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Dr. Rahul Panat's Advanced Manufacturing Lab

Micro-Additive Manufacturing

Summary: 

The objective of this research is to explore the science and engineering of nanoparticle based micro-additive printing technologies for various applications. We employ an Aerosol Jet printing 3-D method to directly print the nanoparticle inks and polymers over a surface. The in-situ UV and laser are used to fabricate complex 3-D shapes and the related electronics. The sintering techniques applied in the lab include thermal, laser, photonic curing, and plasma sintering.

Our primary aim is: a) Exploring novel manufacturing routes to create sensors, antennas, and energy harvesting devices, and b) Understand the sintering behavior of metal and ceramic nanoparticles (printed as inks) and its effect on their functional properties.

The applications include conformal sensors, low loss passives and antennas for on-chip and off-chip electronics. The 3-D antennas have already been printed at sub 100um length scale and simulation studies carried out to identify omnidirectional antenna designs. These fabrication methods are unique and can pave way for several applications in fast communication area. An example is shown in Fig. 1. Another project involves fabrication and characterization of printed capacitive finger shaped touch sensors at several hundred fF to a few pF range (Fig. 2).

Printed 3-D Antenna Structure
Fig. 1. Printed 3-D Antenna Structure
Printed Finger Touch Capacitive Sensor
Fig. 2. Printed Finger Touch Capacitive Sensor

 

Publications: 

  • M. T. Rahman, L. Renaud, M. Renn, D. Heo, R. Panat, “Aerosol Based Direct-Write Micro-Additive Fabrication Method for Sub-mm 3-D Metal-Dielectric Structures” Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Vol. 25 (10), 107002 (2015). PDF
  • M. T. Rahman, A. Rahimi, S. Gupta, and R. Panat, “Microscale Additive Manufacturing and Modeling of Interdigitated Capacitive Touch Sensors”, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 248, 94-103, 2016. PDF. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2016.07.014
  • H. Yang, M. T. Rahman, D. Du, R. Panat, and Y. Lin, “3-D Printed Adjustable Microelectrode Arrays for Electrochemical Sensing and Biosensing”, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Vol. 230, 600-606, 2016. PDF. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2016.02.113
  • M. T. Rahman, J. McCloy, C. V. Ramana, and R. Panat, “Structure, Electrical Characteristics and High-Temperature Stability of Aerosol Jet Printed Silver Nanoparticle Films”, Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 120, Issue 7, pp. 075305-1 to 11, 2016. PDF. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4960779