Additive Manufacturing combined with Colloidal Assembly
Duration: 2020-2024 (as part of the SFB 986)
Funding agency: DFG
This project focuses on the fabrication of multiscale and multiphase photonic structures by combining Additive Manufacturing methods with Colloidal Assembly (AMCA) and Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). The AMCA process combines the principles of colloidal self-assembly with the scalability and shape flexibility of direct writing to control the 3D geometry from the cm to µm scale and particle organization in the µm to nm scale. As a result the optical properties of the nanoscale and microscale building blocks are integrated into macroscopic multiscale 3D photonic structures. Meanwhile, the ALD process provides the ability of chemical composition and thickness control at an atomic to sub-nm scale with the possibility to develop tailor-made atomically-mixed systems and nanostructured systems. The main goal is to fabricate ceramic-based photonic structures for structural colors and reflective thermal barrier coatings (rTBC) on planar and curved substrates, where the ordering of the building blocks is locally controlled. This new fabrication route combining AMCA and ALD is of relevance also for other technological fields, such as catalysis, sensing, energy storage and generation.
