PFI-TT: Development of a Bubble Printer for Low-cost, Rapid Fabrication of High-Resolution Displays

Award ID: 2140985

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to develop a novel printer that will enable low-cost, rapid fabrication of high-resolution display panels. Such displays are critical for many emerging applications such as virtual reality and augmented reality, which can be used for surgical training, military training, and virtual tourism. Currently, the high cost of display fabrication limits wide implementation. The proposed bubble printer is expected to overcome the cost and resolution barriers for the large-scale implementation of the high-resolution displays. The proposed project will create jobs at various levels in research, development, sales, and marketing and help establish collaborations among industry and academia. The project will expose engineering students to entrepreneurship through hands-on experiences with market research, end-customer validation, and cost analysis of displays. Students from underrepresented groups are encouraged to participate in entrepreneurship, research, and development. The proposed project will tackle the high cost of fabricating high-resolution displays, which is associated with enhancing the brightness and contrast while reducing the pixel size of the displays. With the proposed bubble printing, a proprietary lithography technique will be used for high-resolution patterning of light-emitting materials into small pixels. Pixel emission characteristics will be enhanced by plasmonic interactions between the substrates and the active layers. Upon completion of the project, the team expects to achieve a 100-fold increase in patterning area at a laser-scanning speed of 1000 mm/s (a 10-fold increase) by studying high-speed Marangoni flows and achieving stabilization of bubbles through use of surfactant molecules. To increase the versatility of bubble printing on different substrates, both continuous wave and femtosecond lasers will be utilized for bubble generation and patterning. A stand-alone bubble printer will demonstrate its integrability into current display manufacturing production lines. 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: Samir Iqbal