constituents (nanometers) to structural components (microns) to overall architectures (millimeters and above).
Our research is focused on fabrication and synthesis of nano- and micro-architected materials using 3D lithography, nanofabrication, and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, as well as on investigating their mechanical, biochemical, electrochemical, electromechanical, and thermal properties as a function of architecture, constituent materials, and microstructural detail. The focus of this talk is on additive manufacturing via function-containing chemical synthesis to create 3D nano- and micro-architected metals, ceramics, multifunctional metal oxides (nano-photonics, photocatalytic, piezoelectric, etc.), shape memory polymers, etc., as well as demonstrate their potential in some real-use biomedical, protective, and sensing applications. I will describe how the choice of architecture, material, and external stimulus can elicit stimulus-responsive, reconfigurable, and multifunctional
response. Host: Nanetta Pon, npon@uchicago.edu, Persons who may need assistance please contact Brenda Thomas at bthomas@uchicago.edu.