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We aim to break endemic and hard-to-solve tradeoffs in the performance of manufacturing processes and products by combining high-risk high-reward process innovation with fundamental understanding and control of material and machine behavior. Our interests span experimental and theoretical work in additive, subtractive, and deformative processes across meter to microscale dimensions.
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Key highlights of our work till date are as follows:
​​​Process Innovations:
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A new paradigm for highly scalable, flexible, and resilient additive manufacturing (coming soon)
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Record high conductivity for planar printed electronic circuits. (paper)
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Seamless 3D printing for increased conductivity of circuits embedded inside delicate polymers (paper)
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Modular conformal electronics without thermal or mechanical exposure of the target 3D surface. (paper1)
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Damage-free direct fabrication of functional nanomaterial structures on thermally-sensitive textiles. (paper1, paper2)
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Feet/ms rate low-thermal fabrication of complex chalcogenides for solar cells & photocatalysis. (paper1, paper2, paper3)
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Low-temperature fabricated perovskite-based thermistors on fabric with commercial performance (paper)
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Sustainable and Scalable in-situ paper unprinting at feet/ms rates (paper)
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Dieless incremental forming of polymers at room temperature beyond conventional strain limits at room temperature.
Scientific Discoveries:
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​The first atomistically informed analytical models of nanowire sintering with 6 orders of magnitude greater computational efficiency and ability to access currently unreachable length and time scales (paper)
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Shape & and size-dependent bidirectional coupling of optical absorption to heat/mass transfer in nanoparticle fusion & mathematical descriptions of such coupling. (paper)
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Unprecedentedly large rotation and dislocations between fusing nanowires, revealing process-structure-property for nanowire circuits. (paper1, paper2,paper3)
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Atomistically motivated semi-analytical models of rotation-driven fusion between nanowires and dissimilar shaped nanoparticles (paper in press).
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Dislocations as the significant mechanism driving fusion between dissimilar shape nanoparticles (paper)
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Control of nanoparticle shape to break the conductivity-flexibility tradeoff for electronic circuits embedded inside elastomer structures (paper).
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Models of phase evolution during optical sintering of semiconductor nanoparticles (paper), and process-structure-property in reactive optical sintering of binary precursors into complex compounds (paper).
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Dieless incremental forming of polymers, showing parametric effects that are counterpoints to parametric effects in incremental forming of metals. (paper1, paper2, paper3)
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