I-Corps: Plasma Deposition of Metal and Metal-oxide Materials on Flexible Substrates

Award ID: 2348546

This I-Corps project focuses on the development of a low-temperature, atmospheric plasma sintering method that addresses critical issues in additive manufacturing by allowing the deposition of pinhole free thin films on flexible substrates such as textiles and polymers. The technology supports a wide range of commercial applications across multiple fields, including semiconductor manufacturing, biomedicine, and healthcare. Although there have been multiple efforts to push the limits of current additive manufacturing technologies, one of the major challenges is how to print and control the surface properties of deposited materials on flexible and porous substrates. The technology addresses this issue by enabling selective sintering of nanomaterials on different types of substrates, such as paper, gauze and even human skin, which enables its commercial application in flexible electronics, medical devices, and personalized healthcare. The technology can be used to print a radio frequency antenna on gauze or human skin to monitor the vital parameters of an individual. The technology can also be used to deposit complex electronic circuits on a flexible polymer film, which can be mounted on a drone to reduce the load weight and attain energy efficiency. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a low-temperature, atmospheric plasma sintering method to deposit nanomaterials on flexible surfaces. In this method, the sintering of nanoparticles is carried out in-situ by injecting metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles in the active plasma region of the atmospheric plasma jet. The activation energy provided by the atmospheric plasma and subsequent annealing of nanoparticles by the downstream plasma leads to the formation of a uniform thin film. This technique has been tested for the deposition of gold, silver, and graphene oxide thin films on silicon, glass, and polyimide, as well as screen printed paper electrodes for improving the response of biosensors. The salient feature of the technique is that the process is carried out at ambient pressure and room temperature, which makes the solution advantageous for depositing materials on various surfaces such as paper, gauze, and complex three-dimensional objects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman