Materializing Ideas

Discoveries of novel materials play a vital role in driving technological advancements and innovation across various industries. These discoveries enable the development of new products and applications, leading to improved performance, efficiency, and sustainability. The importance of new materials lies in their ability to revolutionize existing technologies or create entirely new ones, propelling scientific and industrial progress.

The process of discovering new materials typically involves a combination of scientific exploration, experimentation, and computational modeling. Scientists and researchers explore the properties and behaviors of different elements, compounds, and structures to uncover materials with desired characteristics. This exploration often entails synthesizing and characterizing various compositions, structures, and forms, such as nanoparticles, thin films, or bulk materials, to evaluate their properties and potential applications.

However, despite significant advancements, several challenges hinder more rapid innovation in materials discovery. One major challenge is the vastness of the materials space. The number of possible combinations of elements and structures is immense, making it impossible to experimentally test every potential material. Another challenge is the complexity of materials' behavior and properties. Many material systems exhibit intricate and multifaceted characteristics that are influenced by factors such as composition, structure, defects, and environmental conditions.

These problems are amplified by the fact that the manufacturing of new materials tends to be a lengthy process, which does not lend itself well to rapid design iteration. If new materials could be quickly produced, it would be possible for researchers to rapidly test many candidate materials, which would lead to more useful materials being discovered.

Rapid production of new materials may be close at hand, thanks to the work of a group led by researchers at the University of Notre Dame. They have described a new type of 3D printing called high-throughput combinatorial printing (HTCP) that can mix multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks during printing. This method gives fine control over the composition of printed materials, and can be applied to substances like metals, semiconductors, polymers, and biomaterials. And importantly, these 3D prints can be produced quickly and iteratively fine-tuned.

The team’s printer allows for the multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks to be mixed in precise ratios during printing. This makes it possible to control the 3D architectures and local compositions of the materials, and also to print gradient compositions. This can all be done at a microscale spatial resolutions.

One of the researchers on the team noted that it commonly takes ten to twenty years to discover a new type of material. He believes that HTCP can reduce that time to just a few months. Putting their materials where their mouths are, the team set out to develop a new type of semiconductor material. Using HTCP, they were able to discover a material with superior thermoelectric properties that may have applications in energy harvesting and cooling. And it did not take them decades to accomplish this goal.

Aside from materials discovery, it also speeds up the production process for complex materials. The researchers were able to demonstrate, for example, that they could produce materials that gradually transition from soft to stiff. Such materials could be very useful in producing wearable and implantable devices that need to conform to the body.

Looking to the future, the researchers dream of building a system that leverages machine learning to guide the discovery process. They see this leading to the development of an autonomous system that iteratively tests materials and uses the results to refine future designs without human intervention. Now that sounds like an invention factory that would have made Thomas Edison jealous.